Black Belt Magazine ranks
Paul Vunak as one of the 20
Toughest Men on Planet Earth !"
Below is an excerpt from the April 2006 Black Belt Magazine article by Lito Angeles. Lito Angeles is a Southern California-based police officer with more than 16 years of experience. His 30 years of martial arts training have spanned shorin-ryu karate, boxing, savate, muay Thai, Brazilian jujutsu, Krav Maga, pentjak silat and jeet kune do. He’s written for Black Belt on numerous occasions:
When discussing the criteria upon which he based his selections for the article, he said:
Black Belt: Are these men physically big and muscular?
Lito Angeles: No, they’re not that big—except for Terry O’Neill, who’s a big guy, and Peter Consterdine, who’s pretty tall. But the rest of them are average.
BB: When you picked these 20 people, what qualities were you looking for?
Angeles: I was told to pick guys I’d be afraid to fight, people who are like savages—tough, chiseled beasts. They couldn’t have any professional mixed-martial arts experience. I’ve got Gene LeBell on the list, and he competed in judo; and Stan Peterec, who was a kickboxer. O’Neill competed in sport karate, and so did Benny Urquidez. But that was OK as long as I didn’t pick anyone who’s competing today in the mixed martial arts. I also tried to find people with street experience and excellent real-world combat skills that I deemed effective and practical. Beyond that, some of it was based on my gut feeling.
To me, good street experience means people who’ve been in street fights, not just in ring fights. Street fights are almost always against real bad guys.
It didn’t matter what style they did. There are a lot of karate guys and boxers on the list. There aren’t too many grapplers because a lot of street fights are finished before the fighters go the ground. There was no maximum or minimum age; I judged as they were in their prime.
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