Martial arts movie afficianados

[Michael Gibbons]

Who do you think is the toughest tough guy in the movies?

Steven Segal?

Chuck Norris?

Jean Claude Van Damme?

Jet Li?

Jeff Speakman?

Dolph Lungren?

Bruce Lee?

Jackie Chan?

Seems like all these guys are at the top of their respective martial art, so who could beat up who? And after watching some of these cage fighting matches, I wonder if they could beat up the movie stars. Royce Gracie who won the first ten or so UFC matches seemed to do a good job. Whats your thoughts.

[Joe Chritz]

If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.

If I can't handle it myself I will call 3 or 4 other guys dressed just like me to help out.

For individual characters I would have to go with Aragorn from Lord of the Rings. (Viggo Mortensen) There are a few scenes where the character just oozes badness. The Urukai battle near weatherdeep where he wades into 30 to 1 odds to give Frodo a chance to escape or the speak in front of the gates of Mordor are two that come to mind.

Joe

[Gary Keedwell]

If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.

If I can't handle it myself I will call 3 or 4 other guys dressed just like me to help out.

For individual characters I would have to go with Aragorn from Lord of the Rings. (Viggo Mortensen) There are a few scenes where the character just oozes badness. The Urukai battle near weatherdeep where he wades into 30 to 1 odds to give Frodo a chance to escape or the speak in front of the gates of Mordor are two that come to mind.

Joe

I'll take the Gladiator....Chuck Norris was a real champion, no?
Gary

[Curt Harms]

If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.

If I can't handle it myself I will call 3 or 4 other guys dressed just like me to help out.

Joe

Joe
Keep your current job(s). You don't have much of a future as a Hollywood script writer.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

I have never seen any of them in a real combat (ring or otherwise).

However, the one whom I least respect (loath really) is Segal. I wouldn't rent one of his movies on a dare.

[mark page]

I dunno--I claim that it's all "In the script". With today's movie CGI, etc,
they can make me out, beer belly and all, to be the next terminator of the century, lol.
Reminds me of wandering into a place called "Bad Bobs" in Memphis Tenn once in the late '70s. Was somewhere's over by the airport. I wished the place had of been called "Bob's". I still have battle scars to prove that place and probably one of the reasons I wear partial dentures to this day. Like to see one of those fella's walk into that place and mark their territory. I remember I ended up on the "bottom of the pile" and couldn't move my arms or legs, so I started biting people, it was all I could do. All is fair in love and war I guess. Was no script in "Bad Bob's" though!
All joking aside, Norris came up through the ranks in competition with his arts, and then made his claim to fame. I don't know about any of the others competitive backgrounds, other than Seagal trained in Japan. We have a radio station here that jokes about Norris, he doesn't do push ups but pushes the earth down lol.

[Lee DeRaud]

Who do you think is the toughest tough guy in the movies?

Steven Segal?

Chuck Norris?

Jean Claude Van Damme?

Jet Li?

Jeff Speakman?

Dolph Lungren?

Bruce Lee?

Jackie Chan?

Seems like all these guys are at the top of their respective martial art, so who could beat up who? And after watching some of these cage fighting matches, I wonder if they could beat up the movie stars. Royce Gracie who won the first ten or so UFC matches seemed to do a good job. Whats your thoughts.

Jet Li is has a really bad case of quick, but he's awfully small. Speakman is almost as fast, but still on the small side. If I had to put money down, I'd go with Seagal (in his prime: he's not aging particularly well), particularly for a feet-on-the-ground street fight where his size matters.

One guy not on your list: Jeff Imada. He's a stuntman/fight-choreographer/trainer, probably best known for training/stunt-doubling for Brandon Lee. (looks in IMDB) Oh, and also the fight coordinator for the last two 'Bourne' movies.

[J. Z. Guest]

Jet Li, by a mile. He's just so damned quick. I believe he was a King Fu champion, and Kung Fu is certainly a practical martial art.

The size doesn't matter much if you can't land a hit because your opponent is so much quicker.

Chuck Norris was a kickboxing champ back in the day, but kickboxing is more of a sport than a practical art.

I read an Mel Gibson interview one time, and he said that Jet Li is incredibly quick, and what you see in Lethal Weapon 3 (?) is not sped up. He also said that they had to ask him to slow down a bit so they could make it look like a good fight. The only thing I don't like about him is the flying-through-the-air, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon type crap they occasionally show him doing.

I think Bruce Lee would have been a close second, also due to his speed and strength relative to his size.

Also, any martial art that doesn't account for an attempted kick in the pills is worthless, IMO. (speaking as a former Tae Kwon Do student)

[Michael Gibbons]

Jeremy, I've heard that statement about slowing down so the cameras could catch some action from a couple of the actors namely, Segal and Lee. Now back to my original question; Lets say Segal and Norris face off in the ring, who'd win? Li and Van Damme? Lee and Speakman?

[Michael Gibbons]

Jet Li is has a really bad case of quick, but he's awfully small. Speakman is almost as fast, but still on the small side. If I had to put money down, I'd go with Seagal (in his prime: he's not aging particularly well), particularly for a feet-on-the-ground street fight where his size matters.

One guy not on your list: Jeff Imada. He's a stuntman/fight-choreographer/trainer, probably best known for training/stunt-doubling for Brandon Lee. (looks in IMDB) Oh, and also the fight coordinator for the last two 'Bourne' movies.

Hey Lee, I was bummed out when Brandon Lee died. I thought he had potential in every way. It would have been cool to see where he would have taken Jeet Kune Do.

[Russ Filtz]

I think the guy from the movie 300 would take them all! The actual historical guy, not the movie actor!

Lundgren was also a full contact world champ. Not sure the style, might have been kickboxing also.