(Props: brakus73)

Years ago, my dad saw a young Georges St. Pierre fight before I did. When I finally got a chance to see GSP in action, I agreed with my dad that he was like some Jean Claude Van Damme movie character come to life, what with his crazy kicks and foreign accent.

How awesome and funny would it be if Van Damme and his real fighter counterpart ever met, we laughed. Turns out, it’s just creepy.

Van Damme spent some time in Montreal with St. Pierre before UFC 154 working out, which is captured in this new video that he produced. We give Van Damme credit for being an actual athlete and for staying in amazing shape — and for, more than likely, being able to kick our asses — but he is creeping into Steven Seagal territory with this video.

While no one can approach the arrogance and outright fabrications of Seagal, Van Damme’s video does include a highlight reel mixing him acting in movies and St. Pierre fighting in real life. Ok, for writers of a certain age (mine) who grew up loving Van Damme movies, short-short splits on counter tops and all, the highlight reel is kind of dope.

Then you realize, “wait, is he actually drawing parallels between his movie roles and St. Pierre?” All that we can forgive the fifty-something actor. It is understandable that a Hollywood actor would try to get attention by jumping on to the MMA bandwagon. Van Damme also seems to be a legit fan of the sport and its athletes. It’s just that he may be too much of a fan of its athletes. Remember his creepy attempted make-out session with Fedor a few years ago?

Perhaps I am just ignorant to a lot of the subtleties of Aikido, but when I watched Steven Seagal “spar” with former Strikeforce champion Rafael Cavalcante in the moments leading up to UFC 148, I was less than impressed. Though there is little doubt in my mind (none, in fact) that Sensei Seagal would absolutely destroy me in a fight, even after consuming his daily pallet of chocolate covered pretzels, when given the choice between Seagal’s deadly patty-cake shenanigans and say, the leaping, spinning roundhouse kicks of Jean-Claude Van Damme, I will choose the latter 11 times out of 10. I mean, we’re talking about the living embodiment of Colonel William F. Guile here, people. I could also get into the whole debate about how it was actually JCVD that invented the front kick, as well as the Showtime kick, only to have the techniques Milli-Vanilli’d from him by Seagal and Anthony Pettis, but I’d prefer not to filibuster my own article for the sake of argument.

But you can understand my excitement when I heard that none other than the roundhouse-kicking thespian himself recently stopped by Tristar Gym to pay Georges St. Pierre and the gang a visit and partake in some light sparring. This video was tweeted by St. Pierre yesterday, and although it is extremely light on both the sparring and actual content, it’s still the coolest twenty five seconds you’ll see all day, so just enjoy it.

As you can see, Van Damme can still wing those kicks up there and stop them on a dime, whereas I would be shocked to learn that Seagal could even lift his legs off of the ground without assistance. This of course leads to the question: If JCVD and Sensei Seagal were to throw down nowadays, who would take it and how?

-J. Jones

(All the kicks from Van Damme’s ‘Kickboxer’. Thanks, Internet. / Props: thecussingchannel via ScreenJunkies)

- UFC 151: Jon Jones vs. Dan Henderson Official for Sept. 1 in Las Vegas (MMA Mania)

- Bellator 68 Preview and Predictions (MMAFighting)

- Mike Pyle’s Wife Says That Her Butt Is the Key to Their Inseparable Marriage (MiddleEasy)

- Rumor: Josh Thomson Has Torn PCL, Bout With Melendez Likely Off (Fightline)

- Can Testosterone Help You Lose Weight? (MensFitness)

- Good God, Sarah Jean Underwood Is Hot (The OG)

- 7 of the Most Mentally Unstable Fighters in MMA (Guyism)

- The Avengers and Their MMA Counterparts (BleacherReport/MMA)

- The 20 Funniest Moments In Breastfeeding History (WorldWideInterweb)

- 10 Totally Fake Myths about The Opposite Sex (DoubleViking)

- 6 Examples of Scumbag Fine Print (HolyTaco)

- ‘Speakeasy’ Episode 1, With Paul F. Tompkins and Ty Burrell (MadeMan)

(Van Damme was convinced that the man before him was in fact Cung Le, no matter how much he pleaded that he was “just the delivery guy.”) 

Somewhere in between having his nose turned into delicious mashed potatoes by Wanderlei Silva at UFC 139 and accepting a match with Rich Franklin at UFC 148, it looks like Cung Le managed to squeeze in another movie to add to his list of credentials that includes such films as Fighting, Pandorum, and Tekken. Being the only one of the above titles I have seen, I can honestly say that Pandorum wasn’t half bad, and neither was Le in it. That’s more than anyone say for Rampage Jackson’s film career thus far.

In any case, Le’s newest entry is called Dragon Eyes, and despite it’s ridiculously cliche title, it looks like it could actually be a pretty damn entertaining flick. Co-starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Peter Weller, and JCVD film veteran Kristopher Van Varenberg, Dragon Eyes hits stores on April 9th.

Join us after the jump for the action-packed trailer. 

(Video courtesy of YouTube/frankduxfan)

If you’re a fan of martial arts movies from the 80s, chances are you know who Frank Dux is. For those of you who thought he was just a fictional character played by Jean Claude Van Damme in Bloodsport, think again. He’s real and he’s a dangerous mofo.

Did you know he can punch through bullet proof glass?

How about the fact that he was in the CIA and a Navy Seal?

Toughest fight for Crisitane Cyborg so far? Contract negotiations.

Many, many, many moons ago, movie makers were looking to make a sequel to the live action Masters of the Universe movie starring Dolph Lundgren, and film it in North Carolina. Auditions were held for childrens’ roles in Wilmington, and i was one of many (i assume) kids who tried out to be in a movie with He-Man. Alas, the film company had some financial difficulties and the project was scrapped; i never got another chance to be Macaulay Culkin before Macaulay Culkin. The film company had already spent something like 2 milllion dollars producing costumes and sets for the movie, and wanted to re-purpose them to recoup some of the cash they’d put up, so they banged out a script about a dystopian future of plague and anarchy, hired Jean-Claude Van Damme, and that’s how the movie Cyborg came about. All that is 100% true, by the way.

I tell you that because i have no idea how Cristiane Justino Venancio Santos came into existence, although if you told me 2 million dollars, He-Man, surgical bionics augmentation, and JCVD were involved, i’d believe you. Cyborg is just that scary.

(Oh no. They’re going to cast Will Ferrell and Steve Carell, aren’t they.)

Maybe this is a little off-topic, but considering we previously named Bloodsport the #3 fight movie of all time — and the underground “Kumite” tournament depicted in the flick is basically the spiritual godfather of the UFC — you might be interested to know that the 1988 Van Damme classic is being remade for modern times. According to ScreenDaily (via ScreenJunkies), veteran producer Ed Pressman has closed a deal to remake the flick, and has tapped Phillip Noyce (Clear and Present Danger, The Bone Collector, Salt) to direct and Robert Mark Kamen (The Karate Kid, Lethal Weapon 3, The Transporter) to write the screenplay.

(Props: TachiPalaceFights. Fight starts at the 2:03 mark.)

Two months after he barely survived his first post-UFC outing against Angel DeAnda, James Irvin was back in action last night at "Tachi Palace Fights 7: Deck the Halls" in Lemoore, California — and he wasn’t so lucky this time. In the main event of the evening, Irvin took on 5-2-1 Chute Boxe product Jorge "Van Damme" Oliveira, who holds victories over Shonie Carter and Mike Van Arsdale. After failing on a takedown attempt, Oliveira wound up on his back, and did his best to defend Irvin’s ground-and-pound. At the video’s 3:24 mark, Irvin’s gets enough space to rain down some nasty blows, and Oliveira kicks him off. Irvin dives back in, and is immediately caught in a triangle/armbar. Fun fact: Irvin hasn’t been out of the first round in over four years.

Maybe Oliveira is just an affectionate guy in general, but the dude lays it on a little thick in his post-fight show of respect, hugging and kissing Irvin on the mat, raising the Sandman’s arm in faux-victory, bowing to him in a "we’re not worthy" pose (dude, it’s James Irvin, you’re worthy), getting up to hug him some more, then hugging him again after a brief visit with his corner. Now we know why they call him "Van Damme."

The Tachi Palace event also featured an insane bout between TUF 11 castmember Seth Baczynski and WEC/UFC vet Tim McKenzie, which ended with Baczynski getting his left arm snapped in an armbar, then elbowing McKenzie into unconsciousness with his non-broken arm. 2010 Finish of the Year candidate, for sure. Check it out after the jump…

(The Rampage Jackson Diaries, vol. 1: A quick look at Rampage’s secret training camp for UFC 123.)

Some selected highlights from our friends around the MMA blogosphere. E-mail feedback@cagepotato.com for details on how your site can join the MMA Link Club…

– A Lean BJ Penn Already on Weight For UFC 123 (MMA Convert)

– Tim Boetsch Talks Davis Fight, Learning From Past Losses (Heavy.com/MMA)

– Five Lessons: UFC 122 & WEC 52 (Versus MMA Beat)

– My First Fight: Dennis Hallman (MMA Fighting)

– Aleksander Emelianenko Is Singing in Front of a Live Audience and No One Knows Why (MiddleEasy)

– Strikeforce Cuts Ties With Roxanne Modafferi (Five Ounces of Pain)

– Why Brock Lesnar Should Fight Nogueira Next (LowKick)

– FIGHT! Rankings: Okami is the #2 middleweight in the world, Marquardt drops to #12 (FIGHT! Magazine)

– Jean-Claude Van Damme Gets Emotional While Discussing his Upcoming Fight (MMA Scraps)

– Fabricio Werdum’s Tune-Up Fight Plan Causes Needless Worry By Fans (SBNation.com/MMA)

(The war, she is hell.)

Here’s the explanation we were given to go along with this photo:

"Mixed Martial Arts star Andrei Arlovski is featured in the sequel of the iconic hit film UNIVERSAL SOLDIER. Stars Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren return as fight-to-the-death enemies in "Universal Soldier: A New Beginning."  The film has just wrapped principal photography.”

But between us, we think that’s all a clever cover story.  That’s what the government would like you to believe.  But look in those eyes.  See the despair?  See the anguish?  That’s a man who has grown disillusioned with the world of pro fighting and has traveled into the future to join some totally sweet army of motocross riders with machine guns who do battle with aliens or giant bugs or robots or something. 

At least that’s our take.  We’ll let you decide which explanation sounds more plausible.

(Kenny is sooooo happy for you!)

This week’s Fighter caption contest — which centered on a chance encounter between The Grim Reaper, Pooty-Poot, and the Muscles from Brussels — was an overwhelming success, hauling in 440-ish entries, nearly all of which revolved around some combination of hepatitis and homoeroticism. Three of them were good enough to earn copies of Fighter, courtesy of Viking and Coach. But first, some honorable mentions:

crookshark: In spite of his fighting skills, Aleksander Emelianenko proved to be terrible at musical chairs.

Destro: Jean-Claude breathed a sigh of relief…finally, someone who was even more underdressed than he was.

Horror Fighter: Frank Dux stopped smiling when Aleks reached into his shorts and pulled out Jackson’s Harley-Davidson bandana.

Dangada Dang: Jean Claude recovering from what will go down in history as THE most awkward boner.
*previous record held by….Jean Claude Van Damme

And the winners are…

(Just one of the reasons why you should rent “The Story of Ricky” immediately.)

Long before we became obsessed with MMA, martial arts flicks satisfied our thirst for blood. We now pay tribute to the best of the best — and the kickass fight scenes and iconic stars that made these movies so essential. Click the links for video clips, and let us know how you feel in the comments section…

***

10. Kickboxer (1989)

Say what you will about Kickboxer, but it delivers what it promises. Jean-Claude Van Damme plays Kurt Sloane, the European-accented brother to an American kickboxing champion (?) who travels to Thailand only to be paralyzed by the vicious Tong Po. It isn’t until Sloane seeks out the wisdom and awesomely unorthodox training of Xian Chow that he is ready to seek revenge in a brutal underground match that features no shortage of broken glass-encrusted fists and long, drawn-out screams.

Best Ass-Kicking: How do you prepare for the fight of your life? By getting drunk and beating up bar patrons while dancing horribly in pleated pants. How else?

Classic Quote: “I tell them you say they no good fighters… and that their mothers have sex with mules.” (Xian Chow)

9. The Legend of Drunken Master aka Drunken Master II (1994)