Man Punches Kangaroo, Gets 5 Million Views [Video]


Greig Tonkins is one man who is getting plenty of attention in videos being copied all over the Internet. Tonkins can be seen in the below video — one of several YouTube videos that have swelled to more than 1 million views as of this writing — punching a kangaroo who has taken hold of Greig’s dog.

The above video alone was uploaded to YouTube on December 4 and has already received more than 2 million views.

According to the description, the man actually punched the kangaroo on June 15, in the outback of Australia — but Greg Bloom, the man who filmed the kangaroo being punched — described the backstory of the incident. The mission involved hunters getting together to give a young cancer victim his final wish of catching a huge 220-pound wild boar, using his dogs.

Well, it turned out that one of the dogs got sidetracked by a group of pigs and ran into the huge kangaroo in the path of his chase.

The dog’s owner thought the kangaroo could kill the dog. The dog appears to really want to get away from the kangaroo, and that’s where the action began.

“The big buck kangaroo releases the dog when the owner gets close but then moves in to try and attack the human. A kangaroo kick to the guts could easily disembowel the owner easily, so he backs off a couple of times giving the kangaroo some space but he eventually changes the roo’s mind with a punch to the snout, as it kept coming forward. The punch stops the roo and makes him think about the situation, giving the owner and the dog time to disengage from the big wild animal and leaving it to hop off and I suppose wonder about what just happened. We laughed at the absurdity of the situation and at how unfortunate it was for the dog and kangaroo.”

Sadly, Kailem lost his battle to cancer, according to News.com.au, a short time ago — even as the video was going viral.

As reported by Kailem’s GoFundMe page, he died on Thursday, December 1. He was 19 years of age, and the viral video is bringing attention to his plight — with organizers writing that they hope Kailem is getting a good laugh from heaven when watching the video that plenty of other people are laughing over or clucking about.

On Facebook, Bloom reports that the man who punched the kangaroo is himself an animal lover.

[Image by Rob Griffith/AP Images]

Already, people having been making and sharing GIFs of the kangaroo’s reaction online, after the kangaroo had been punched, and sports a sort of stunned look on his face. With the kangaroo standing up like a person and its hands flailing upwards after taking the punch, the video chronicling the event was destined to go viral.

The video of a kangaroo getting punched in the face, according to CBS Sports, is the best viral video of 2016. Expect plenty of kangaroo-punching memes to result. Meanwhile, the video that originally went viral on Facebook is continuing to rack up millions of views across social media.

[Image by Rob Griffith/AP Images]

The man who punched the kangaroo, according to the Independent, is guy familiar with getting animals under control. Tonkins works as an elephant keeper at a zoo.

Whereas many people may have never seen a kangaroo getting punched in the face, kangaroo punching was actually a sport in the early 1900s, reports People. Tonkins didn’t appear to be participating in kangaroo punching as a sport — even if Greig may have punched the kangaroo partially out of anger and frustration since the kangaroo had already let the dog go. Instead, that punch might have saved the life of both Greig and his dog. No doubt, his dog Max is also very grateful that his owner’s right hook landed a good square punch in the kangaroo’s face.

[Featured Image by Rob Griffith/AP Images]

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