‘The Dirty Dozen’: why 12 martial artists volunteered to beat Steven Seagal to death
Nobody loves Steven Seagal anywhere near as much as Steven Seagal does, which is probably for the best when there aren’t a whole host of people in Hollywood who even remotely like the guy.
Ever since he made his feature debut in 1988’s Above the Law to establish himself as one of the decade’s many B-level action heroes, he’s been rubbing people the wrong way. Whether it’s his attitude, behaviour, or the fact he’s not a very nice person, the star has made many more enemies than friends.
Charlize Theron can’t stand him, and she’s not alone. The list of people who’ve blasted Seagal for his attitude and arrogance runs into the dozens, and things once reached such a boiling point that an entire motley crew of fighters and martial artists banded together with the express purpose of beating him to death.
It sounds like one of the far-fetched tales Seagal would craft himself to burnish his self-created mythology, but it’s real. Bob Wall, a martial arts expert, stunt performer, occasional actor, and close friend of Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris, formed ‘The Dirty Dozen’ with only one goal in mind: to reduce their shared nemesis to a bloody smear on the pavement.
After he caught wind of Seagal disparaging Lee and Norris in the press, he suggested that, in the case of the latter, “if he were alive, he would hunt Seagal down and rip his face off.” While the Aikido master denied talking shit about Wall’s buddies, he did lay down the gauntlet to the man who’d stepped in to defend their honour.
“If Mr Wall has anything bad about me, let him say it to my face,” he told Black Belt before doubling down on his arrogant assertions. “If you want me,” he offered. “Come fight me to the death.” That wasn’t the smartest idea because not only did Wall take him at his word, but he also roped in 11 other people who felt the same way about Seagal.
One of them was Gene LeBell – who was famously said to have once put Seagal in a chokehold so intense he shit his pants – and he was joined by Bill Wallace, Howard Jackson, Jim Harrison, Roger Carpenter, Allen Steen, Benny Urquidez, Billy Robertson, and Blinky Rodriguez among others. Their goal was an eminently simple one, as Wall explained the reasons behind ‘The Dirty Dozen’ being brought together like some kind of early-1990s ass-kicking Avengers.
“I know five dozen guys who could whip Seagal’s hide,” he ranted. “He’s going around saying, ‘No man dares face me’ and ‘I’ll fight anyone to the death’. Well, we want to make it clear to everyone that he’s just full of it. There’s not just one guy who can embarrass Seagal; there’s dozens. I only picked 12 of them.”
Did Seagal ever enter the breach and engage in hand-to-hand combat with ‘The Dirty Dozen’ in a brawl to the final breath? He did not. Did he even fight one of them? Nope, he didn’t do that either, making the whole exercise fairly pointless in the end. Still, it speaks to his character that 12 genuine hard cases made an adorable little club just for the chance to beat him to death.
