van damme a legitimate standup guy

Fight career
At the age of eighteen, Van Damme embarked on his quest to capture a world martial arts title. Training under master Claude Goetz in Brussels, Belgium, Jean-Claude developed an impressive array of kicks and strikes. In Antwerp, Belgium, Van Damme, fighting under his birth name of Jean-Claude Van Varenberg, made his fighting debut by knocking out Eric Strauss in 23 seconds of the first round with a spinning back fist. A week later, he stopped Emile Leibman with an axe-kick in 33 seconds of a scheduled 3-round full-contact middleweight match in Isegham, Belgium. With-in a span of five months, Jean-Claude added first round victories over Andre Robaeys, Jacques Piniarski, and Rolf Risberg, to improve his full-contact karate record to 5-0 (5 knockouts). After knocking out Jean-Claude Bollaert to win the Belgium Middleweight Full-Contact Championship in Brussels, many European martial arts experts viewed Van Damme as a promising prospects. Among those who expressed this view were Mike Anders-founder of Professional Karate Magazine, and multiple European Karate champion, Gert Lemmens. Next, Van Damme captured the European Middleweight Full-Contact Championship by a knockout in 21 seconds. In 1979, Van Damme traveled to Florida in the United States to fight in the WAKO World Full-Contact Championships in Orlando. In his first U.S. match, Van Damme (still fighting as Jean-Claude Van Varenberg) defeated Sherman "Big Train" Bergman from Miami, by first round victory. However, in his next match, Jean-Claude lost to fellow countryman, Patrick Teugels, thus failing in his bid to capture a world title. In 1980, Van Damme continued his ring career in his hometown of Brussels. After scoring a second round knockout over a fighter named Verlugels, he signed for a rematch with Patrick Teugels. This time it was Jean-Claude Van Damme whose hand was held up in victory; he knocked out Teugels in less then 2 minutes. Following this victory, Van Damme announced his retirement from active competition. Some sources list his full-contact record as 12-1 (12 knockouts), others as 10-1 (10 knockouts), and 9-1 (9 knockouts).
 
His own instructor's words:

"He was a Karate Champion. Of course there were better Karate Champions, and he focused on his movie career."
 
King Kabuki said:
His own instructor's words:

"He was a Karate Champion. Of course there were better Karate Champions, and he focused on his movie career."
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yet he was still the champ once and thats quite an accomplishment.
 
Zach Earles said:
yet he was still the champ once and thats quite an accomplishment.
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my point exactly, people talk about the dude like he is some kind of clown or just an actor; when its' obvious that he is far from that...

i mean i assumed he had some sort of skill-but not that much, an esp not in a competitive situation
 
He was probably as good as we pretend to be or even beter then just the regular MA or MMA practitioner.

Also how hard was the competition back then and on wich tournemant he fought and wich top contenders were competing... You must put all things in contex.

There are so many champs but that doesn't mean your the best.

JCVD was a solid MA and I respect him a lot bc he's Belgian and he did represent the MA in his movies just like Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris and other MA moviestars did...

Why always ppl want him to be the best or just put him in the ground, maybe bc he's famous...

JCVD knows what MA and MMA all about but can he compete against fighters as CC, Aerts, etc...

NOPE !!!
 
my point exactly, people talk about the dude like he is some kind of clown or just an actor; when its' obvious that he is far from that...
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He still got dropped in Public though.
 
King Kabuki said:
He still got dropped in Public though.
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point well made-an trust me i laugh my *ss off about that to; but it coulda happened to anyone of us against any bum *ss dude off the street and is almost a guarantee it would have happened if we woulda been in a similar situation w/chuck zito.

who is no unskilled bum, a guy w/a violent history and some background in martial arts- boxing-karate-etc
 
I wouldn't be so hard on JCVD if he just owned up to getting tooled. That whole "I slipped trying to perform a technique" crap, come on.
 
whats this story behind the bar fight?
 
King Kabuki said:
I wouldn't be so hard on JCVD if he just owned up to getting tooled. That whole "I slipped trying to perform a technique" crap, come on.
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oh i did not know he was not taking full responsibility for gettin his *ss handed to him; that changes my perspective on it, it could happen to anyone one...just keep it moving.

then again according to chuck zito's book he never lost a fight or never even got touched.
 
I know a guy that claimed to have beaten his ass. His buddy made him tell me the story. He said Van Damme hit on his girlfriend. He threw him off her, and tackled him. Sat on his chest and punched until he got pulled off. The guy said he didn't want that ****er to have room to start throwing kicks. I don't know if it's true, but his buddy claimed it was 100% true. It was at least 10 years ago that the guy told me about it. I met him at the gym and he definitely seemed like somebody you wouldn't want to mess with.
 
http://www.vandamme.ru/articles/1998/01-10-1998.htm


On the morning of Feb. 5, 1998, Van Damme woke up in New York City with a sore head. It wasn't a woman attacking him this time or a movie bad guy. It was a Hell's Angel-actor, in a topless bar. Life for Van Damme had spiraled down to this: from drugs, career skid and household turmoil to a straight-to-video scene too chessy to film.

The assailant, one Chuck Zito, claims he was Van Damme's bodyguard; Van Damme maintains Zito only did some stunt work on one of his movies. The two crossed paths at Scores, the celebrity-choked gentleman's club on Manhattan's East Side. Zito was eating dinner when Van Damme came in with Mickey Rourke and a couple of other men and ordered champagne. Van Damme went to the men's room; he knew that Zito had, at some point, been dating LaPier, and it upset him that Zito hadn't come clean about the relationship.

The washroom attendant, a guy named Frankie, indicated that he knew Zito. Van Damme was unimpressed. "Chuck Zito, he has no heart," Van Damme spat.

Back at the table, Frankie tattled to Zito.

"Jean-Claude, did you say I had no heart?" Zito said.

Van Damme removed his glasses and folded them: "Yeah, I said that."

"Well, why did you say that?"

Van Damme brought his face closer to the biker's: "Because you're full of shit."

Zito popped Van Damme as they both sat there in their lap-dance positions. Chairs flew. Van Damme ended up on the floor, covering his face. After Van Damme left Scores, Zito nursed the two broken bones in his hand.

The next day, as Van Damme flew home to Los Angeles the Scores dispute naturally occupied a prime position in The New York Post. A New Jersey paper, Steppin' Out, anointed Zito "The Van Damminator."
 
Jean Claude is my hero seriously, hes the reason I got into Tae Kwan Doe when I was little.
 
Ha ha...

I wonder how big this guy Zito was?

Van Damme had an impressive physique and flexibility. That was his main selling point. Not a very big guy, however, according to people I know who met him. Which was fine for making movies because they could get a normal size guy and portray him like some sort of giant where e had to beat david vs. goliath style.

One thing you have to remember is back in the 80s if you wanted to make money in martial arts you eventually went into movies. If you wanted to make money fighting you boxed. So it is no surprise he focused on movies. That was 'the dream' back in the day.

;)
 
Chuck Zito is pretty big, and if you have watched UFC ppv's the last three years, you know who Chuck Zito is. He was with Pam Anderson a lot. He was also on the TV show OZ on HBO. Here is his pic. It's a little old, and he actually may be bigger now than this picture, he is not as ripped anymore.
chuckZito.jpg
 
Zito trains in multiple martial arts. he is a black belt in kung fu, karate, and jiu jitsu.

he was also a golden gloves boxer.

he is old now, but the guy was a legit fighter at one time.
 
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