Matthew Fardell and his buffed stripper mates from Las Vegas' popular Thunder from Down Under troupe dived on top of the accused thief, thinking they would overpower him.
They were wrong.
The Aussies, despite their bulging muscles and long hours in the gym, found they could not subdue 24-year-old Joey Kadmiri.
"I remember thinking the strength of the man was incredible," Fardell, the leader of the highly-successful troupe, told a jury in Las Vegas' District Court on Tuesday.
"I thought he was high on bath salts."
Las Vegas authorities allege Kadmiri was high on a drug, methamphetamine, when he snuck backstage of the Thunder Showroom in the Excalibur Casino on March 18, rifled through the troupe's belongings, and stole G-strings, underpants and other props from their show.
Fardell was on stage in front of a theatre of screaming women when three colleagues, strippers Ryan Paki and Aidan Te Puke and merchandising executive Karen Dihm, came across Kadmiri on a patio area attached to their changing rooms.
After he came backstage and watched Paki and former rugby player Te Puke struggle to restrain Kadmiri, Fardell said he decided to subdue him by "choking him out".
It also didn't work.
The struggle continued with more strippers coming to help, and Kadmiri fell back on to the floor with the strippers on top of him.
Fardell said he noticed Kadmiri was wearing under his jeans the blue Calvin Klein underpants Te Puke wears in the show.
Fardell also noticed under the underpants Kadmiri was wearing one of his tight, black G-strings.
"He (Kadmiri) yelled, 'I've got a gun. I'm going to shoot now'," Fardell said.
Fardell didn't believe him after seeing the underpants and G-string.
"I kind of relaxed because, given he was wearing my thong and he had on Aidan's underwear, I thought, 'I don't think he'd have a gun'," he said.
"I thought he must have been talking about one of the plastic prop guns."
The troupe uses fake guns in SWAT and gangster acts in their show.
But then Fardell looked at the gun Kadmiri, who was lying on his back, was holding.
"In his hand was the biggest gun you have ever seen in your life," Fardell said.
"It was a .44 Magnum.
"I don't know guns that well, but I knew it was .44 Magnum.
"It was massive.
"I went from his chest and got both hands on his wrist because I wanted to hold that gun down because it was pointing toward that wall.
"I thought, 'Geez, if I could just keep his hand here, no matter what, we'll be OK'."
The gun, made famous in the Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry movies, went off, hitting the wall of Excalibur's Buca di Beppo Italian restaurant.
"It's a miracle nobody was killed," prosecutor Kenneth Portz told the court.
Kadmiri faces charges including robbery with a weapon, burglary and battery with a weapon resulting in substantial bodily harm.
Fardell was so close to the gun when it went off he suffered gunpowder burns on his face and in his left eye, and also suffered tinnitus in his left ear.
The ear was bleeding, but after security and police took Kadmiri into custody, Fardell and his troupe went back on stage to finish the show.
"I could feel blood dripping on my shirt," Fardell said.
The trial continues.
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