Rex Ryan flipped the bird at a heckling Miami Dolphins fan last Saturday night at a mixed-martial arts show only after having been accosted by the man on three different occasions and getting spat on, according to Jay Glazer, the FOX Sports NFL insider who was with Ryan at the event.
Glazer, who detailed the incident yesterday on WFAN and later in a phone interview with The Post, said that not only shouldn’t Ryan have been fined $50,000 by the Jets for the gesture, he should be given a bonus for showing remarkable restraint.
“If [GM] Mike Tannenbaum and [owner] Woody Johnson were there, they would [have] hit the guy,” said Glazer, who had invited Ryan to join him and linebackers Trent Cole of the Eagles and Patrick Willis of the 49ers at Strikeforce: Miami.
“We walked in and the fans were awesome. There was a lot of good-natured heckling [that Rex seemed to enjoy],” Glazer said. “We walked past this one guy who had a beer in his hand, and in all my years I’ve never seen a guy cross the line like this. He unleashed a tirade on Rex.
” ‘I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! You effin’ piece of garbage. I hate you! I hope you die, you fat piece of crap.’ ”
“On and on and on. Rex turned and said, ‘Hey,’ and the guy spat at him. It was unbelievable.”
According to Glazer, Cole and Willis interceded, and the group proceeded to their ringside seats, where they watched the fights for about an hour. Ryan did an interview with Showtime in which he boasted to Dolphins fans that the Jets would beat their team twice next season, then returned to his seat, only to be approached again by the same heckler.
“The same guy came right down to our seats and started again: ‘Eff you, you fat blank!’ ” Glazer said.
“I got up and escorted the guy away, to put it nicely, because it wasn’t fair to Rex. Security didn’t do anything. One guy came over to try to calm me down. I told him, ‘You gotta kick this guy out, he’s drunk.’
“They wouldn’t do it. I don’t understand why,” Glazer continued. “We were assured it wouldn’t happen again. Rex was calm through all of this. They said when it’s time to go, we’ll lead you out. Well, they led us out right past the guy. You’ve got to be kidding me! They knew where they put him.
“So he starts in again and Rex flipped him and I saw a guy next to him with a camera and I said, ‘Oh, man!’ ”
David M. Hildenbrand, a Dolphins fan who took the picture of Ryan flipping the bird, earlier told The Post that Ryan “was walking by us after the event, and a couple buddies of mine said some things like, ‘Dolphins rule, Jets suck.’ [Ryan] looked at us and said, ‘Go f– yourselves,’ and then he gave us the finger.”
Hildenbrand did not immediately return a call last night seeking comment.