Poll: Fight: steven seagal v JCVD - Who do you think would win?

Who would win?

  • Steven Seagal

    Votes: 196 44.5%

  • JCVD

    Votes: 244 55.5%
  • Total voters
    440
meghatronic said:
Why?
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because they've been tested/proven to work

Lets pick something like BJJ, where it almost always involves going to the floor. Great for one on one. Unfortunately fights on the street aren't one on one.
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Just because they often do go to the floor in competition doesn't necessarily mean they're inherently stupid and would instantly go to the floor when faced with multiple opponents. They've still got a real skill set and I'd fancy my chances better with a year or two of BJJ training than with a year or two of Aikido training.

I find if very, very odd that you dismiss Aikido, yet fully accept Judo - two feathers of the same quill. In fact, anyone proficient at Judo and Aikido would tell you they overlap quite a bit.
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Judo is proven to work Aikido isn't. Its not really that complex - I've got no biase/prejudice against Japanese martial arts etc.. I just can't see any point in one whereas the other has been shown to be effective.
 
meghatronic said:
Whilst Aikido might be dancing to you, it is used extensively - in parts - by police, prison, military and security forces around the world. Again, this depends completely on style.
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Yes there are some useful arm locks/wrist locks for the purposes of restraint - you don't need to study the art for years in order to be able to apply these.

I didn't say it was 'dancing' though it certainly does rely on a degree of compliance/role play.
 
Castiel said:
I hold a nihon black belt in higashi kai karate. It is of a higher degree than a blackbelt in shotokan.

Whether jcvd is of a higher rank or not, I cannot say, I can only go by what is reported and that is that he holds the black belt.
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Well from experience (not my own but various aquaintences) it takes about 10 years to get a black belt in Shotokan (although that can depend on which club/association you belong to and how often you train (example above would be a couple of times a week). Either way as Dowie says you can't really compare belts.

Also on the JCVD side, he was a champion (and presumably black belt by then) in the late 70s and early 80s, so that gives him 30 years of karate training, enough to make him a 7th dan probably (if he taught and did structured classes) if you really must go by ranks. he obviously still trains or he wouldn't be able to do a lot of the skills he shows in the films.


This is quite interesting on Wiki

Van Damme will make a return to fighting and is scheduled to fight former boxing Olympic gold-medalist Somluck Kamsing in April 2011.[23] Various reports have named Las Vegas, USA, Moscow, Russia and Macau, China as locations for the bout.[24] At the prospect of being the first man over the age of 50 to kickbox professionally, Van Damme stated that "it's kind of dangerous, but life is short."[25]
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So he does kickbox as well.;)

dowie said:
'The Army' doesn't teach Karate AFIK as part of any particular program unless there is a karate club run somewhere?

Some PTI was offering kickboxing lessons in Iraq when I was on op telic and I've had a couple of ad-hoc lesson in methods of restraint (taught by a police officer) aside form that there isn't much call for formal martial arts training.

I believe that historically the unarmed combat system taught to commandos in WW2 has its foundations in Judo.
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That's sort of what I meant, it woudn't be Karate he was taught, but he did say he learned Karate. :)

Also he was a marine wasn't he?
 
meghatronic said:
Then I don't see what your problem with it is?
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I don't have a problem with it - I'm saying that an actor who's trained in Aikido is likely to be unsuccessful going up against an actor who's apparently trained in judo/karate/kickboxing... as there is little evidence out there to suggest that it would be effective when it comes to that sort of thing...

(not that karate is all that great either tbh...)

If someone was to ask whether an actor who practices tai chi* with some old grannies is likely to beat an actor who also trains as an amature boxer I'd likely give the same answer. Not that I hate tai chi or have a specific problem with it.

*yes I know there are some schools that teach a more 'martial' form of tai chi and other that really do it as some glorified exercise class (with added spirituality & eastern mysticism/BS)
 
meghatronic said:
He wasn't an actor (arguably still isn't :D). He went to Japan when he was 17 to learn Aikido. He also holds black belts in karate, judo, and kendo.
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Well I'm no Steven Segal expert I'm just going on the info posted in this thread regarding their backgrounds....

Apparently he was also a bit of a douche, was unnecessarily rough with stunt guys on set and there was 'apparently' an incident where an older stunt guy (and former judo champion) Gene Lebell choked him out on set.
 
Well as far as Aikido/martial arts are concerned I think my points still stand.

But please do feel free to bop me on any Steven Segal facts ;)
 
hurfdurf said:
Aikido is a martial art like Ballet is, it doesn't work and is complete nonsense.

JCVD has a genuine fight record.

http://i.imgur.com/dkX0l.png[IMG][/QUOTE]

While I can believe you didn't get on with it I think you're being overly dismissive of it although I'm not completely surprised at that. Certain styles of martial arts are more suited to certain people - in a massive generalisation something like Karate/Tae Kwan Do/Kickboxing tends to suit more aggressive people, something like Aikido/Judo tends to be better suited to people who have a personality that is somewhat more passive. It's not an absolute but as a very broad guideline it's a reasonable basis.

Thanks for the picture. It'll probably annoy you since it's from a film but unfortunately I think it needs said:
Yasuno: "Since there is no distinction between of superior and inferior kinds in martial arts. Why do we still improve by competing with one another?"
Huo Yuan Jia: "I believe that there really is no such distinction in martial arts. The difference lies only in the skill of the practioner."
For those who care the film is Fearless and I highly recommend it, not because it has any bearing on real fights or the discussion but because it's simply a good film.

[quote="Freefaller, post: 18426766"]I always thought aikido was a self defense art rather than an attacking art anyway?[/QUOTE]

As meghatronic has explained it's not really either but you're attempting to use an attackers force to move them out of a position where they can harm you - ideally without harming them in the process. As with most things the best form of defence is simply not to get into the fight in the first place and that's something that was emphasised when I did Aikido for a while - no matter how good you are you can be blindsided.
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^^ once your in a fight tho... deflecting their attacks will only help you for so long and the chances of talking them out of it pretty slim, your going to have to escape or go on the offence physically at some point.
 
meghatronic said:
He wasn't an actor (arguably still isn't :D). He went to Japan when he was 17 to learn Aikido. He also holds black belts in karate, judo, and kendo.
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He also has at least a 1st degree (but I thought possibly 3rd degree) black belt in taekwondo. I had the feeling he did a lot of cross-training but just specialised in Aikido.
 
Amp34 said:
Been training for 30 years then?

As already mentioned, it's nothing to do with black belts after a while. It's all about training and time...

I assume you trained with the Army though? Which probably means you learnt a bastardised version of it.
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I was in the Marines, not the army and I held a Black belt before I joined. I began study when I was around 5 years old, my father was and is a rokudan black belt. I trained and studied up until my injury forced me to quit 6 years ago. I am only now getting back to enough fitness and strength to continue.

I learned unarmed combat in the Marines which has a mixture of different styles taught, I also studied Taekwondo and Tai Chi Chuan but not to Black Belt level (it was mainly because they were the only options where I was based at various times.)

dowie said:
How can you compare belts between two different styles - surely its meaningless?
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I wasn't comparing myself with anyone specifically, only making the comparison that while Van Damme has a certain skill level he is still a student (much of what you see on screen is actually Ballet and Dance techniques, not Karate or Taekwondo), whereas Seagal is a Master and Teacher. Going by their relative experience alone Steven Seagal is by far the better.

Interestingly, being skilled in a martial art, even multiple ones doesn't make you "hard" or necessarily mean you are going to win a fight, being a good unarmed fighter is about far more than what discipline you may have studied.

dowie said:
I believe that historically the unarmed combat system taught to commandos in WW2 has its foundations in Judo.
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Commandos train in various unarmed combat techniques, that includes Judo.


I will add for those of you that are dismissing Aikido and Tai Chi, we had a Tai Chi master once join us for a training session, he beat 5 experienced commandos and pretty much embarrassed our instructors as well. Just because it lacks the aggression and the "Movie" extravaganza of Taekwondo or Karate doesn't mean it is not effective. In many ways Tai Chi and Aikido are the more dangerous of the arts.
 
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