Anonymous at Mon, 22 Jan 2024 17:00:23 UTC No. 183713

Yeah. He's a decorated American Air Force veteran, has a 10th degree black belt in Chuck Norris System/Chun Kuk Do (lol), 10th degree black belt American Tang Soo Do, 8th degree black belt Taekwondo, 8th degree black belt Kyokushin Budokai, 5th degree black belt in Karate, 3rd degree black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and a black belt in Judo.

resident /xs/ Chuck fanboy at Mon, 22 Jan 2024 17:56:15 UTC No. 183718

>>183711
Heck yeah. According to a quick search, he suffered ten defeats early on in his career but then went on an unbeaten streak for six years until he retired from competition. Looks like his highest title was Professional Middleweight Karate champion. He also held the All-American Karate Championship title. I'm sorry to say I don't know exactly what orgs owned those titles.

This was in sport karate. IIRC, he retired prior to the advent of American kickboxing, but was still very close to the sport and trained and coached a lot of first-generation American kickboxers. Famously, he was in Bill "Superfoot" Wallace's corner for one of his big fights, alongside Joe Lewis and one other guy I can't remember (Bob Wall maybe?). Superfoot said he knew he had to win with those guys in his corner.

Back in the sixties, sport karate was a lot more chaotic and disorganized than it is now. Some matches were points matches, some matches were full contact. Some refs were quick to penalize "excessive" contact, other refs would refuse to award points unless the hit was hard. A lot of competitors would intentionally hit hard any time they thought they could get away with it, and of course everyone was way to macho to complain about "excessive contact". This is to say nothing of the fact that a lot of karate tournaments back then would break down along racial or gang lines. More than one ended in a race riot.
It was the sixties, baby.

It's also worth mentioning that Chuck was a judo black belt before he ever even heard of karate. In fact, he started training Tang Soo Do because he was recovering from an injury and couldn't train judo. He also started training BJJ with the Machados back in the 80s, long before the first UFC. In conclusion, hell yes Chuck was remarkably good at fighting.

Anonymous at Mon, 22 Jan 2024 18:14:11 UTC No. 183720

He wasn't as good as he was portrayed when karate was the thing, but it wouldn't have been a stretch to call him good. He's also weirdly responsible for promoting both really good and really terrible shit about martial arts and general health/fitness. And not in a way that seems to be doing it for a check where you'll just do anything. I'm not sure if he's got a strange value judgement system or if he's really just a little punchy and has been for years.

Anonymous at Mon, 22 Jan 2024 20:24:03 UTC No. 183741

>>183720
>He's also weirdly responsible for promoting both really good and really terrible shit about martial arts and general health/fitness.
Elaborate?

Anonymous at Sun, 11 Feb 2024 02:09:57 UTC No. 186462

>>183711
No, watch some of his "matches" - a kick or two and ref separates them. He would have been destroyed by any MMA guy, just like all the karate guys lost in the early days of UFC

Anonymous at Sun, 11 Feb 2024 19:36:26 UTC No. 186553

>>186462
He has a BJJ black belt. He would've been more MMA than the majority of early MMA guys.

Anonymous at Mon, 12 Feb 2024 04:08:39 UTC No. 186623

>>183711
Chuck was part of the early crew that competed in point sparring that allowed kicking and punching to the body. He did pretty well, but was no Joe Lewis was instrumental in establishing American kickboxing.