Badass of the Week

[mediumdave]

www.badassoftheweek.com

The 2nd best fucking website in existence. Or maybe 3rd. I'm not sure.

"If you were to look up the words "balls-out" or "fearless" in the Great Big Encyclopedia of Ultimate Badassitude, you'd probably just see a giant picture of Chuck Yeager's scrotum."

Every week, this gentleman takes famous real (and not so real) badasses and writes up a toast in their honor.

"Michael doesn't just whip Lucifer's ass, he completely fucking humiliates him by slamming him face-first to the turf and then stepping on his head for no reason other than to be a jackass. I mean, Michael has huge-ass wings so he doesn't even need to set foot on the ground for any reason, but he's badass enough to know that when you're jacking the Prince of Darkness' shit up royally for fucking with your boss, you might as well get your digs in there and add to the humiliation of his defeat."

It's silly, over the top, fun as hell and, surprisingly, quite informative.

"Well Mrs. Bear was a giant, 600-pound beast from a species that had been genetically disposed to kick ass at brutal hand-to-hand combat, and she certainly wasn't going to give up that easily. She turned on Tom, smashing the glasses off his face (thereby rendering him pretty much completely blind), and breaking his hand in her powerful onslaught. Tom STILL didn't give a fuck. He's a hardcore Canadian mountain man, and it's going to take a hell of a lot more than a haymaker face-punch from a giant man-eating Grizzly bear Berserker to keep this dude from heroically saving his son from certain death."

It's also the perfect way to kill time at work, once you've read and commented on all the new CHUD stories, of course.

"Lewis Puller, nicknamed “Chesty” because of his perfect posture and the fact that his torso somewhat resembled a full-size beer keg full of lead bricks, raw muscle and horse steroids, was a hard-as-shit motherfucker who is almost universally-recognized as the most badass dude to ever wear the uniform of the United States Marine Corps. Not bad, considering that being revered as the pinnacle of toughness by the USMC is kind of like being King of the Vikings or the toughest Klingon to ever set foot on the planet Kronos."

It's fucking worth it.

[Schwartz]

Holy shit, this guy better get his own episode of The Pacific.

[Doc Happenin]

Originally Posted by Schwartz

Holy shit, this guy better get his own episode of The Pacific.

"The impact of the blast on the final tank knocked it off a cliff where it tumbled all the way down and exploded at the bottom like the tank in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade but with more Japanese and no Nazis."

Now that's poetry.

[RathBandu]

"When Zvika arrived at the Nafah base, he was dismayed to see that the base was populated almost entirely by wounded IDF soldiers and had next to nothing in terms of operational military equipment. However, Greengold was intend on kicking some fucking asses, and he was going to do it any way that he possibly could. He noticed two severely damaged IDF Centurion tanks sitting unmanned in the corner of the base, and immediately knew what he had to do. Zvika radioed Brigade HQ and told them that he had "a tank force" and was requesting permission to go into battle against the invading Syrians. HQ of course accepted, not having any fucking clue that the newly-commissioned "Zvika Force" merely consisted of two half-destroyed tanks led by a totally balls-out IDF Lieutenant."

Hours wasted on this site. Hours.

Also, they need to remake the story of Eddie Chapman, stat.

[mediumdave]

That Zvika one...goddamn, that guy was hardcore. Something like 60 confirmed tank kills during that skirmish? Damn.

New Badass this week - Piye

Never heard of this dude, but some epic badassery on display.

"When Piye first heard that Tefnakht was invading Nubia, he just laughed. Seriously, the prospect of some flacid, half-assed Egyptian invasion was just so uncontrollably hiliarious that this dude busted out a hearty guffaw so manly that it caused the Great Sphinx of Giza to spontaneously start growing chest hair. Once he got over the ridiculousness of this fucktard thinking he could conquer Piye's Kingdom, the Nubian King put together an army, made sacrifices in the name of the Sun God Amun, ordered his soldiers to sprinkle themselves with Holy Water, and then set North to show Tefnakht what it feels like to have your larynx pulled out through your rectum."

Apparently, he was pretty awesome.

[BubWilliams]

Simo Häyhä

"Finally, on 2 March 1940, some Soviet bastard got a lucky shot off and popped Simo Häyhä in the jaw with an explosive bullet. Häyhä fell into a coma and was pulled off the field by his comrades. He would finally awake eleven days later, on the same day that the Winter War ended. He would go on to live to the ripe old age of 97."

Also this;

"Throughout the war, Häyhä raked in a total of 505 confirmed sniper kills (in some sources he is credited with 542). On top of this, he also mowed down two hundred men with a Suomi 9mm sub machine gun, bringing his total kill count to over 700 men in under 100 days. "

[RathBandu]

A friend of mine pointed out that the guy tries to work in D&D references in every entry. Finding them are pretty fun, if easy.

[gravedigger]

Holy Christ, Ken Reusser.

His crowning achievement in the Second World War would come a few years later, in the air over Okinawa, when he and his wingman Bob Klingman engaged in a badass dogfight against a Japanese photo reconnaissance plane that was documenting American ship positions and relaying them back to crazy Kamikaze squadrons. This jacknut was tearing ass through the stratosphere at 38,000 feet – roughly 1,000 feet above the service ceiling for the F4U Corsair – but Reusser and Klingman didn't give a shit about something as trivial as the near-constant threat of spinning out, stalling, and going into deadly death spins of death and destruction. They pulled up behind the Japanese plane, and opened fire with their machine guns. Well, unfortunately when they pulled the trigger, nothing happened. This kind of put a damper on their hopes of tearing this enemy plane a few hundred new assholes, but it's not like that was going to slow them down or anything. So flying high above the earth in the thin air and ball-shattering cold (I probably don't have to tell you that World War II Corsairs didn't come with creature comfort crap like pressurized cabins and hot flight attendants serving roasted peanuts and badass glasses of orange juice), they came up with a completely insane plan – they were going to ram this bastard and use their propellers to chop up the tail of the Japanese plan. Are you kidding me? They freaking RAMMED THE PLANE 38,000 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND, making mince meat of it's fuselage and sending it smashing down to earth in a giant puff of gray smoke like something out of a Wile E. Coyote cartoon. I imaging that then they did a bunch of barrel rolls and give each other mid-air high fives because this was so awesome. They also both won Navy Crosses for this brazen display of raw iron ballsackness.

[Schwartz]

Originally Posted by RathBandu

Also, they need to remake the story of Eddie Chapman, stat.

No kidding. You know Dos Equis's The Most Interesting Man In The World? It's pretty much him. Favorite bit:

Originally Posted by Amazing Ben

Then the Germans came to visit. The Nazi Empire stormed through the French countryside in 1940, capturing Paris and forcing France under the heel of some munchy crunchy good old-fashioned Fascism. When the Nazis took control of Jersey, they moved Chapman to a prison on the mainland of France and threw away the key. Not that it mattered to him, course; he used his skills as a level 20 Thief to fashion a skeleton key MacGuyver-style out of hairpins and soap that allowed him to escape from his cell every night, make his way over to the women's prison that was attached to the men's prison and get busy with some criminal babes. A little thing like being locked in a fucking Nazi prison wasn't going to stand in the way of Eddie Chapman and a building full of moderately attractive chicks.

[Schwartz]

Also, at my urging, Ben has agreed to add good ol' Charles Durning to the list in the near future. Anyone familiar with the man's story or work should know that it will be thoroughly awesome.

[Greg Clark]

Sweet! That means I will have actually met (and kinda acted in the same movie as) someone on this list!

[JohnnyZ]

Someone call the History Channel and get a "Bad Ass of the Week" series on the air.

[MoonBaseNick]

I would watch that show till I was blue in the face.

[RathBandu]

I would watch the shit out of a Badass of the Week tv series; unfortunately, you couldn't get away with the language that makes the site so enjoyable on History Channel. Maybe FX or something like what Showtime did for "This American Life."

[JohnnyZ]

It could find a home on...SpikeTV...hell, they have Manswers.

[mediumdave]

Here's the question, though: reenactments of badass feats, complete with actors delivering over the top badass dialogue or just stills with voice over?

I vote for insanely cheesy, yet still badass, reenactments.

[Doc Happenin]

I'd actually envision more of a 'powerthirst'-esque video diatribe complete with stills.

[Schwartz]

Originally Posted by mediumdave

Here's the question, though: reenactments of badass feats, complete with actors delivering over the top badass dialogue or just stills with voice over?

I vote for insanely cheesy, yet still badass, reenactments.

Absolutely. My version would have Bill Moyers delivering extremely dry, matter-of-fact narration while actors completely ham it up reenacting the most impossible to believe portions of the entries.

[mediumdave]

So, apparently, he's turning/turned BOTW into a book to be released in the fall. I swear, if it's a coffee table book, I will buy it for everyone I know this Xmas. OK, even if it isn't a coffee table book.

Also, his treatise on the most badass religion is also awesome. What is it? Oh, it's only the NORSE religion. "The most badass of all religions because it's centered around eating meat off the bone, breaking beer mugs on your head and destroying the universe by stabbing demi-gods in the fucking eye with your spear. "

Also, Daniel M'Mburugu. Wow. Just...wow.

[JohnnyZ]

If it becomes a book..that means a AUDIOBOOK!..who do you want to read that? Sam Elliott? Peter Cullen?

[Doc Happenin]

I'm sort of torn on where to put the Christians. On the one hand they had the Crusades, Baptism By The Sword and the Inquisition - institutions which, while perhaps questionable from an ethical standpoint, were certainly not to be fucked around with.

Truer words...never before spoken.

[ryoken]

A great site, but my favorite badass is and remains good ol' Audi Murphy...living proof that just because you're a bit on the short side, scrawny and a bit sickly, it doesn't mean you cant be pure badass in battle and the silver screen....hell, the guy pretty much did the jeep mounted machine gun scene from "Rambo" in real life...only in a tank...while it was on FUCKING FIRE!
Im still amazed the guy had to play himself onscreen just so the movie based on his life was believable.

[Schwartz]

I know it's pointless to keep coming in and saying "holy shit, this guy was totally badass!" when then entire point of the website is that he does it once a week for you, but...holy shit, this guy was totally fucking badass.

For his bravery on Tiger Hill, the Indian Army posthumously awarded the Param Vir Chakra (the highest award for bravery) to Yogender Singh Yadav. The problem is that Yadav actually lived through the battle. He received notification of his “posthumous” award from his hospital bed, as he was recovering from a broken arm, a broken leg, and somewhere between five and fifteen gunshot wounds to various parts of his body. Apparently, nobody that heard the story believed that he could have possibly survived, but nobody banked on the fact that he was the most hardcore motherfucker around.

[mediumdave]

Yeah, so apparently that book of his is out in late October. Sweet. White elephant presents ahoy.

As for the latest badass: Leo DaVinci.

"I can't overemphasize how goddamned ridiculous it is that Da Vinci conceptualized the freaking helicopter at a time when most people were riding around on donkeys and using a sundial to approximate the time of day. Seriously, the freaking printing press was considered cutting-edge technology in these days, and Da Vinci was one step away from dusting Versailles in a goddamned Apache Gunship."

[Andrew Joe]

Originally Posted by RathBandu

Also, they need to remake the story of Eddie Chapman, stat.

A quick imdb search lists "Agent Zigzag" in production for 2011. I assume this is an adaptation of the book Ben MacIntyre penned about Chapman's life. After seeing him in Inglourious Basterds, Michael Fassbender seems the perfect choice.

It appears a compilation book of bad asses is on the way at the end of the month (27th)

[Ryan Bean]

The war ones are immensely entertaining but sometimes the simple ones are just as incredible, like (as has been posted) Daniel M'Mburugu

[Michael Shaver]

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Rukhsana Kauser, or a cautionary tale about how you should never fuck with an 18 year old girl armed with an assault rifle:

http://www.badassoftheweek.com/kauser.html

[Ryan Bean]

Fucking a.

[Michael Shaver]

Book trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocYk1aBj3t4

[Michael Shaver]

http://www.bscreview.com/2009/10/bad...-ben-thompson/

[billylove]

Goddamn this shit is badass.

Fuck, goddamn yeah!
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/musashi.html

He won his first duel at the age of thirteen, when he challenged some idiot samurai to a duel and then beat his brains in with a wooden sword Legend of Zelda style. Musashi spent most of his life wandering the countryside just challenging people to duels for no reason other than to prove to everyone how totally badass he was. Over his lifetime he won over sixty duels, some of them against multiple enemies, and fought successfully in three major military campaigns, including the defense of Osaka Castle.

He even looked the part of a roaming samurai badass. He contracted severe eczema at an early age as a result of congenital syphilis, so his face was severely scarred and he probably looked pretty intimidating. Also, he rarely bathed or changed his clothes since he was worried about being caught unaware and unarmed. As a result, he was basically an ugly dirty guy who wandered around being awesome and crushing a lot of people's skulls with a wooden sword he whittled out of a rowing oar.

[ccubed]

Originally Posted by billylove

Goddamn this shit is badass.

Fuck, goddamn yeah!
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/musashi.html

If you're going to quote something from that, I like this better:

"Stabbing the Face

When you are even with an opponent, it is essential to keep thinking of stabbing him in the face with the tip of your sword in the intervals between the opponent's sword blows and your own sword blows. When you have the intention of stabbing your opponent in the face, he will try to get both his face and body out of the way. In the midst of battle, as soon as an opponent tries to get out of the way, you have already won. Therefore it is imperative not to forget the technique of "stabbing the face". This should be cultivated in the course of practicing martial arts."

[ryoken]

He's releasinga book, so he made an special article for Cracked that is all kinds of awesome:

The 7 most badass last stands

[agracru]

Hooooolyyyy shit, Hannah Duston.

What an awesome site.