Segeal VS. Van Damme who would win

Hate to burst your bubble but segal is usually a nice guy on screen but an absolute *beep* off screen, I am surprised he can see with his head so far up his own ass!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Both of them are horrible screen martial artists, but Segal would definately own Van Damme in a heart beat.
I've got tapes of this guy training and teaching classes, completely controlling 4+ attackers.
Sure, Seagal is an *beep* and a blowhard, but his skills are real. If only they would shoot his on screen martial arts with a single wide lense so you can see the beauty of his technique, maybe he'd be worth watching for something other than a laugh.
Van Damme is (was) a body builder/ballerina. He can jump higher and kick higher, but that wouldn't help him one bit.
... and Bob Wahls "dirty dozen" martial artists challenge would have been cool to see, but being such a high ranking Aikido master, Seagal obviously had to decline, as his method is to avoid fighting.

Bottom line:
Seagal - Master Martial artist, crappy actor
VanDamme - crappy martial artist(if you can even call him one), crappy actor

Winner - Seagal. Any other answer is wrong. If you disagree, you are wrong.

... and the cobras would win over the polar bear any friggin' day.


the moon rulz #1

"The man who knocked out Van Damme is named Chuck Zito. He was the President of the New York City chapter of the Hells Angels and was also an amateur boxer. He is 5'11" and 220lbs+ compared to Van Damme's frame of 5'9" and around 175lbs at most."

Which really should be irrelevant...the whole basis of martial arts is understanding how the body works, how leverage works, where the weak points are on the body and how to most efficiently use those points to ones own advantage. It's developing the tools by which the smaller, weaker or outnumbered individual can overcome larger, faster or stronger opponents.

"Van Damme is in fact a black belt in Shotokan Karate, not a red belt (which is actually a higher rank than black)."

Shotokan is the art I started out in...the belt system differs depending where you go...when I reached first Dan I had the potential of aiming for differing "Dan" belts, or rather versions of black. First Dan, Second Dan, Third Dan and so on up to Tenth Dan and (if you happened to be obscenely good or have made some major contribution to the art) "grand master" status, usually they were black belts with white or red "stripes" showing the level. Ostensibly a Grand Master can rate a student to whatever level they happen to feel like, if a grand master decides that a brown belt deserves a higher rank they can simply say "alright, now you're 6th dan" and they've got it. There is no standardized criteria for gradings...to reach black in my club took upwards of 7-10 years but I've attended demonstrations and competitions in which students of 3 or 4 years experience were wearing black belts (which is, frankly, an embarrassment...no green belt should be able to completely destroy a black belt).

Ultimately, while I love Shotokan as much as anyone, it really can't be thought of as a great art for dealing with a modern street fight. Trying to deal with an opponent while dancing around in kiba-dachi or shiko-dachi is just a real, real bad idea. It's a nice base by which to build on, but it's a classical art designed for classical mentality, classical attacks and classical contexts. To use it in the modern day requires a complete overhaul, a shortening of the stances, speeding up of the movements (like blocks, "setting up" like they do in Shotokan for a low block in the street would be self defeating, a good striker would hit you 3 or 4 times while your fumbling around to set up a block) and so on. It would have to be essentially "modernized" which is exactly what combat-oriented Aikido basically is only using the groundwork set up in styles like Jujitsu rather than Karate.

"I doubt Aikido's effectiveness against leg and head kicks."

Head kicks are a MAJOR no-no in a street confrontation, they take too long to judge, and perform, in a full out street fight there's no reason for any kick at any point to come above hip level, groin, knee, calf and foot strikes are quick, hard to notice and viciously effective. By comparison head strikes are slow, easy to counter and leave the kicker in an incredibly dangerous position for the split second following the kick. I'm unsure where you got the idea Aikido would be ineffective against them though, there's movements in it which are designed specifically FOR dealing with head and leg kicks. Kicks in general leave the kicker at a disadvantage in terms of balance and that's precisely the core OF Aikido, to use the opponents momentum and point of balance against them. If anything, kicks are among the single easiest attacks for a grappler to handle. I've had little actual training in Aikido but I have had the pleasure of training under Prof. Wally Jay in Small Circle Jujitsu (Jujitsu being probably the primary art Aikido is based on) and can tell you from experience sparring with the guy, try kicking a good grappler in the head and you're basically handing them the match...there would be no need for a ground fight, Jay successfully tapped me (and strikers way, way faster than me) consistently and with very little, if any, effort and I don't think I ever remember him actually going to the ground to do it. Mind you the guy is pushing 95 now so I have my doubts he's quite as quick as he was 17+ years ago.

--

"I have often laughed at weaklings
who thought themselves good because
they had no claws."