The 7 Most Badass Man vs. Beast Showdowns
If there is one thing we all know, it is that we are at the top of the food chain but by the grace of God. All around us are animals that are more powerful, more vicious and generally way more badass. But not all humans go down without a fight; some people look these creatures of certain doom in the eye, flex their muscles and say, "Let's do this."
Pit Bull vs. Jiu-Jitsu
The Showdown
There comes a time in every young boy's life where he must make a choice: Live a quiet, 9-5, soul-crushing life like the vast majority of us do, or take the road less traveled to the Land of the Badass. Nine year-old Drew Heredia left no doubts about how he would answer this question.
By doing this. This was his answer.
The fateful decision came one day as Drew was helping a friend walk her dog. Out of nowhere, a pit bull wrought of pure incandescent rage came charging towards them in full attack mode (we like to believe a smoke machine and some amount of pyrotechnics were involved).
Initially the pit bull attacked the girl's smaller dog, but the worst possible course of action in the history of the world unfolded as the girl tried to separate the two dogs, soon escalating the situation from "two dogs fighting" to "a little girl getting eaten by a dog."
As his lady friend got chomped on by the pit bull, Drew decided it was dog-stomping time and applied a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu chokehold. That's right: He choked the dog out.
Crane Kick? Pussy.
BADASS RATING: 8/10
Sure a pit bull is the smallest animal we have on this list, but we aren't going to hold that against Drew because his act was so fucking awesome he should, upon reaching adulthood, be awarded a medal made of blowjobs.
Just imagine that this picture was a medal, and those kittens were blowjobs. Awesome.
Anaconda Don't Want None
The Showdown
There is a lesson to the following story: There are some places where you should never let your children play, regardless of how much you hate them. In Brazil, that location is simply any place where the local predatory creatures can turn you into a Lunchables meal with feet.
Like this, with feet.
Mateus Araujo soon realized the wisdom in such logic when, while playing with friends in a local creek, he started to feel a very tight hug around his body (this is the one time where turning around to find it's a naked man in clown makeup would've been a relief).
This very unlucky eight-year-old found himself on a one way ticket to the food chain at the non-hands of one of South America's top predators, a 16-foot-long Anaconda--or as it is known in the rest of the world: "That snake that ate Jon Voight".
The anaconda, pictured here during its morning exercise routine.
In any other story this would've been the end, but fortunately for Mateus, his grandfather Joaquim was near, and the 66-year-old man had the perfect tools for some Anaconda slaying: a rock, and knife. Ole Pappy Pereira threw down on the slithering horror, smacking him upside the head for half an hour.
Finally the Anaconda cried, "No Mas!" and let Mateus go, slinking away to join the ranks of Anacondas humiliated by humans. Sorry big, scaly fella, it wasn't your day, but at least you didn't lose to Jennifer Lopez and a washed up rapper.
Badass Rating: 7/10
First, the man was 66-years old, an age where most folks are in retirement homes complaining about how their kids don't call them anymore. Second, consider that he wound up "beating" the snake instead of stabbing it, even though we know he had a knife on him. We like to think that at the sight of the blade the snake called him a coward, at which point the man tossed it aside and said, "I don't need no fucking knife to turn your ass into a pair of boots!" Then he picks up the biggest rock he can find and said, "It's ironic that you already got the munchies, because now you about to get stoned."
"Oh, this is lovely. Say, how many snakes do you think I can kill with this?"
Moose Are Ax-Proof
The Showdown
A Norwegian man named Salvesen was wandering in the woods alone one October morning, presumably in search of the rest of his name. What he found instead was a bull moose, glowing with white hot person murdering anger.
Pictured: Something that doesn't look like it can't beat you to death.
The moose charged at Salvesen, who dove behind some trees. He raised his ax and smashed one of the moose's legs, snapping the bone. Deciding it was time to "take the belt off," the moose hit Salvesen with its horns, badly bruising him, then tried to trample the man beneath its hoofs.
Salvesen, in no mood to run away, channeled the energy of his Viking ancestors and swung the ax into the moose's head, dropping it to the ground. He grabbed it by the horns to try and finish the job, but the moose drop kicked him like Chris Jericho and limped off into the woods to write an emotional LiveJournal account of the altercation.
Badass Rating: 7/10
Salvesen, with his cool-as-hell name and ax-wielding encounter with a rampaging moose, proves once and for all that everything awesome happens in Norway. Moose will kick your ass, but he boldly stood his ground and fought off a nigh-invulnerable opponent with nothing but a simple tool and the muscle memory of his forefathers. If they sold Viking blood on eBay, we would buy it by the gross and dump it into every Coke Zero we drink for the rest of our lives.
It could only improve the taste.
A Man Fights a Bear for a Sandwich
The Showdown
Henry Rouwendal was packing his car up one night for a business trip the following morning, sharing his tranquil moonlit driveway with an Italian hoagie (his wife was inside, presumably shedding tears of jealous rage).
Pretty soon the kids will be calling it "mom."
Suddenly, the peaceful evening was shattered by a crushing blow to Henry's back. He crumpled forward to the ground and rolled over to see a black bear deflowering his beloved three meat ciabatta mistress.
Thinking quickly (and with the theme song from The Karate Kid Part Two flowing in his veins), he stomp kicked the bear in the face and neck until it retreated back into the darkness, hoagie in tow.
When asked to describe his assailant, Henry simply said, "He was smarter than the average bear."
Henry managed to crawl back to his front door in just a shade under an hour (the formula for travel after a bear attack is something like 10 minutes per foot for every inch of your ass the bear kicks). His wife, a nurse, tended to the extensive bruising and dislocated shoulder he had suffered, no doubt while the husband demanded she get him back into a shape that would let him plunge into the night to retrieve his sandwich.
Badass Rating: 5/10
There are two types of people in the world: Those who think a sandwich is something to fight a bear over, and those who do not. How badass this story is depends on which of those you are.
Either way, nobody can deny that it takes nards of steel to kick a bear in the face.
Look at that smug bastard.
The Best Goddamn Mother-In-Law Ever
The Showdown
We here at Cracked have a theory about why unexpected things happen sometimes, and that is unexpected things happen so we can write articles about them, because we are the favorite sons of the Universe.
"Dear Cracked; You're kind of the bomb." - Universe
How else can you explain situations like what happened to Leon Chizeji, a school teacher from Zambia, who went outside of his house one morning to find two tons of pissed off Hippopotamus charging him on his front lawn, fully intent on dishing out some early morning assbeat.
Leon quickly found himself in the jaws of the hippo, being tossed around like a rag doll.
Then, help came from the most emasculating of sources possible: His mother-in-law. Rejoice Mushala made the choice to help save him from the rampaging beast instead of just letting it tear him up in hopes her daughter would marry someone richer next time.
She most likely made this choice because she isn't a character in an old sitcom.
Rejoice came to the rescue with a pounding stick and started clubbing the hippo in the head until it dropped Leon and retreated, presumably in search of a larger stick. Leon got off lucky with limited wounds to his hands, buttocks and pride as a man.
Badass Rating: 5/10
This was a perfect storm of brave old lady gonads and fantastic luck. The fact that the hippo wasn't more violent than it already was, that it didn't kill anybody and that it didn't turn on Rejoice once she attacked it should make churchgoers out of everyone involved.
The hippo was undoubtedly Hungry, Hungry.
Nonetheless, she went to bat against a pissed off, two-ton creature with massive teeth while most of us would've been huddled inside searching for Sylvester Stallone's number in the white pages. For that, we salute her.
Diver Challenges A Shark To Mortal Kombat
The Showdown
It seemed like any other day for professional spear fisherman Craig Clasen had been hunting yellow fin tuna just south of the Mississippi River's mouth with several of his friends. Things started to go south when one member of the group, Ryan McInnis, became stranded alone in the water away from the boat. Well, actually, he wasn't completely alone.
He had company in the form of a 12-foot tiger shark, and in case you failed "animals that will murder your face" class, tiger sharks are known for being fatally aggressive and can eat anything from tuna to dolphins to guys named Ryan McInnis.
"The next thing that pisses me off is getting eaten, I swear to God."
Clasen spotted the shark's attack posture and decided that this shit was now on like Donkey Kong. He jumped in the water with a spear gun and a knife, swam over to the shark and embarked on what would become a two hour long fight to the death/battle of destiny.
Clasen proved his manliness and came out on top of the duel after shooting the shark in the head and gills with his spear gun six times and using his knife to finish the job. All the while his friends were getting pictures of the deed, presumably because they knew no one would believe "I stabbed a shark in the face" on faith alone.
"Fuck you, shark!"
Badass Rating: 9/10
Unlike some of the others on this list, Clasen had the help of an honest-to-God weapon and thus a better fighting chance than many. However, the fact that he looked out into the ocean, saw a shark speeding towards his friend and decided "fuck this", probably makes him the baddest dude that ever lived. And if that wasn't enough, Clasen had this to say about the incident: "Personally I never shoot anything or kill anything that I am not going to eat. We saved the tail and the head, cut a giant chunk out of it and ate a piece."
Tastes like victory! Also, shark.
That's right. He killed the shark, and then he ate it. The balls of everyone else on the boat retreated back into their abdomens like frightened groundhogs.
Daniel M'Mburugu Ain't Nothin' To Fuck With
The Showdown
Americans tend to only know Kenya for two things: Guys that are fucking awesome at running marathons and dangerous animals that are fucking awesome at eating guys that run marathons. Are the two connected? And if we want an American to win the Boston marathon next year, should we unleash some jungle cats during training? Might be worth a shot.
The guy in the corner is timing his lap.
Anyway, while normally your speed tends to decrease with age, Daniel M'Mburugu was not like most 70-year-old Kenyans. He was instead the African Clint Eastwood, a dude so tough you could sharpen a knife just by holding it in the air next to his face.
One day, Daniel was minding his own business tending to his potato garden when suddenly giant spotted death in the form of a leopard lunged towards him, probably thinking that it had some easy pickings on the way. Unfortunately for the leopard, Daniel wasn't taking any of Death's calls that day (play some metal right here for the ultimate effect).
As the leopard lunged and knocked him to the ground, Daniel's seven decades of life told him exactly what he had to do: Rip the bastard's fucking tongue out with his bare hands.
Get up, go to the soda machine, then come back to your desk and read that sentence again. Sadly, Craig Clasen's friends weren't there to take pictures.
Badass Rating: 10/10
That's right, Daniel scores a perfect 10 on our badass scale, if for no other reason than one we haven't mentioned yet. Remember how we speculated about the old man in the snake fight tossed aside his knife just to be badass? Well that actually happened here.
"A weapon? No. I only use this for whittling."
That's right; Daniel had a machete at the start of the fight, but he dropped it because the voice of God told him to kill the leopard with his bare hands.
We may question the wisdom of a God that would say, "You know what, don't bother with the machete," but then again, would God not want the more awesome story?
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