I rewatched Bloodsport recently, which is one of my favorite movies. Amazingly, this movie was marketed with the claim that it told the true story of Frank Dux who allegedly fought in countless illegal martial arts competitions. This does not really pass the smell test, in particular when you look at the claims made in the outro of this movie, as I will discuss in a moment. However, as outlandish as these claims may be, they perfectly illustrate the incredible amount of power the elites used to have when they exclusively controlled the media.
Frank Dux was telling tall stories about his successes in martial arts competitions abroad. He says that he has ties to the Mossad, too, which is surely only a coincidence. Looking at his Wikipedia page, you get the impression that he is a pathological liar, making one outlandish statement after another. The media supported him. At best there were some lame excuses such as it being “difficult to prove or disprove” his claims. However, the bigger the claim the stronger the evidence needs to be, and if there is no evidence for implausible claims then it is better to dismiss them.
In the outro of Bloodsport you can see a summary of Frank Dux’s achievements. Among others, we learn that his fastest knockout-punch took 0.12 seconds and that his fastest knock-out kick had a speed of 72 mph. He also knocked out 56 people in a row in a tournament. All of this supposedly took place in secret “kumite” events of which there are no records of any kind. This is bullshit at a level that is hard to fathom. When I saw this list of claims, my first thought was that it is pretty unlikely that there is high-tech equipment in place at such tournaments to make such measurements, and if there is, then why do they not just show the original video tapes? Thus, you invariably conclude that these must be lies.
Of course you can dismiss Bloodsport as a silly movie, but that would be beside the point. Instead, the much bigger issue is that the claims Frank Dux made follow the communication patterns the elites could use before the Internet. They simply propped someone up as an authority, told them what bullshit to spout, and you had no easy way of verifying these claims. Even if you could dismiss claims as nonsensical, based only on reasoning, you were not able to respond as there was only one-directional communication in place.
If you go back in history, even recent history, you can find a lot of examples of bullshit claims by the elites. In every war, they invent atrocity porn. This exists to this day but nowadays, you can get real-time commentary from other sources, too. Covid, the climate hysteria, and the gender nonsense follow the same playbook. An adjustment, though, is that the elites nowadays needs to expend a lot of energy on suppressing criticism. The key difference between today and the past is that the elites are no longer able to monopolize the media, push their bullshit claims uncontested, and prevent dissenting views from reaching an audience, however small. This is quite probably one of the reasons why there is so much censorship online but this is a losing battle. None of the elite projects of today, e.g. trannyism, climate hysteria, and mass immigration, have popular support. Without the Internet, none of this would happen. We would instead live in a version of Orwell’s 1984, in which the elites still control all media and push their agenda completely unhindered.
Frank Dux is without a doubt a fraud. Here is a video by the legendary Bullshido.net member “ThePinkMan” (He sadly took down his series of videos on his channel talking about other frauds in the Martial Arts sphere, possibly to troll us. fortunately a few bits and pieces were saved and this is one of them) explaining how Frank Dux’s Kumite (56 rounds in KO’s in a row in a single tournament) would have been mathematically impossible in the real world:
https://www.facebook.com/BlackDragonFightingSociety.org/videos/frank-duxs-kumite-was-impossible_hd-by-pink-man/241711027491791/ (You can start at 1:50 if you want to get right to the point)
Summary: In order for the Kumite tournament to have been possible and for Frank Dux to have gone through 56 rounds/men, the number of competitors in the Kumite would have required over 10 MILLION times the global human population!
Math being your strong point and all, you might be able to double check the calculations for yourself, Aaron. Should be more or less accurate though.
Dux is quite the character (well, when you look from a distance I mean. you absolutely do NOT want this guy anywhere near your personal life if the people reports of his personal misconduct is to be believed). If financial success was all it was about, I think he could have used the success of Bloodsport as an opportunity to fully retire from Martial arts (“hey, I’m an old man. I can’t do those things anymore!”), use the money to work on obtaining an actually legit skill he could make a living out of that is completely unrelated to this niche, instead of the absolutely stressful endeavor of having to keep up the charade for decades to come.
https://www.coloradospringsninjutsu.com/Ranting_and_Ravings_2016/Entries/2018/5/8_Frank_Dux_vs_Don_Roley!.html
Like the blogger described here though, Martial arts frauds are a rather…special breed. There is a lot of ego tied to this activity.
David DeAngelo (correct me if I’m mistaken however) is probably a decent example of a fraud who made as much profit as he could over PUA, and then getting out of it in time. His claim to expertise was not that he himself is a great seducer, but simply that he read a lot of books on the subject. So presumably, he had no ego invested in the niche and was able to let go when the truth was coming out and the money just wasn’t there anymore.
You are right that a tournament with single-round elimination and 56 rounds requires 56^2 attendees, which is an impossibly large number. However, when I encounter claims that seem nonsensical, I do normally not dismiss them outright but instead I look for possible interpretations that may make more sense. Some people use the term “iron-manning an argument”, patterned after “straw-manning”. Thus, with his many hundreds of tournament wins, I could imagine some kind of joke tournament with 57 competitors, him as the reigning champ, and all 56 people lining up to get knocked out. This does not make a lot of sense either, but note that the statement in the screenshot speaks only of “tournaments”, not of a “kumite”. Chess grand masters engage in a comparable activity when they give simultaneous exhibitions, playing against dozens of people at the same time by moving from board to board. They also normally walk away winning all games as the skill gap is too large.
Looking it up a bit, I believe another term for this is “Steelmanning”. Yeah, I do this too from time to time. Its great to get a good faith discussion going.
There is pretty much zero evidence however of Frank Dux ever competing, no video footage (he had attempted to pass off footage of Philippe Cadoret fighting as his own until he was threatened with a lawsuit for it. He stopped claiming it, but never retracted it either and does his best to evade the subject as much as possible) nor an officially recognized record.
The one real confirmed fight he got into is a street fight against Zane Frazier. (an actual legitimate fighter, you can look up his record) Dux claims it wasn’t a fair fight, that Frazier ambushed him with brass knuckles and friends, but the actual witnesses to the altercation all unanimously report that Dux was the one that threw the first punch while they had an argument going, yet still got utterly destroyed. (Interestingly enough, this was apparently what got Zane Frazier invited to UFC 1)
Anyway, I found an archive of ThePinkMan’s full video on Frank Dux:
https://archive.org/details/the-worst-martial-arts-fraud-of-all-time-the-pink-man
Its almost an hour long, as this was a multiple part video series separated by chapters. Chapter 4 beginning at 37:10 onwards is probably what you’ll find most interesting if you watch nothing else of the video.
Another interesting fact is that Dux has attempted to sue (with some, he’s went as far as doxxing and attempts to cause real life harm, but that’s another story) many of those who have publicly refuted his claims. (His book “The Secret Man” also got pulled off the shelves for false claims of working for the CIA and Stolen Valor. I might try to look for a download of it one of these days) He’s lost every single one of those lawsuits if I’m not mistaken.
I haven’t watched Bloodsport myself btw. Being an old school martial arts movie, I get the impression its one of those movies that’s good when you just want to turn your brain off and enjoy some action. I should probably give it a shot soon.
The most recent non-animated movie I’ve watched is Stephen King’s “Thinner”, which is pretty good IMO.
@Maou
I’m not sure if you are currently active in the MMA or BJJ, however, what do you exactly look for in a MMA/BJJ school and MMA/BJJ teacher? I’m aware that there are quite a few of Mc Dojos out there.
I can’t answer for Maou, but I think he was trained by sensies who trained de-escalation and conflict avoidance. My cousin was trained boxing by an amateur, and he’s lucky he didn’t end up in jail. I have a friend that was chomping at the bit to use his boxing skills. We need better trainers out there.
@Chris
What I ideally want in a Combat Sports gym is training that is up to date with optimal teaching methodology and sports science. Even better if it has dedicated classes towards real-life application. Yes, Competition is the bread and butter of Combat Sports and a big part of what creates quality control in that sphere, but there IS a critical difference between training for the ring and training for application outside of it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/martialarts/comments/epo6am/inefficient_and_ineffective_training_methods/
The previous gym I’ve been in suffered many of the same problems the poster here talks about. Unreasonably strenuous warm ups (warm ups are for…warming up. Its not supposed to feel like the actual workout itself. Going into a technical training session already fatigued sabotages learning.), mediocre (at best) padwork, bag wailing (hitting the heavy bag with no structured drilling. That has its value for getting the most basic mechanics down, but after that, it just becomes a cardio drill), lack of partner drilling, lack of variety of drilling, lack of a structured curriculum (especially true in BJJ), lack of technical sparring (the only sparring that was available to us is free-for-all hard sparring), etc.
I was still able to make the most of my stay in that gym. I got into the best shape of my life, I got more experience with hard contact (I think part of the reason I adapted relatively quickly to the hard sparring is because of my previous experiences with violence in my youth however. I was no stranger to getting punched with bad intent in the face. But someone who doesn’t have that same kind of background would have been in for a rough time.), but because of all those aforementioned flaws, I peaked relatively soon in my stay in that gym.
Once I reached a certain point in that gym, I knew I wasn’t going to noticeably improve anymore with the training methods that were being employed there. Continuing to engage in some of the hot-blooded gym brawls there, as fun as they admittedly were (I actually kind of miss it even though I’m writing this critique, lol), was just going to give me brain damage without a meaningful accruement of skill. As Georges St Pierre (past UFC Champion and Hall of Famer, arguably GOAT) pointed out himself, there are sadly many fighters out there who leave their entire fighting careers in the gym itself!
They pay the price you’d expect to see in professional fighters vying for championship in the ring, but many never actually compete. They waste their health and brain cells brawling in the gym. I mean, it can be fun (if you’re ready for it), and there’s some valuable lessons you can obtain from the experiences and learning to acclimate to the hard contact, but continuously doing it over the long term to end up punch drunk for nothing in return would be the height of foolishness.
I remember Joe Rogan basically convincing Brendan Shaub to quit MMA to avoid cranial damage. I think he’s doing OK with his comedic career now. Look at Ali and Frazier, and what they did to each other. Somehow George Foreman came out unscathed. Same thing with American football. You can only take so many repeated shots to the head.
“I can’t answer for Maou, but I think he was trained by sensies who trained de-escalation and conflict avoidance.”
– I’m flattered that I gave you this impression, GLAS. But sadly, no. I was never formally trained with the self-defense instructors I have talked about here. I have been in their groups and talked a little bit with them, but sadly neither the money nor logistics have yet to align for me. 🙁 Hopefully someday.
My only formal training as of the moment is from Combat Sports. I have done a lot of reading and discussion over the years on the subject however. As I’ve told several times already, I’ve come from the unfortunate background of being bullied and eventually tangoing with violence in order to eventually free myself of that problem in my youth. In the same way that Sleazy was able to sniff out the bullshitters in the PUA industry very soon because of first hand experiences, I was able to identify the BS in Martial arts and violence early on which led me to find the good sources on the subject to gain clarity on some of my experiences and expand my knowledge even further.
As unfortunate as it is that I had to lose what could have been a richly and more productively spent childhood dealing with this bullshit, this early life experience has given me quite the insight on the subject matter. I’ve spoken with several martial artists/combat sports fighters, some with impressive achievements in their field, who just don’t “get it” because of their lack of experience with serious violence, and lack the humility to admit that this lack of first hand experience means there’s a big piece of the puzzle that they do not possess and it would behoove them to give an ear to those who do.
I have had an MMA coach argue with me that he could “easily” defeat a drugged out berserk on PCP by tiring them out like he does to the beginners in his classes. (there’s that arrogance with martial artists thinking that just because somebody isn’t “trained”, means they don’t pose a real threat. What happened to the idea of not underestimating your opponent? Training just gives you an edge, it does not turn you into Superman) Never mind the reports (and even video footage) of these perps literally overpowering dozens of police officers, tanking tasers and gunshot wounds, and fighting until their heart literally gives out and they die.
Anthony Smith (a UFC fighter) experienced a home invasion and had to tango with the kind of perp we are talking about here. He described the experience as the most intense fight of his life, completely unlike anything he’s ever experienced in the UFC ring. He fortunately prevailed and without injury. He most likely experienced what I’ve described before as the “Mushin” phenomenon at that moment. Its a unique experience that’s very hard to describe to people who have never experienced it.
Honestly though, if more people in the Combat Sports community went through that kind of experience, I’m certain it would revolutionize the community consensus in a gigantic way.
Anyway, @Chris…maybe finding such an ideal gym might not necessarily be practical for you. The good news is that Combat Sports generally have better quality control than traditional martial arts or “self-defense” classes.
Ask if the gym competes (and not just within their organization), and check if they do at least respectably well in competition against other schools. Although I criticized my previous gym for less-than-ideal training methods, they met that criteria. they definitely had some very respectable fighters in there.
This won’t necessarily guarantee you’ll find an excellent gym that checks all your needs, but it should at least ensure you don’t end up training at a Mcdojo. (hopefully they at least have some light/technical sparring sessions. If not…well, decide for yourself if you can handle it and make good use of the training. Just know that there’s absolutely no shame if you find that you can’t yet. Forcing yourself into hard sparring when you’re not ready will just ingrain counterproductive panic reactions in you, if not outright traumatize you, all of which will only impede your development as a fighter.)
If they are not quite the ideal gym, you can switch later on when a better opportunity presents itself. I definitely got great value from that previous gym I trained at. I just recognized that I’ve pretty much reached the limit of how much I could benefit from training. My moving back home was timed at just the right moment that I began realizing this.
@Maou
Thanks for the input!
There’s a few MMA/BJJ schools around my area, but they aren’t too focus on combat fighting. They are more focus on fighting inside the ring, although they claim that their techniques are still effective in the streets.