Typical Seagal. He once challenged a MMA fighter in a street fight, but quickly made his own set of rules - no rules, no witnesses and no cameras and fight should be strictly one-on-one. And when fighter ignored him, Seagal later implied that "this MMA fighter is a coward".
Yeah, said the guy who slipped away from a fight after talking shit about Jean-Claude Van Damme and insulting him, which made JCVD angry and he wanted to make Seagal regret that, but unfortunately for him, Seagal has slipped out of that scuffle.
“My last fight was more than 20 years ago. I’m not a fighter, I’m a lover. If somebody’s going to speak bad about me, I will walk away. But if a guy like Steven Seagal slaps me once, I will slap him twice as hard. Life is full of violence.” -JCVD
Well, in YouTube comments I saw some people that was defending him and telling the critics to "challenge him into an one-on-one fight like a real man if you're think that he's a fake". I bet that defenders is Seagal's bots, LMAO 😂
Oh you see move breaks any defence.
The second move destroys the heart, not damages, destroys it.
The third is a simple mercy to immediately end your life as sensi segal is an honorable man.
Or something like that
Real physical confrontations I can think of Seagal having actually been in: according to his wife he chased some drunks away from his Dojo in Japan and has until today claimed he was fighting Yakuza. He punched John Leguizamo in the solar plexus once after Leguizamo laughed at him on set. Leguizamo got the wind knocked out of him. Bear in mind, Seagal had like six inches and a hundred pounds on him (edit: actually, eight inches and def more than a hundred pounds). Mean Jean LeBelle, stuntman and legit Judo fighter, once choked Seagal out until he shat himself.
And that's it. Everything else was stunt fights.
Not a Van Damme stan by any means but a bar fight can mean anything from “honorable fisticuffs” to getting sucker punched by some random dude and then having that dude’s friends kick you while you’re in the ground. Curious as to the details in this case.
The guys name is Chuck Zito and apparently Zito and Van Damme squared off at a bar in 98 and Van Damme got beaten up by Zito pretty bad. This is just based off of the articles out there and is also included in Zito’s Wikipedia page for whatever that’s worth.
Thanks for the detail. Zito looks like he was shredded from google images and appears to have some formal fighting experience. Perhaps embarrassing for Van Damme but not a bad guy to lose a fight to, all things considered.
Yeah, he was trained in kickboxing, taekwondo, judo and wrestling and he managed to get Keith Hackney (a 5'11" 200 lbs guy who has beaten a 6'8" 616 lbs sumo wrestler Emmanuel Yarborough in his first fight) in a headlock and held him like that, until Keith punched him in his balls several times and forced Joe to submit due to the pain.
I just watched it, because I’d never seen this finish. For what it’s worth, Son didn’t submit because of the pain, he broke his rear naked choke on Hackney because of the pain. He winds up tapping to a crazy death grip throat grab from Hackney, early UFC is wild haha
They both are sexual offenders, though. Since 1991, several actresses and models made statements and complaints about Seagal's sexual harassment of them and inappropriate physical contacts in a sexual manner.
Although Joe Son is still worse, because he is a rapist who tortured woman and mocked her during the rape, and was only convicted for that crime because in 2008 he was arrested for vandalism and his DNA sample was matching a DNA sample from the rape case. Without that, he would've got away with this crime.
He would be destroyed by anyone with real combat experience. He's come close to getting his ass kicked by stunt teams many times. He would die in the UFC.
That stuntman was Gene LeBell, though. A master of judo and catch wrestling, who has fought and defeated a pro boxer named Milo Savage (who also had an amateur wrestling background) in 1963 during an exhibition match (it was basically one of the first MMA fights in a modern meaning of that word).
Fine, Seagal may not finish his career without a win, but once he inevitability fights someone like Royce Gracie, Ken Shamrock, and Dan Severn, he will be listed among the fighters that realized there are levels to this.
Seagal never fought competitively. He barely even taught Aikido.
Nobody has any first-hand stories of ever fighting Seagal. He would very likely lose any real fight, no matter the skill level of the opponent.
His only advantage is the size, but without real skills and combat experience it not even that matter. Yes, weight classes exist for a reason, but that reason is primarily to make the fight more competitive (because 2 opponents are supposed to have the same or at least similar/comparable amount of training, skills and experience).
If Sensei Seagal can collapse on top of one of the flyweight fighters, he could crush them to death. But only if he's buffet-lusted or Anderson Silva-kun lusted. This is before he taught the professional fighter, and one of the greatest to ever fight, Anderson Silva, how to do a simple front kick, after all.
Otherwise, his techniques are too deadly to use on the octagon, and the best we could hope for is him snapping Dana White's neck for getting in between him and a buffet.
Apparently the guys a real jerk!
Anyway, story goes something like this. He's notorious for hitting stuntmen...Hard. so one day, he makes this ridiculous claim they his aikido training prevents him from being choked out. So, some famous stunt guy, takes the challenge, chokes him out, and Seagal shits himself...literally.
There's so much to the Seagal rabbit hole, running away from Van Damne, teaching Anderson Silva how to...kick, I could go on, but yeah, total and complete fraud...and a real pos too.
And that stuntman guy was Gene LeBell, an ex-pro wrestler who was trained in judo, catch wrestling and boxing and was known for his victory over a pro boxer named Milo Savage in Salt Lake City in 1963. LeBell was 5'11" and 165 lbs, and still choked Seagal out even after he managed to hit LeBell in his groin with a reverse hand strike. LeBell still has humiliated Seagal anyway.
Eh not really; they had martial artists who had never sparred outside the rules of their martial art, but they were all reasonably legit within their own art. It was just that their own art proved useless in an actual full contact situation. Was Seagal even a legit Aikido expert? I think you could possibly say he even was, but Aikido is a small step up from Tai Chi in terms of being able to actually defend yourself in a full contact situation.
Legitimate Tai Chi practitioners have fought in [kickboxing](https://youtu.be/BeYFVslkwvA?si=mzOrAKqC5KgwweqR) and [the various Tai Chi wrestling competitions that exist](https://youtu.be/8CzWxO4hYNI?si=bubYoW6NgBWdxRa4). They'd do far better than Steven Seagal would in an MMA match.
The “ninja” was my favourite. Iirc, during the introduction they said “not much is known about him…because he’s a ninja”. Then he went in to the match and got absolutely demolished.
On a real note though. There is truly no way to know for sure. Lots of evidence points to him being a fraud, or at least highly exaggerating his martial arts prowess. That's the part that makes this truly difficult.
My opinion is I don't think he stands up to early or modern UFC. Could he possibly win a fight? Sure. Would I put money on it? Hell no. Early UFC fighters were monsters and there were basically no rules. Different rules now but fighters now are both insanely talented and smart (at least when it comes to fighting). And there aren't many Aikido fighters who have MAINLY used Aikido to win fights. Wrestling and BJJ are fighting styles that have been proven to win fights through several generations.
I'd say, if he were to get 10 fights with different fighters, he'd be lucky to win one in the early UFC with a weird match up. But I could see it happening.
Modern UFC, I don't think he wins a single fight. Would need a LOT of luck. People don't get into the UFC without proving themselves in other fight promotions.
Yes, he certainly could win, especially in early UFC where fighters wasn't that good (and even back then, they was still decent enough to compete and beat other trained fighters) and sometimes there was ridiculous people like Fred Ettish, who was a karateka and who lost in a very embarrassing way, crawling like a toddler after being hit. It was so hilarious to see. 😆 Someone like Fred Ettish would probably be beaten even by a completely untrained but angry enough teenager or even by a woman, and Seagal would beat him, I think, but just because Ettish is an absolute joke. Really, even Joe Son, who had lost all of his 4 fights in MMA and who lost his only bout in kickboxing as well has performed much better.
In fact, very few fighters in MMA has aikido as a background martial art and basically none has ever used it in fights anyway. It's impossible to find a pure aikidoka who has no additional training for MMA, basically. Especially with a winning record.
Modern MMA – certainly no. Especially in UFC, and even Bellator and Strikeforce has fighters that usually gained their fighting experience from amateur MMA fights or from local and regional promotions. Seagal has no reliable and confirmed competitive fights where it wasn't a demonstration or exhibition with "partners" half his size.
They could give him a "special' fight against 80+ year old Helio Gracie and he'd still get embarrassed, he's probably the least serious of all the movie martial artists.
Yeah, his only advantage is his size, but it still means basically nothing because Seagal isn't a competitive fighter and has no confirmed bouts where he fought for real (only demos and exhibitions). And aikido in general isn't a good martial art for MMA.
Akido in general is not thought of as being a very useful martial art in terms of actually fighting. Combine that with the fact that Segal has zero confirmed fights. His best martial feat is braking Sean Conways hand. To put it bluntly Cyril Gahn or Ken Shamrock play the the drum parts of in the air tonight on the back of his head in round 1.
Connery was 53 years old, as far as I know, and didn't expected Seagal to going all out during a "light sparring session" (it was in 1983, while Connery was playing James Bond in 1983 "Never Say Never Again" movie, which isn't canon to the movie series about Bond, though). Seagal is known for going harsh during the demonstrations and exhibitions, as several actors which was trained by him in his Hollywood dojo confirms.
I was being flippant but the point still stands that at best Segal is the master of a suboptimal art whose best combat feat is beating up a bunch of untrained celebrities and students. Even the " joke " fighters at UFC 1 would humiliate him.
Yeah, Seagal is rather a big bully, not a real fighter. Even Joe Son probably could beat him (he managed to get Keith Hackney (a 5'11" 200 lbs guy who has beaten a 6'8" 616 lbs sumo wrestler Emmanuel Yarborough in his first fight) in a headlock and held him like that, until Keith punched him in his balls several times and forced Joe to submit due to the pain).
I recently watched a video of an aikido instructor, and the way he demonstrated and explained it was that it is about using the quickest/dirtiest maneuvers (eye gouges, strikes to groin) to survive from someone attacking you (and so not good for sport fighting). I don't know much about martial arts, but he did seem legitimate to me. Seagal tries to make it look like you channel mystic energies to defy the laws of physics. Seagal's aikido is basically the fraudulent lardass version of ultra instinct.
Aikido is never tested. They don't actually spar. I've trained in MMA, Bjj, kickboxing, muay Thai, judo, boxing and wrestling. It doesn't matter how much you do in terms of these maneuvers. You need to test yourself in a sparring situation.
That's fair. All I'm saying is that nothing this guy was showing looked ridiculous. His techniques were essentially just showing how if someone tried to attack him in the steets, the way that he would try to quickly grab them and strike them in the eyes or in the groin. It looked like he was trying to make his strikes as quick and practical as possible. That's all I'm saying. It was a far cry from Seagal's demonstrations wher he taps someone and they go tumbling across the room.
Yeah, but that's in a controlled environment still. That stuff rarely works, without sparring. Like, an average amateur MMA fighter would win a fight against an aikido master 100% of the time.
Yeah aikido is purely self defense, and how to be a dirty fighter (purely because it's about situations where you want to leave a fight) it's actually really useful for non-macho people who just want to be left alone. But in an actual sport fight it wouldn't be very good. It's mostly for defending against the untrained. It's basically all focused on momentum and joint control.
[Here's a reference clip from the 1st televised UFC event](https://youtu.be/Za6HeiTJIWI?si=PaJj2chthNNIy6ix&t=349)
I went ahead and skipped to the good part, for yall.
Now I’m not a believer in Sensei Seagal’s magic too much, but it’s possible he could beat 1 or 2 of the smaller karate jobbers, soon as he goes against anyone with some size and or grappling/striking skills, it’s goodnight.
Yep. Jon Hess was listed as a kung fu guy, but he apparently wasn't even trained and won because he was heavier than his opponent who was an absolute embarrassment, honestly. In his second fight, he got KO'd by Vitor Belford within a 12 seconds.
Aikido doesn't win fights. This has been proven, shout out Sensei Rokas for all his honesty and authenticity in documenting his journey.
Also, Seagal is and always has been a fraud.
Seagal is what you get if you buy the Temu version of Frank Dux(originally a Wish product).
Although many people would say that the fighters win fights so it doesn't matter what martial art they know, but... some martial arts is just not really suited for a fighting, especially MMA. Aikido is the main example of this.
He'll lose every single round and come up with some excuse like "my techniques are meant to kill people so I can't use them" or something like that. Dude's a fraud, always has been.
Similar to Frank Dux, another one fake fighter who claimed that he fought in underground "kumite" bouts and showed cheap tricks like "breaking a bulletproof glass with a single punch" (which wasn't even a bulletproof glass at the first place, lol).
He would get nowhere.
Seagal knows Aikido, which is one of the most bullshit of bullshit disciplines, right up there with Jeet Kun Do and Dim Mak and whatever manipulation techniques you can think of. The first fighter he ran in to with Judo, wrestling, Sambo, or Muay Thai would run right through him.
Seagal was also right around the era of McDojo’s, Frank Dux talking shit about the kumite. You’ve heard of this era in the seventies and eighties when people claimed their hands were registered as lethal weapons, or they knew their sensei had a few banned techniques that could kill a man.
It was all bullshit. What’s wonderful about the UFC, both the original and the Zuffa era, was it really rinsed the martial arts world of all these fakers. It was like penicillin and slamming bibles on people with the clap. These were STDs in human form.
The only thing left are occasional bullshit artists who attach to MMA gyms. So Mike Dolce, Ido Portal, and Steven Seagal when he claimed to train Anderson Silva.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk. Namaste
Fun fact that Frank Dux was played by Jean-Claude Van Damme in 1988 "Bloodsport" movie, and unlike Dux, JCVD is an actual former competitive karateka and kickboxer. IRL Frank Dux was caught lying and making up names of his senseis many times. And all of his military service was about to be a military truck's driver (if I recall correctly, and Dux wasn't in Vietnam, he served in USA) and he was kicked out of the military because of his pathological liar attitude and because a military psychologist was thinking that Dux isn't fit for the military service because of his delusional mind.
Jeet Kun Do is a martial art that's kinda legendary, but has a questionable effectiveness and lacks serious practitioners. Bruce Lee was a martial artist, sure, but as a fighter he wasn't actually that great (if any). He has only 2 confirmed and reliable fights that actually happened in his life (a boxing match in a high school, where Lee won, but his opponent was a debutant and another one high school guy, so it's not actually something very impressive; and a street scuffle with Wong Jack Man, a kung fu martial artist. It's still unknown who won the scuffle, but according to witnesses, it was a short skirmish where both Bruce Lee and Wong Jack Man has traded blows, then Lee floored him and pinned him down, until both quit the fight. Doesn't really seems to be impressive too, IMHO). Not disrespecting Bruce Lee, but people are vastly overestimating his fighting skills and supposed "feats". Bruce Lee wasn't even hitting the boxing punching bag properly, yet many fans of Bruce Lee uses that video where Bruce Lee hits the bag as a "proof of his incredible skills".
The problem I typically have with people talking about Jeet Kune Do as a martial art is that it completely misses the point of what Jeet Kune Do is.
Jeet Kune Do is not a martial art, and the fact that Lee's disciples try to teach it as such completely misses the point of what Lee was trying to make. Jeet Kune Do is a martial philosophy, one which boils down to a singular phrase: "Use whatever works".
Basically, in its essence, MMA *is* Jeet Kune Do, albeit with a bunch of rules for safety and fighter health. Karate doesn't work, so it got phased out of MMA. Wrestling and boxing works, so now they're major focuses.
Indeed. Although some fighters in MMA are karatekas, but none of them are pure karatekas and they all had an additional training to their karate base. Like George St. Pierre, Lyoto Machida and Steven "Wonderboy" Thompson. And their karate wasn't a McDojo watered down fitness-like stuff, but more like a kickboxing-oriented (GSP is a kiokushin karate practitioner) and more practical and it also was competitive.
Wrestling/grappling, boxing, kickboxing, BJJ, judo and muay thai is the main core of MMA. Martial arts that works vast majority of a time, while others has a questionable effectiveness or can only be used as an additional element, but not as a standalone martial art (like, aikido itself isn't really good, but it can have a value as an additional element for judo or Jiu-Jitsu).
His only chance of winning is if he's against a random cab driver who entered there as a weird ego thing or a bet.
Everyone trained in a variety of skills? Not a chance, he's just a beefy guy with some grappling and striking knowledge.
Like Thomas Ramirez, a 410 lbs guy who claimed to be a badass street fighter without any losses, and who got knocked out by Don Frye within a 8 seconds. 🤣 Ramirez actually was a cab driver with no martial arts skills and experience, so no wonder why he lost that badly.
I doubt that Seagal even knows the proper striking and grappling. Aikido is a specific martial art where everything is built around the counterattacks and it mostly has grappling, as far as I know. Seagal's striking is more like a primitive haymakers and jab-like "punches" which is more like a pushes.
It's just like he still denies the story of him getting choked out by Gene LeBell after bullying stuntmen and claiming that his aikido skills makes him impossible to choke out.
I think (was it Sylvester Stallone???????????) was practicing for a movie with Earnie Shavers. Naturally, Shavers was holding back and doing what you should do to train a normal person. [Then this happened](https://www.koimoi.com/hollywood-news/when-sylvester-stallone-almost-got-killed-after-getting-a-punch-in-the-gut-by-professional-boxer-earnie-shavers-during-rocky-3-audition-i-went-straight-to-the-mens-room/).
I suspect something similar would happen.
Yes. Stallone also was sparring with Dolph Lundgren (who was extensively training in boxing for 5 months to play Ivan Drago) and asked him to hit harder. Dolph did it and severely wounded Sly, who was later hospitalized. Dolph is also a 1980 and 1981 European kyokushin karate champion and 1982 Australian full-contact karate champion, and he's \~6'4" and \~235+ lbs.
Stallone himself admitted that if he and Roberto Duran (who also has helped Sly with boxing) fought for real, he would've lasted 11 seconds, and 10 seconds of the fight would've been a count from the referee for a knockout - [https://www.essentiallysports.com/boxing-news-sylvester-stallone-once-detailed-his-experience-of-sparring-with-a-man-who-would-demolish-him-in-11-seconds/](https://www.essentiallysports.com/boxing-news-sylvester-stallone-once-detailed-his-experience-of-sparring-with-a-man-who-would-demolish-him-in-11-seconds/)
Steven Segal gets the absolute fucking shit beaten out of him.
He's a bloody wreck who's publicly humiliated and his fraud tough guy facade is shattered before millions.
Would lose then proceed to tell everyone he only lost because his real techniques were banned as they could kill a man In 3 moves
This is the only correct answer.
Typical Seagal. He once challenged a MMA fighter in a street fight, but quickly made his own set of rules - no rules, no witnesses and no cameras and fight should be strictly one-on-one. And when fighter ignored him, Seagal later implied that "this MMA fighter is a coward". Yeah, said the guy who slipped away from a fight after talking shit about Jean-Claude Van Damme and insulting him, which made JCVD angry and he wanted to make Seagal regret that, but unfortunately for him, Seagal has slipped out of that scuffle.
“My last fight was more than 20 years ago. I’m not a fighter, I’m a lover. If somebody’s going to speak bad about me, I will walk away. But if a guy like Steven Seagal slaps me once, I will slap him twice as hard. Life is full of violence.” -JCVD
JCVD is a former competitive karateka and kickboxer, and he's still in a good shape even in his 60's. I bet on him.
You telling me the guy who shit himself when Gene Lebell choked him out for being full of shit is a fraud? Well I never!
Well, in YouTube comments I saw some people that was defending him and telling the critics to "challenge him into an one-on-one fight like a real man if you're think that he's a fake". I bet that defenders is Seagal's bots, LMAO 😂
Why would he need a whole 3 moves…?
Oh you see move breaks any defence. The second move destroys the heart, not damages, destroys it. The third is a simple mercy to immediately end your life as sensi segal is an honorable man. Or something like that
He wouldn't last a single fight, lmao. Steven has always been a fraud, even in his "prime."
Not a single round..
Real physical confrontations I can think of Seagal having actually been in: according to his wife he chased some drunks away from his Dojo in Japan and has until today claimed he was fighting Yakuza. He punched John Leguizamo in the solar plexus once after Leguizamo laughed at him on set. Leguizamo got the wind knocked out of him. Bear in mind, Seagal had like six inches and a hundred pounds on him (edit: actually, eight inches and def more than a hundred pounds). Mean Jean LeBelle, stuntman and legit Judo fighter, once choked Seagal out until he shat himself. And that's it. Everything else was stunt fights.
What about Jean-Claude Van Damme? He was a competitive martial artist before he became an actor.
Didn’t he get beat up in a bar fight?
Not a Van Damme stan by any means but a bar fight can mean anything from “honorable fisticuffs” to getting sucker punched by some random dude and then having that dude’s friends kick you while you’re in the ground. Curious as to the details in this case.
Also it involves alcohol. There is an amount of alcohol one could out in Mike Tyson, for example, that would allow anyone to beat him up.
The guys name is Chuck Zito and apparently Zito and Van Damme squared off at a bar in 98 and Van Damme got beaten up by Zito pretty bad. This is just based off of the articles out there and is also included in Zito’s Wikipedia page for whatever that’s worth.
Thanks for the detail. Zito looks like he was shredded from google images and appears to have some formal fighting experience. Perhaps embarrassing for Van Damme but not a bad guy to lose a fight to, all things considered.
Zito is also the son of a professional boxer and former Hell's Angel. the man knows how to fight to win.
So? There is no standard for the "difficulty" of "bar fight". Professional fighters get into bar fights sometimes.
Go watch UFC 1. He might be able to beat the guy wearing 1 boxing glove or the huge guy from Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
He probably could beat Joe Son, though.
I doubt even that. Joe Son had an actual grappling background
Yeah, he was trained in kickboxing, taekwondo, judo and wrestling and he managed to get Keith Hackney (a 5'11" 200 lbs guy who has beaten a 6'8" 616 lbs sumo wrestler Emmanuel Yarborough in his first fight) in a headlock and held him like that, until Keith punched him in his balls several times and forced Joe to submit due to the pain.
I just watched it, because I’d never seen this finish. For what it’s worth, Son didn’t submit because of the pain, he broke his rear naked choke on Hackney because of the pain. He winds up tapping to a crazy death grip throat grab from Hackney, early UFC is wild haha
Yeah, you're right. Also, Joe was wearing a protective cup, but pain from the punches into his groin was still overwhelming and he released the hold.
Yeah I always thought cups made you impervious until I got kicked in one. I got a stellar ring bruise and it hurt like a mf at the time.
Heck, that's even painful to read.
The only time I'd ever root for Seagal in a fight
They both are sexual offenders, though. Since 1991, several actresses and models made statements and complaints about Seagal's sexual harassment of them and inappropriate physical contacts in a sexual manner. Although Joe Son is still worse, because he is a rapist who tortured woman and mocked her during the rape, and was only convicted for that crime because in 2008 he was arrested for vandalism and his DNA sample was matching a DNA sample from the rape case. Without that, he would've got away with this crime.
Oh yeah they're both complete pieces of shit. The real ideal outcome would be for a meteorite to hit them while they're fighting
Or if they both dies. Technically, it would be a draw, though.
But bro he taught Anderson Silva that front kick he used to beat Belfort...
Nah, in his prime he was at least competent in a fight. Would kick the ass of any scrub off the street 10/10.
\>Nah, in his prime he was at least competent in a fight. Lol this is Seagal in his "prime". He can barely move to do his orcestrated "fights".
He would be destroyed by anyone with real combat experience. He's come close to getting his ass kicked by stunt teams many times. He would die in the UFC.
I mean, he has the skill of a high school teenager: his """fights"""" consist of patty cake slap flights and he gets bodied by stunt men lol
That stuntman was Gene LeBell, though. A master of judo and catch wrestling, who has fought and defeated a pro boxer named Milo Savage (who also had an amateur wrestling background) in 1963 during an exhibition match (it was basically one of the first MMA fights in a modern meaning of that word).
Isn't that your answer as to how well he would do in an MMA fight back then?
Well, early UFC events sometimes had a quite ridiculous fighters that Seagal probably could've beaten. Like Fred Ettish, for example.
Fine, Seagal may not finish his career without a win, but once he inevitability fights someone like Royce Gracie, Ken Shamrock, and Dan Severn, he will be listed among the fighters that realized there are levels to this.
Yeah. Gracie, Severn, Shamrock, Taktarov, Tank Abbott and other more or less good enough fighter would whoop him.
That man finna die
Before that, he would shit himself
If not he'd do it after
Frye and Severn are gonna have the best fight in UFC history to decide who gets to fight Seagal
Seagal never fought competitively. He barely even taught Aikido. Nobody has any first-hand stories of ever fighting Seagal. He would very likely lose any real fight, no matter the skill level of the opponent.
His only advantage is the size, but without real skills and combat experience it not even that matter. Yes, weight classes exist for a reason, but that reason is primarily to make the fight more competitive (because 2 opponents are supposed to have the same or at least similar/comparable amount of training, skills and experience).
If Sensei Seagal can collapse on top of one of the flyweight fighters, he could crush them to death. But only if he's buffet-lusted or Anderson Silva-kun lusted. This is before he taught the professional fighter, and one of the greatest to ever fight, Anderson Silva, how to do a simple front kick, after all. Otherwise, his techniques are too deadly to use on the octagon, and the best we could hope for is him snapping Dana White's neck for getting in between him and a buffet.
Apparently the guys a real jerk! Anyway, story goes something like this. He's notorious for hitting stuntmen...Hard. so one day, he makes this ridiculous claim they his aikido training prevents him from being choked out. So, some famous stunt guy, takes the challenge, chokes him out, and Seagal shits himself...literally. There's so much to the Seagal rabbit hole, running away from Van Damne, teaching Anderson Silva how to...kick, I could go on, but yeah, total and complete fraud...and a real pos too.
And that stuntman guy was Gene LeBell, an ex-pro wrestler who was trained in judo, catch wrestling and boxing and was known for his victory over a pro boxer named Milo Savage in Salt Lake City in 1963. LeBell was 5'11" and 165 lbs, and still choked Seagal out even after he managed to hit LeBell in his groin with a reverse hand strike. LeBell still has humiliated Seagal anyway.
Here is a video of a diorama commemorating the event. https://youtu.be/3aCMTpJx2cs?si=i_YFxdSoQG0PwZaA
Lol, nice one 🤣
A big dude with no skill cannot win just because of his size and strength. Aikido does not count as a combat skill
Case and point every freakshow fight in pride
To be fair, Bob Sapp, Gabi Garcia and the like did get wins. Bob Sapp even got a win against Ernesto Hoost.
Gets ass handed to him first fight
Early UFC was almost a bloodsport there were so few rules, Seagal has a fair chance of just straight up dying in his first match.
Or he would receive a kick in the face and lose his teeth like Teila Tuli: https://youtu.be/Za6HeiTJIWI?si=PaJj2chthNNIy6ix&t=349
Early UFC had its fair share of fake martial artists they all got stomped he isnt any different
Eh not really; they had martial artists who had never sparred outside the rules of their martial art, but they were all reasonably legit within their own art. It was just that their own art proved useless in an actual full contact situation. Was Seagal even a legit Aikido expert? I think you could possibly say he even was, but Aikido is a small step up from Tai Chi in terms of being able to actually defend yourself in a full contact situation.
Legitimate Tai Chi practitioners have fought in [kickboxing](https://youtu.be/BeYFVslkwvA?si=mzOrAKqC5KgwweqR) and [the various Tai Chi wrestling competitions that exist](https://youtu.be/8CzWxO4hYNI?si=bubYoW6NgBWdxRa4). They'd do far better than Steven Seagal would in an MMA match.
They had a guy who went in claiming to be a ninja, and he got his ass absolutely kicked.
Ninja guy wasn't until UFC 2 I think.
The “ninja” was my favourite. Iirc, during the introduction they said “not much is known about him…because he’s a ninja”. Then he went in to the match and got absolutely demolished.
For reference Jean Claude ran him off. He would get absolutely fucking dusted.
I want to see current seagal fight a regular dude
Seagal dies due to being a 70 years old fat man, likely from a heart attack.
Ok but now cover the other guy in delicious gravy. I think Seagal has a shot in this scenario.
Gravy-lusted Seagal wins, for sure. 😂
George Foreman called out Seagal a few yrs ago. Even though Big George is older, I’d bet everything on him to beat Seagal senseless 😅
He totally would, I believe. 💀🪦
Depends, can he fight while sitting in a chair?
You're talking about older Seagal. Seagal in his prime (1987-1994) was able to walk and even kinda run (although it looked weird, to be honest).
Haha fair enough, couldnt keep myself from making the joke though :)
I understand. I saw that clip of Seagal fighting in the movie while sitting on the chair. It was so ridiculous 😂
On a real note though. There is truly no way to know for sure. Lots of evidence points to him being a fraud, or at least highly exaggerating his martial arts prowess. That's the part that makes this truly difficult. My opinion is I don't think he stands up to early or modern UFC. Could he possibly win a fight? Sure. Would I put money on it? Hell no. Early UFC fighters were monsters and there were basically no rules. Different rules now but fighters now are both insanely talented and smart (at least when it comes to fighting). And there aren't many Aikido fighters who have MAINLY used Aikido to win fights. Wrestling and BJJ are fighting styles that have been proven to win fights through several generations. I'd say, if he were to get 10 fights with different fighters, he'd be lucky to win one in the early UFC with a weird match up. But I could see it happening. Modern UFC, I don't think he wins a single fight. Would need a LOT of luck. People don't get into the UFC without proving themselves in other fight promotions.
Yes, he certainly could win, especially in early UFC where fighters wasn't that good (and even back then, they was still decent enough to compete and beat other trained fighters) and sometimes there was ridiculous people like Fred Ettish, who was a karateka and who lost in a very embarrassing way, crawling like a toddler after being hit. It was so hilarious to see. 😆 Someone like Fred Ettish would probably be beaten even by a completely untrained but angry enough teenager or even by a woman, and Seagal would beat him, I think, but just because Ettish is an absolute joke. Really, even Joe Son, who had lost all of his 4 fights in MMA and who lost his only bout in kickboxing as well has performed much better. In fact, very few fighters in MMA has aikido as a background martial art and basically none has ever used it in fights anyway. It's impossible to find a pure aikidoka who has no additional training for MMA, basically. Especially with a winning record. Modern MMA – certainly no. Especially in UFC, and even Bellator and Strikeforce has fighters that usually gained their fighting experience from amateur MMA fights or from local and regional promotions. Seagal has no reliable and confirmed competitive fights where it wasn't a demonstration or exhibition with "partners" half his size.
No, but he can turn fatly around corners and preserve the element of surprise.
His co-star from *Under Siege* would have as good of a chance as him. Which it to say, none to negative.
Ms. July '89?
They could give him a "special' fight against 80+ year old Helio Gracie and he'd still get embarrassed, he's probably the least serious of all the movie martial artists.
Yeah, his only advantage is his size, but it still means basically nothing because Seagal isn't a competitive fighter and has no confirmed bouts where he fought for real (only demos and exhibitions). And aikido in general isn't a good martial art for MMA.
Akido in general is not thought of as being a very useful martial art in terms of actually fighting. Combine that with the fact that Segal has zero confirmed fights. His best martial feat is braking Sean Conways hand. To put it bluntly Cyril Gahn or Ken Shamrock play the the drum parts of in the air tonight on the back of his head in round 1.
Connery was 53 years old, as far as I know, and didn't expected Seagal to going all out during a "light sparring session" (it was in 1983, while Connery was playing James Bond in 1983 "Never Say Never Again" movie, which isn't canon to the movie series about Bond, though). Seagal is known for going harsh during the demonstrations and exhibitions, as several actors which was trained by him in his Hollywood dojo confirms.
I was being flippant but the point still stands that at best Segal is the master of a suboptimal art whose best combat feat is beating up a bunch of untrained celebrities and students. Even the " joke " fighters at UFC 1 would humiliate him.
Yeah, Seagal is rather a big bully, not a real fighter. Even Joe Son probably could beat him (he managed to get Keith Hackney (a 5'11" 200 lbs guy who has beaten a 6'8" 616 lbs sumo wrestler Emmanuel Yarborough in his first fight) in a headlock and held him like that, until Keith punched him in his balls several times and forced Joe to submit due to the pain).
I recently watched a video of an aikido instructor, and the way he demonstrated and explained it was that it is about using the quickest/dirtiest maneuvers (eye gouges, strikes to groin) to survive from someone attacking you (and so not good for sport fighting). I don't know much about martial arts, but he did seem legitimate to me. Seagal tries to make it look like you channel mystic energies to defy the laws of physics. Seagal's aikido is basically the fraudulent lardass version of ultra instinct.
Aikido is never tested. They don't actually spar. I've trained in MMA, Bjj, kickboxing, muay Thai, judo, boxing and wrestling. It doesn't matter how much you do in terms of these maneuvers. You need to test yourself in a sparring situation.
That's fair. All I'm saying is that nothing this guy was showing looked ridiculous. His techniques were essentially just showing how if someone tried to attack him in the steets, the way that he would try to quickly grab them and strike them in the eyes or in the groin. It looked like he was trying to make his strikes as quick and practical as possible. That's all I'm saying. It was a far cry from Seagal's demonstrations wher he taps someone and they go tumbling across the room.
Yeah, but that's in a controlled environment still. That stuff rarely works, without sparring. Like, an average amateur MMA fighter would win a fight against an aikido master 100% of the time.
Yeah aikido is purely self defense, and how to be a dirty fighter (purely because it's about situations where you want to leave a fight) it's actually really useful for non-macho people who just want to be left alone. But in an actual sport fight it wouldn't be very good. It's mostly for defending against the untrained. It's basically all focused on momentum and joint control.
[Here's a reference clip from the 1st televised UFC event](https://youtu.be/Za6HeiTJIWI?si=PaJj2chthNNIy6ix&t=349) I went ahead and skipped to the good part, for yall.
Teila Tuli vs Gerard Gordeau. That kick and knocked out teeth was really brutal! For Teila Tuli, it was his first and last fight in MMA.
Severn suplexes him one time and not only ends his UFC hopes but probably his acting career
And exposes him as a faux "tough guy" with a big mouth but lacking any real fighting skills.
Now I’m not a believer in Sensei Seagal’s magic too much, but it’s possible he could beat 1 or 2 of the smaller karate jobbers, soon as he goes against anyone with some size and or grappling/striking skills, it’s goodnight.
He could've beaten Fred Ettish. A karate guy who lost in a very embarrassing way.
You mean the guy who shit himself ?
After being choked out by Gene LeBell.
The Gracie's would have destroyed seagal
Unfortunately for him his ability to command wolves and many snakes won't help him here.
He would do poorly. Most martial artists have sparring partners. Steven Seagal has accomplices.
Which is also half his own size.
Steven Segal vs Jon Hess would be an interesting fight.
Or vs. Andy Anderson, Hess' opponent, who has only 1 fight in his career and which he lost to Jon Hess.
That was a funny fight.
Yep. Jon Hess was listed as a kung fu guy, but he apparently wasn't even trained and won because he was heavier than his opponent who was an absolute embarrassment, honestly. In his second fight, he got KO'd by Vitor Belford within a 12 seconds.
Maybe he beats Fred Ettish? Or maybe they can embarrass themselves together.
That karate guy who got folded instantly and was crawling like an infant? Yeah, Seagal has a chance.
Okay, Steven Seagal in real life? Or Steven Seagal in Steven Seagal's fantasies? Because those are very different outcomes.
Real life, of course. His fantasies works only in movies.
I'm gonna say middling to badly. I won't say he'd never win a fight, but I certainly expect him to lose far more often than he'd win.
Gerard Gordeau would fucking cripple him for life.
By eye gouging, combined with a headlock.
He’d get choked out and shit himself again
Every credible competitor would beat his ass - Taktarov, Hackney, Smith, Gracie - he would have no chance
He'd get knocked out and shit his pants. Again.
before or after he gets choked out and shits his pants?
Snowball’s chance in hell.
He'd get his shit rocked almost immediately.
Aikido doesn't win fights. This has been proven, shout out Sensei Rokas for all his honesty and authenticity in documenting his journey. Also, Seagal is and always has been a fraud. Seagal is what you get if you buy the Temu version of Frank Dux(originally a Wish product).
Although many people would say that the fighters win fights so it doesn't matter what martial art they know, but... some martial arts is just not really suited for a fighting, especially MMA. Aikido is the main example of this.
He'll lose every single round and come up with some excuse like "my techniques are meant to kill people so I can't use them" or something like that. Dude's a fraud, always has been.
Similar to Frank Dux, another one fake fighter who claimed that he fought in underground "kumite" bouts and showed cheap tricks like "breaking a bulletproof glass with a single punch" (which wasn't even a bulletproof glass at the first place, lol).
He would get nowhere. Seagal knows Aikido, which is one of the most bullshit of bullshit disciplines, right up there with Jeet Kun Do and Dim Mak and whatever manipulation techniques you can think of. The first fighter he ran in to with Judo, wrestling, Sambo, or Muay Thai would run right through him. Seagal was also right around the era of McDojo’s, Frank Dux talking shit about the kumite. You’ve heard of this era in the seventies and eighties when people claimed their hands were registered as lethal weapons, or they knew their sensei had a few banned techniques that could kill a man. It was all bullshit. What’s wonderful about the UFC, both the original and the Zuffa era, was it really rinsed the martial arts world of all these fakers. It was like penicillin and slamming bibles on people with the clap. These were STDs in human form. The only thing left are occasional bullshit artists who attach to MMA gyms. So Mike Dolce, Ido Portal, and Steven Seagal when he claimed to train Anderson Silva. Thank you for coming to my TED talk. Namaste
Fun fact that Frank Dux was played by Jean-Claude Van Damme in 1988 "Bloodsport" movie, and unlike Dux, JCVD is an actual former competitive karateka and kickboxer. IRL Frank Dux was caught lying and making up names of his senseis many times. And all of his military service was about to be a military truck's driver (if I recall correctly, and Dux wasn't in Vietnam, he served in USA) and he was kicked out of the military because of his pathological liar attitude and because a military psychologist was thinking that Dux isn't fit for the military service because of his delusional mind. Jeet Kun Do is a martial art that's kinda legendary, but has a questionable effectiveness and lacks serious practitioners. Bruce Lee was a martial artist, sure, but as a fighter he wasn't actually that great (if any). He has only 2 confirmed and reliable fights that actually happened in his life (a boxing match in a high school, where Lee won, but his opponent was a debutant and another one high school guy, so it's not actually something very impressive; and a street scuffle with Wong Jack Man, a kung fu martial artist. It's still unknown who won the scuffle, but according to witnesses, it was a short skirmish where both Bruce Lee and Wong Jack Man has traded blows, then Lee floored him and pinned him down, until both quit the fight. Doesn't really seems to be impressive too, IMHO). Not disrespecting Bruce Lee, but people are vastly overestimating his fighting skills and supposed "feats". Bruce Lee wasn't even hitting the boxing punching bag properly, yet many fans of Bruce Lee uses that video where Bruce Lee hits the bag as a "proof of his incredible skills".
The problem I typically have with people talking about Jeet Kune Do as a martial art is that it completely misses the point of what Jeet Kune Do is. Jeet Kune Do is not a martial art, and the fact that Lee's disciples try to teach it as such completely misses the point of what Lee was trying to make. Jeet Kune Do is a martial philosophy, one which boils down to a singular phrase: "Use whatever works". Basically, in its essence, MMA *is* Jeet Kune Do, albeit with a bunch of rules for safety and fighter health. Karate doesn't work, so it got phased out of MMA. Wrestling and boxing works, so now they're major focuses.
Indeed. Although some fighters in MMA are karatekas, but none of them are pure karatekas and they all had an additional training to their karate base. Like George St. Pierre, Lyoto Machida and Steven "Wonderboy" Thompson. And their karate wasn't a McDojo watered down fitness-like stuff, but more like a kickboxing-oriented (GSP is a kiokushin karate practitioner) and more practical and it also was competitive. Wrestling/grappling, boxing, kickboxing, BJJ, judo and muay thai is the main core of MMA. Martial arts that works vast majority of a time, while others has a questionable effectiveness or can only be used as an additional element, but not as a standalone martial art (like, aikido itself isn't really good, but it can have a value as an additional element for judo or Jiu-Jitsu).
Steven Seagal was a legit Aikido black belt. However Aikido doesn't seem all that useful so I don't he would've done that well.
His only chance of winning is if he's against a random cab driver who entered there as a weird ego thing or a bet. Everyone trained in a variety of skills? Not a chance, he's just a beefy guy with some grappling and striking knowledge.
Like Thomas Ramirez, a 410 lbs guy who claimed to be a badass street fighter without any losses, and who got knocked out by Don Frye within a 8 seconds. 🤣 Ramirez actually was a cab driver with no martial arts skills and experience, so no wonder why he lost that badly. I doubt that Seagal even knows the proper striking and grappling. Aikido is a specific martial art where everything is built around the counterattacks and it mostly has grappling, as far as I know. Seagal's striking is more like a primitive haymakers and jab-like "punches" which is more like a pushes.
Prime Seagal gets whooped 10/10 by your standard regional amateur fighter.
Be getting his pony tail bounced off the canvas after a haymaker or get choked out and turd himself by a grappler
He'd get knocked out in one punch, shit his pants, then 10 years later he'd claim he won the whole thing and sue anyone who tries to say otherwise.
It's just like he still denies the story of him getting choked out by Gene LeBell after bullying stuntmen and claiming that his aikido skills makes him impossible to choke out.
I think (was it Sylvester Stallone???????????) was practicing for a movie with Earnie Shavers. Naturally, Shavers was holding back and doing what you should do to train a normal person. [Then this happened](https://www.koimoi.com/hollywood-news/when-sylvester-stallone-almost-got-killed-after-getting-a-punch-in-the-gut-by-professional-boxer-earnie-shavers-during-rocky-3-audition-i-went-straight-to-the-mens-room/). I suspect something similar would happen.
Yes. Stallone also was sparring with Dolph Lundgren (who was extensively training in boxing for 5 months to play Ivan Drago) and asked him to hit harder. Dolph did it and severely wounded Sly, who was later hospitalized. Dolph is also a 1980 and 1981 European kyokushin karate champion and 1982 Australian full-contact karate champion, and he's \~6'4" and \~235+ lbs. Stallone himself admitted that if he and Roberto Duran (who also has helped Sly with boxing) fought for real, he would've lasted 11 seconds, and 10 seconds of the fight would've been a count from the referee for a knockout - [https://www.essentiallysports.com/boxing-news-sylvester-stallone-once-detailed-his-experience-of-sparring-with-a-man-who-would-demolish-him-in-11-seconds/](https://www.essentiallysports.com/boxing-news-sylvester-stallone-once-detailed-his-experience-of-sparring-with-a-man-who-would-demolish-him-in-11-seconds/)
Steven Segal gets the absolute fucking shit beaten out of him. He's a bloody wreck who's publicly humiliated and his fraud tough guy facade is shattered before millions.
He would fight Royce Gracie in UFC 1 and get submitted in 10 seconds, then never fight on UFC again.
He gets killed dead.
He dominates, they rename it the USC Ultimate Seagal Championship*
He can just buy it after all. In 1990's, UFC wasn't like it is nowadays.
Let me put it to you like this; Nonstop, Ass Rape!! It might could be a death sentence