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Death Matches & Blood Sport

MrRING

MrRING

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I was reading a great article in Hogan's Alley's print magazine on the history of kung-fu ads in the backs of comics, when it brought up the infamous Count Dante ads.

As his postumous website states:
On Sept. 1, 1967, the Directive Committee of the World Federation of Fighting Arts declared Count Dante the "Worlds Deadliest Fighting Master" in recognition of his having defeated the worlds foremost fistic and grappling arts masters in 'no-holds-barred' fighting matches. Count Dante was the first, last and only person to win his title after the 1967 world fighting arts "Death Matches" (now illegal).
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The article I read even said he had killed over a hundred people at such matches. Which seems par the course for Count Dante, Man of A Thosand Brags, and I doubt he was really involved.

But here is the UL angle: is there such a thing as legally proven "death matches" going on around the world where the point is, like the gladiators of old, to kill your opponent in the ring for the entertainment of the crowd? If so, what is known about it?

Or are death matches like "snuff films", in that everybody is sure that they are out there in a black market way, but thus far are just a UL?
 
This of course brings up the question as to how legitimate WERE those "gladiatorial combats to the death of old"?

What sort of Roman "businessman" purchased a slave, then fed and trained him for two or three years, knowing that he had a fifty percent chance of dying in his first match and nearly a one hundred percent chance of being dead by the end of his second match or his third? This CAN'T have been very cost-effective!

And I've read various places that those Roman "to the death" contests were the ancient equivalent of modern professional wrestling. When Gladiator One stabbed Gladiator Two "to death" he was actually cutting into a bladder full of pig's blood held firmly in Gladiator Two's armpit.

So what IS the truth here?
 
Well the Wikipedia has a big page about the bragging of wrestlers. Excerpt follows:

Taipei Death Match
Two wrestlers tape their fist and dip them in glue. They also have a bucket of beer bottles, they smash the bottles to shards and dip their glued-soaked fist in the shards and tear each other apart. Ian Rotten and Axl Rotten fought against each other under these stipulations both at ECW Hardcore Heaven 1995 and at the Hardcore Homecoming event called November Reign.

The page also includes the Bra & Panties match. Now that I can believe! :D
 
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18th century bare-knuckle boxing matches were horrendously brutal, and frequently led to fatalities. Though they were never really advertised as 'death matches', the fact that there was (a) no time limit on the fight, and (b) you could hit your opponent wherever you liked, meant that they were actually 'fights to the death' in all but name.
 
The Wikipedia entry on Frank Dux is interesting - he's the guy whose "true life exploits" supposedly led to the films Bloodsport and The Quest:
Frank William Dux is a modern American neo-ninja innovator. He is also the founder of an amalgamated martial arts with the anacronym FASST, also called Dux Ryu Ninjutsu.

Frank Dux is also the author of the book, "The Secret Man" (1996) published by ReganBooks. In the book, Dux claims that Director of Central Intelligence William Casey approached him to become a contract paramilitary agent for the Central Intelligence Agency. He claims to have operated in Iran, Nicaragua, Grenada, and even in the Soviet Union, with members of Spetsnaz's Alpha Group.

The film Bloodsport is alleged to be based on events in his life. Bloodsport was also considered a breakthrough role for Jean Claude Van Damme, who played Dux. From that point on, Dux and Van Damme became friends. Van Damme had then promised Dux jobs as martial arts choreographer in his films, but that never came to fruition.

Dux wrote a script entitled "The Kumite", which was to revisit the story Bloodsport had laid out, and this time with a bigger budget. Dux would also capitalize on Van Damme's earning power and make him the star. Van Damme promised 2.5 percent of the movie gross to Dux. This movie is announced for 2007.[1]

Later on, another screenwriter reworked the script into The Quest. However, Dux received nothing but $50,000 and a story credit after filing a complaint with the Writer's Guild of America. He would then sue Van Damme for breach of oral contract, but ultimately lost the suit in court and subsequently ended his friendship with Van Damme.

Frank Dux is unique in that he claims to have been taught the martial art of ninjutsu secretly by a neighbor during his adolescent years growing up in Woodland Hills, California. There is no evidence of the Ninja teacher, Senzo Tanaka, sometimes referred to as Takizo Tanaka, or the two nephews of Tanaka which Frank Dux says he trained with.

There are many critics of Dux however, that claim that virtually all of his exploits are fraudulent, that he never competed in any underground no-holds-barred tournament, and that he is no martial arts master. In a November 1998 article titled "Stolen Valor: Profiles of a Phony-Hunter." Soldier of Fortune Magazine accused him of falsifying his military record. Many people in the martial arts community accuse Dux of fabricating his past, and that he is no martial arts expert.
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Yeah I mentioned the various neo-ninjas here:

www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 657#623657

The main common factor is that they are talking out of their arses.

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An interesting actual martial artist is Masutatsu Oyama:

www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 120#568120

He fought bulls with his bare hands and used a technique called Ichi geki, Hissatsu ("One strike, certain death") although it is unclear if he actually killed anyone.

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On the wrestling front the Japanese Deathmatchs sound the most out of control - they combine thumbtacks, broken striplights, barbed wire and C4. Although it isn't a lot it can get nasty. If you read Mick Foley's first autobiography he describes such a match and there are photos of the nasty burns he got (my favourite story is that they ended up asking people to bring thins down for them to hit each other with and someone once brought a canoe).

There is plenty on YouTube:

A Jungle Deathmtach:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oas6F4DJBxU

A barbed Wire Deathmatch Fall:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs_fJYgmGBc

Electrified Exploding Barbed Wire Cage Land Mine Match
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkCFMofL9_w

A no roped barbed wire, barbed wire wrapped bricks deathmatch
www.youtube.com/watch?v=15Jg-zkhH3w

A no rope barbed wire deathmatch with a time bomb countdown
www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0s1TwdhDz4

A broken glass, exploding barbed wire boards, & exploding barbed wire ropes, with a timb bomb countdown(which causes the ring to explode) death match:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgT9aeZCml8

Sabu vs Terry Funk - I think its the one where you can see bits of tendon hanging out of Sabu's arm and h gaffer tapes himself up to finish the match:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYo51Vh_Aks

Its pretty silly really - the premis and the hype of the danger deflect from the fact that nothing much happens and they probably do riskier things in more conventional matches.

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I suppose they might go on amongst the filthy rich where money is plentiful and life is cheap but...

Closes tyou might get is this spoof:

www.bbspot.com/News/2005/06/real_life_death_match.html
 
So, the things known as death matches aren't really to the death, it seems.... there should be a Snopes entry....
 
MrRING said:
So, the things known as death matches aren't really to the death, it seems.... there should be a Snopes entry....
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Its all a work betraying its carnie origins. I'm not sure a snopes entry on wrestling is a bit fake is necessary. ;) Oten even the barbed wire is fake although in this day and age you often hear them say that certain wrestling companies use the real stuff and its probably a matter of art imitating life but in most of those videos the guys are blading themselves (in fact the comments on one video are disparaging as one of the guys missed his blading cues and there ends up being no actual blood). I've also seen hardcore matches were there is an obvious switch of weapons.

I'd certainly rather take part in a "deathmatch" than Hell in a Cell - this half killed Mick Foley (he is pretty open and honest about the damage he took and his kids were ringside too):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAQgz_AmPQQ

The full thing in 2 parts:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2l4BtJjEHqA
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2l4BtJjEHqA

I'd take the claims on Bloodsport with a pinch of salt too - it certainly doesn't appear in the IMDB trivia - "based on a rampant self-publicist's claims" might be closer to the truth. That said it does contain:

# Though Frank Dux's brick-breaking demonstration is purely fictional, the Dim Mak ("Death Touch") is a legendary move fabled in Chinese martial arts folklore. The Dim Mak is an accu-pressure attack where the attacker quickly strikes his opponent several times (in sequence) at various spots on his body. Striking an opponent in this method can result in broken bones, paralysis/painful muscle spasms or even instant death. Cheng Pei-Pei's character Jade Fox uses a paralyzing Dim Mak-type attack in Wo hu cang long (2000).

# The real Frank Dux was the fighting coordinator for this film.
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www.imdb.com/title/tt0092675/trivia

Although again you might need the salt to hand:

However, many modern martial artists consider the legends of Dim Mak to be a wuxia fiction. Others assert that it was a form of sorcery, at one point, but is now a lost art. Yet others claim to teach it in the martial syllabus of their schools.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dim_Mak

Its interesting that the See alsos on that page include Neo-ninja and McDojo
 
Damm i'v not seen Wrestling like that and that cannot be legal.
 
MrRING said:
I was reading a great article in Hogan's Alley's print magazine on the history of kung-fu ads in the backs of comics, when it brought up the infamous Count Dante ads.
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So now there is a short documentary about Count Dante on Youtube

And a bit more:
https://martialartsfraudsandfakes.wordpress.com/2016/09/17/count-dante/
Less known is that on July 22, 1965, Dante was charged with attempted arson when he and an accomplice, Douglas Dwyer (the “Second Deadliest Man Alive”), were arrested while taping dynamite caps to a rival Chicago dojo. Both claimed to be under the influence of alcohol at the time, but Dante explained this was the result of a disagreement with the dojo’s owner over payment for a tournament that Dante had arranged there. Friction between rival martial arts schools eventually culminated in the “Dojo War” incident of April 24, 1970 where Dante and some of his students went to a rival dojo of the Green Dragon Society’s Black Cobra Hall where they claimed to be police officers and attacked the rival dojo’s students. The brief battle resulted in the death of one of Dante’s friends (and fellow sensei), Jim Koncevic. Dante was ultimately acquitted of any wrongdoing, but not before both sides were given a stern lecture by the judge citing everyone at fault.
It has been suggested in some circles that Dante was a mastermind in the notorious 1974 Chicago Purolator vault robbery in which 4.3 million dollars was stolen, but ultimately he was questioned and passed a lie detector test. Dante died shortly before the trial was completed, in his sleep of internal hemorrhaging caused by a bleeding ulcer, at age 36 on May 25, 1975.
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Another article:
http://themartialist.net/who-was-count-dante/
 
One thing that baffles me about gladiatorial matches is the distance to the audience. How would they be able to see what was going on? It must be like watching a boxing match from 50 m away.
 
Xanatic* said:
One thing that baffles me about gladiatorial matches is the distance to the audience. How would they be able to see what was going on? It must be like watching a boxing match from 50 m away.
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Just pondering this, I think we could look to the example of professional wrestling. Gladiators were a finite resource, particularly those successful and popular enough to draw the big crowds, so it wouldn't make much sense to have them fighting to the death all the time, or even fighting with intent to cause serious injury. After all, you don't want to see your big earner unable to fight for a prolonged period. So it wouldn't surprise me if, from time to time, the fights weren't exactly on the level, and certain gladiators would agree to "take a fall", or stage a more theatrical fight - and the distance from the audience meant it would be harder for spectators to spot anything untoward.

I haven't a shred of evidence to base that on, mind you, just an idle thought.
 
Xanatic* said:
One thing that baffles me about gladiatorial matches is the distance to the audience. How would they be able to see what was going on? It must be like watching a boxing match from 50 m away.
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They had giant screens so that the spectators could see what was going on. The crowd were also supplied with giant thumbs so that the Resident Dignitary could accurately judge their mood.
 
Xanatic* said:
One thing that baffles me about gladiatorial matches is the distance to the audience
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The Coliseum is certainly enormous, with room for up to 80,000 spectators, according to Wikipedia. I think it is the concept of a 'match' which does not fit, encouraged as we are by epics featuring Kirk Douglas and Russell Crowe etc.

The gladiatorial entertainments were spectacles, designed to inspire awe, rather than encourage engagement with the performers. I imagine it was a bit like those choreographed opening ceremonies for the Olympics etc, only with more bood and guts. The wholesale butchery of wild animals likewise asserted the power of Rome. It is said the shows were accompanied by the roaring of a massive, water-powered organ called the hydraulus.

"Substantial quantities of machinery also existed in the hypogeum. Elevators and pulleys raised and lowered scenery and props, as well as lifting caged animals to the surface for release."

Much more here. :popc:
 
As a gladiator you would probably be more interested in putting on a show than in killing the other guy. That would be what would make the audience want you to come back.
 
My old Muay Thai trainer was taught by a man who's own trainer fought in Thailand in the 1960's using hand wraps coated in glue with bits of broken glass stuck in them.
 
Bare knuckle fighting was a thing up until the 70's at least - the 1970's I mean. My Dad did it when he first came to London looking for work before WW2. The money was of course made by bets. He eventually got a bad foot injury (not while fighting) and couldn't carry on, but one of the guys who'd won money on him found him a job. My mum didn't meet him until after that and didn't really know about it - she knew he had been a boxer but assumed the legit sort.

For more recent examples look up The Guvnor - Lenny McLean.
 
I boxed and fought martial arts for ~ 10 years. When much younger of course. Many so called teacher, sensei, whatever: that I encountered were charlatans - money grabbers. However I did see a man when young "who immigrated from China" that could slowly drill a substantial hole in a brick by grinding-rotating the brick with his index finger. Much more impressive than board breaking. The 1st thing he did was pass around the brick for all to inspect, then he performed the brick drilling. After ~ 10 minutes he was exhausted.
 
Yossarian said:
Gladiators were a finite resource, particularly those successful and popular enough to draw the big crowds, so it wouldn't make much sense to have them fighting to the death all the time...
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As you say, gladiators were valuable. Fights were usually staged merely to a definitive end, e.g. an incapacitating wound or utter exhaustion. Audiences seem to have been ready to support mercy if both participants were seen to have done their best. I seem to remember that most gladiators fought no more than 4 to 5 bouts per year, and fewer would not be unusual.

Annoyingly I can't find either of my books on the subject, so all this is from memory.

Here's an illustration that gives a good idea of this:

main-qimg-118e499f833a493668593cfbe5b5f098.webp

"Hilarius Neronianus, fought 14, won 12. Princeps Neronianus, fought 12, won 11. Creunus fought 7, won 5, spared (No number)"

Modern depictions of gladiators also show that they wore a surprising amount of protective kit to enhance their survivability.

JamesWhitehead said:
The Coliseum is certainly enormous...
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The Coliseum certainly is, but I don't think anyone's ever been killed in a gladiatorial fight there. The Colosseum, however, is a different matter...

;)

maximus otter
 
Footage of some of Count Dante's training materials and other ephemera:

The "only" motion footage of Count Dante in action:
 
Another Count Dante write-up here:
https://sportsstories.substack.com/p/count-dante-the-worlds-deadliest
And here we have the “official” end of John Keehan and the beginning of Count Dante. In 1967, Keehan legally changed his name to Count Juan Raphael Dante. He was no longer an Irish kid from the south side of Chicago. He was a descendant of Spanish Civil War refugees. And he began to build a “new” reputation around the same bullshitting he would do with his old buddies when he was still John Keehan.

He was, in the classic sense of the word, a hustler. Dante worked as a hairstylist. He took out ads in comic books proclaiming himself to be THE DEADLIEST MAN ALIVE. He sold memberships to a secret society called The Black Dragon Fighting Society. He fostered the notion that he was capable of killing a man with a single, well-placed blow. He bought a pet lion cub and walked it around Chicago like a dog.

Dante shrouded himself in layers of mythology and bullshit. He built his persona on the preconceived biases of his audience: karate was still mystical to most of the working class Chicagoans and distant comic book readers he was targeting: people with imaginations to match his own and ordinary lives that led them to seek out something big and exciting and different.
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Also, it seems like not everybody is agreeing with the angle of the documentary that has been worked on...
http://john-keehan.blogspot.com/
 
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There are reports of Mexican cartels organising death matches between captured members of rival gangs. There are plenty of sites giving detailed rundowns of such 'events'. Plus, a warning, if you do go down the cartel rabbit hole, do not, for your own sanity watch any of their own videos (there are plenty of them out there), as they are violent, bloody & inventively sadistic.
 
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Dante was a complete fraud. Due was a hairdresser.

It's only my opinion, but I have little doubt that "death matches" have and do occur.
 
This video discusses the story of when Sakujiro Yokoyama and Kyuzo Mifune took on a group of thirteen young men and defeated them.
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Footage of young Count Dante interviewd for TV in 1967:
The quoting for this video mentions this about the Dojo War and the charge that Dante was involved in a major bank robbery:
The Dojo War incident of April 24, 1970, where Dante and some of his students performed a dojo storm on Green Dragon Society's Black Cobra Hall. According to press coverage, upon entering the school, they claimed to be police officers and attacked the rival dojo's students. The brief battle resulted in the death of one of Dante's friends and fellow sensei, Jim Koncevic. Former mob lawyer Robert Cooley states in his autobiography When Corruption was King that he represented Count Dante during the trial following the 1970 Dojo War incident. Cooley recalls that Dante was ultimately acquitted but not before both sides were given a stern lecture by the judge citing everyone at fault.

Cooley also suggests that Dante was a mastermind in the notorious 1974 Chicago Purolator vault robbery in which the amount of $4.3 million was stolen. While not one of the suspects in the trial, Dante was allegedly questioned by Illinois grand jury and ultimately passed a lie detector test. Dante died shortly before the trial was completed which resulted in the conviction of all but one person involved.
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