4 Celebs That Would Definitely Kick Our Ass
Usually, when the internet claims a celebrity is "badass," it's because they wore something cool or posted something daring to their Twitter account (after clearing it with their 27 publicists). But there's a select group of celebs who are actual badasses, in the sense that they could whoop our butts any time they wanted, and it isn't always who you expect. For instance ...
Tom Hardy Quietly Enters Enters Martial Arts Competitions, Wins All Matches
Imagine you've spent your whole life training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, work your way up to a big championship ... and the guy from Venom shows up out of nowhere and nails you to the ground. That happened a few weeks ago when a contestant called "Edward Hardy" at the 2022 UMAC Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Open Championship turned out to be Mad Max himself (well, the second Mad Max; it would have been even freakier if that was a 66-year-old Colonel Sanders-bearded Mel Gibson below).
Hardy's (losing) opponent at the finals said he was "shell-shocked" and called him the "toughest competitor I've had" in six tournaments, although he also stressed that Hardy was "genuinely a really nice guy" who kindly refrained from breaking anyone's backs over his knee while muttering unintelligibly.
And this isn't even the first tourney Hardy wins this year: back in August, he also took the gold at another competition held by a charity organization that teaches jiu-jitsu to people with disabilities -- and based on the videos, he could have added a couple of new members if he wanted.
Hardy doesn't like to brag about his martial arts career, but apparently, it started when he was preparing for the 2011 film Warrior. It's not uncommon for actors to get buff for a role -- even Kevin James got reshaped into an MMA-fighting machine for Here Comes the Boom in 2012 and has since reverted to his original pudgy form. The difference is that Hardy kept training and competing on the down low and gained his Brazilian jiu-jitsu blue belt in 2020. If he has upgraded that since then, he ain't saying.
But, okay, you probably suspected the guy who played Bane could beat you in a fight even before learning he was a martial artist. Well, how about ...
Willie Nelson Is A Master Of Several Martial Arts
Willie Nelson looks like you could knock him over if you exhale too hard in his general vicinity, but looks can be deceiving. He's actually a fifth-degree black belt in the Korean martial art of Gongknown Yusul, which he earned in 2014, just before turning 81.
This wasn't some honorary degree, like when South Korea's president told Barack Obama, "Yeah, sure, you can have a taekwondo black belt, why not." Nelson broke boards for 20 years to earn that baby. He also has a second-degree black belt in taekwondo, which he has been practicing since the '80s. His interest in martial arts dates back to times immemorial when he was in high school. At the time, Willie was getting into a lot of fights with other boys (having a sister in the same school will do that), and at some point, it became clear he needed to get better at it if he wanted to live to be 81.
His solution came from DC Comics -- no, he didn't dress up as a bat and start jumping bullies in alleys. Instead, he ordered all the jiu-jitsu and judo books advertised on the comics' back pages and studied them intently. Later on, he also learned kung fu, which he credits for giving him his zen attitude, and took boxing lessons. We're guessing the sister jokes went down dramatically after that.
In the '90s, Willie began practicing Gongkwon Yusul with Sam Um, a respected Grand Master of the discipline who also directed an action movie starring his pupil in 2007. It's called Fighting with Anger, and looks like they spent 99% of the budget on corny punching and kicking sound effects.
Wait, no, we meant it looks amazing (yeah, we don't want Willie Nelson showing up at the Cracked offices and kicking all of our asses in 15 different ways).
Wiz Khalifa Learned MMA And Beefed Up
Wiz Khalifa is best known for rapping about smoking fat doobies with Snoop Dogg and looking like his (in his own words) "skinny little n-word" body might collapse from the bling he's wearing in some of his videos.
So it was kind of a shock when he emerged to promote a new album in 2018 and looked like a completely different person who could probably toss that scrawny kid over a lake. A year earlier, Wiz had started doing jiu-jitsu just because his cousins were into it and had a tendency to use him as a "practice dummy." Eventually, he says he "got tired of getting my ass whooped" and started training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu before realizing he liked Muay Thai better. Five years later, he's still at it, and this is what he looks like now:
Wiz says he went from having never, ever had a strict routine for anything to intensely training every day -- and, if you're wondering, yep, he still smokes fat doobies. It's just that now he uses the munchies to gain more weight he can then chisel into muscles.
His interest in martial arts has expanded to the point that he's now one of the owners of the Professional Fight League and says he's thinking about competing in some MMA fights himself. Here's an idea: he should fight Willie Nelson and the winner smokes a joint. The loser also smokes a joint. Everyone smokes a joint. In fact, forget the fight.
Demi Lovato Is A Second Degree Jiu-Jitsu Blue Belt
Be careful when making fun of Demi Lovato for their belief that they can summon aliens telepathically -- they might knock your tooth out like they did with their MMA trainer Jay Glazer, even though Glazer was wearing a mouth protector.
Lovato got really into MMA in 2016, at one point training four hours a day in Glazer's gym. Their routine included boxing, Muay Thai, ground fighting, and of course, every celebrity's favorite, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which they initially got interested in just because they "loved watching people grapple." As they told Joe Rogan: "Regular life seems easy when some b*tch is on top of you trying to collar choke you."
In fact, Lovato liked jiu-jitsu so much that they earned their first blue belt after only a year of training (for most people, it's two or three) and got a second one in 2019. Between those two belts, they had a drug overdose and nearly died, but the intense training actually helped them cope with sobering up -- they're clearly addicted to rolling around the mat, but at least this one's a positive addiction.
After a pandemic-related break, Lovato resumed training in 2021 and (based on social media posts) is still at it. At this point, they could probably put together a whole squad of Brazilian jiu-jitsu-trained celebrities, including Hardy, Willie, Wiz, Nic Cage, Jim Carrey, and more. Together, they might just be able to take on black belt Ed O'Neill from Married with Children (if he throws the fight).
Follow Maxwell Yezpitelok's heroic effort to read and comment on every '90s Superman comic at Superman86to99.tumblr.com.
Thumbnail: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons, joshbg2k/Wikimedia Commons
