What to Make of Rey Maualuga’s Alleged Bar Fight

In case you missed it, FOX 19 in Cincinnati reported last night that Bengals MLB Rey Maualuga. He was reportedly at the Luxe bar located in downtown Cincinnati, where he allegedly punched the manager, which lead to several injuries. Sammy Laham, the Luxe manager had this to say:

"One of them said something at which point I repeated myself, that they had to leave, and then Rey Maualuga got up, took three or four steps and punched me in the face, more noticeably the eye, then my nose started to bleed. Then security diffused the situation."

Another worker, Brittany Knight, said she too say Rey attack the manager:

"Our security went over to see what was going on, to break them up, and Sammy went over as well, and Rey was leaning up against the bar and he stepped forward and swung. At first I didn’t see who it was because I was standing a little further back until I saw my manager walk by and I saw his eye and it was bleeding and cut up. He said, ‘I can’t believe I just got hit’ and I was shocked with my mouth to the ground."

Though Maualuga has not been charged with any crime yet, the Cincinnati Police are still investigating, and charges could be forthcoming. So what do we make of this? The sad part of this story is that on February 2, 2010, Maualuga was placed on two years’ probation after a DUI-related arrest. He was fined two game checks by the NFL and forfeited an additional portion of his signing bonus for the 2010 season. He later checked into the Betty Ford Center to get treatment for alcohol abuse and has spoken many times since of thanking God for his sobriety and pleading to change his ways. This recent incident apparently happened just three days after Maualuga’s probation reportedly ended.

This is something you can’t have one your team leaders doing and because he’s approaching free agency in 2013, his string of alcohol-related incidents will prevent him for getting the best contract based on his abilities.  Its sad to see Rey apparently can’t keep his life in order. Alcoholism is a very powerful disease that even the strongest of men can’t resist, and if Rey doesn’t change his ways, he’ll be another statistic instead of the NFL star he showed the potential of being.

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