An eager Cleveland Browns fan sparked a massive fight at The 9 when he approached Johnny Manziel and his “entourage” late Friday night, according to a police report obtained today by Scene.
Cleveland police were called to the apartment’s lobby at 2:36 a.m. for a report of a “riot” involving 20 men and two security guards.
The alleged victim, 33-year-old Sandusky resident Chris Gonos, reported to police that he and his girlfriend spotted Manziel while waiting for an elevator at the high-end apartment complex, where many Cleveland professional athletes live, and professed his love to the rookie quarterback.
Gonos told police he pointed Manziel out to his girlfriend: “That’s Johnny Manziel.” Then he approached him.
According to the report, “at this time victim stated to the unidentified male, ‘I’m the biggest Browns fan ever, I love you, I want to give you a hug.'”
Gonos stepped towards Manziel and was promptly punched in the face, the alleged victim’s account to police says, followed by a beat down by Manziel’s crew, giving the man a “swollen lip, right eye swollen, red face.” A security guard intervened and also was hurt.
And here are some quotes from Mr. Gonos in the same article:
“I got a bruised hip and a bruised elbow, and somebody hit me in the back of the head, too. My brother saw what was going on and he ran he tackled Johhny Manziel — I guess he got the sack and the fumble. He tackled him, yeah, I’m talking about he speared him all the way to the back wall. I was cornered; I was by myself and Johnny Manziel and like three or four of his buddies were all coming at me. (My brother) just came to help me out, and I guess Johnny sucker punched him while the security guard was holding him. It should be all on video.”
“No [one was arrested], like 20 officers came and I was sitting in the lobby because I did not do anything wrong but be a fan. All these cops run into the lobby, and they’re like, “Who was fighting, who was fighting?” and I just raised my hand, and was like, listen, watch the camera, and stuff like that. I may be guilty of being a fan, but that’s about it. I even showed them the guy that sucker punched me and the cops walked right up to him, talking to him for a while, and they let us all go. They just told me I had to leave the hotel, and me and my ride, we left. Manziel never punched me, but he got a sucker punch on my brother.”
“I know somebody else in the group smashed Johnny right in the face. Smashed him, smashed him. I watched the whole game to see if we could spot him on the sidelines.”
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Wow. OK then. Happy Monday. To recap: A drunk fan saw Johnny in the 9 early Saturday morning (or late Friday night, whichever you prefer); the fan went up to Johnny and professed his love to him and asked him for a hug (This dude is 33, mind you); Johnny and his entourage didn’t appreciate this, told the guy to back away, he proceeded to keep moving forward to meet Johnny and then Johnny’s boys took care of business and handled the guy.
1. Why people are criticizing Johnny for this is beyond me. He’s one of the biggest athletes in all of sports. If some drunk idiot got up into my face and kept asking for a hug it’d take every ounce of my being not to slug him right in the face.
2. This is the guy wanted to hug Johnny. No judgment from us here. But this is the guy:
Now I’m not saying he deserved to get punched, but I’m not saying he didn’t deserve to get punched either.
3. Chris, act like you’ve been there before, bro. I brushed shoulders with Johnny at Barley House in August. I gave him a head nod. That’s it. It was 2 am on a Saturday. I was drinking. I didn’t try to hug him and profess my love to him. (I tweeted it instead, duh) Clean it up, dude.
4. People asking “Why does Johnny have security?” are the dumbest people on the planet. Aside from LeBron, he’s the biggest sports figure in Cleveland. He SHOULD have people with him at all times.
5. The whole “why was he out on a Friday before a game” thing isn’t as big of a deal as it seems. Go out on Friday in downtown Cleveland and you’ll spot a handful of Browns players. It’s not unusual.
6. I’m officially applying to be on Manziel’s security staff. I’m not as strong or as quick as I used to be but I bet I could diffuse the sitch a little better than his crew did on Saturday.
There were some STRONG takes from the commenters on the articles about this story though:
This guy was my favorite:
Sting coming back is HUGE!
PS- Even though this has absolutely NOTHING to do with the story, it should be known that this dude is actually on probation. All of the other outlets are acting like this somehow has anything to do with what happened on Saturday, but it really doesn’t. Via The Sandusky Register
PPS: Guarantee this whole thing is being blown completely out of proportion and Chris probably isn’t a bad guy. But since it’s Johnny Manziel…
JK he’s probs a douche
Bottlegate 