MEXICO — Mexico's often violent battles between street performers reached a new level this week when a group of a half-dozen burly street musicians - guitar-toting mariachis --- at first seemed to be prevailing in a brawl with another street performer, a flame-swallower.

What happened next was perhaps predictable.

According to security-camera video, the mariachis, in their white, silver-buttoned jackets, at first seemed to be winning, punching the flame-swallower to the ground and repeatedly kicking him on the sidewalk in front of a taco restaurant named, appropriately enough, Hell.

The next segment of the video then shows mariachis, some with their clothing in flames, running away in the opposite direction.

They appeared to quickly douse the flames or shed the clothes but didn't return.

Because street life in Mexico is so rough, and competition for tips is so fierce, performers and windshield washers will often stake out and defend lucrative street corners.

Street vendor groups in Mexico City often square off against each other with cudgels, and sometimes even guns, in disputes over territory.

It is not exactly clear how or why the mariachis vs flamethrower dispute began in the city of Morelia, west of the capital, but it was clear how it ended: don't mess with a person who isn't afraid of shooting fire out of his mouth.

Though technically, at the end, he was more of a flame thrower, dousing the mariachi with jets of flammable liquid from a small jerrycan he was holding, then setting them alight.

Police said in a statement that nobody was arrested and only the flame-swallower had to be treated at a hospital.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uLbAnKuvZpOkunC6xLCqaKeWm6%2BmrdNoqp6bpae2tcWMr6CdnZ9isKK8066pnqtdl7%2Biw8tmmZ6sp5qyr3nMmqmimZOdtrR5xaWYpp1dqMSiuMuorp6qXZ67brnEsaCcpw%3D%3D