The most "bad ass" act you have witnessed?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I was thinking the other day how amazing it would be if there were some type of magical machine that could search through all of human history and show you the most remarkable acts that have occurred throughout the existence of our species. I am not sure what led me to fixate on the term “bad ass,” but I started to wonder…
There have certainly been well known “bad asses” throughout history (Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, etc.) but would they likely be responsible for the most bad ass individual acts? Or would it be someone unknown, their acts witnessed only by a few, and accounts never surviving to be passed down through the ages. What might this magical machine come up with, if it was trying to select the top “bad ass” acts? Some unknown viking battling to the death in a berserker rage? A dying native american, laughing in the face of his torturers? Or maybe something completely different?

No machine like that, unfortunately, but I thought it might be interesting to consider: what is the most “bad ass” act that you have ever witnessed? Feel free to define “bad ass” as you see fit.

2

Adam West snapping his chains in order to rescue Burt Ward from the giant clam.

Or does that not count?

3

My husband and our friend were at the bar. My friend Phill fell off his barstool and my husband reached down and grabbed him almost before he hit the floor, pulled him up by his coat and had him back on his stool without even looking. Another friend saw this and asked my husband “Why did you hit him?” It was great! I don’t know how badass that is but it was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.

4

I say that is definitely an acceptable interpretation of a bad ass act. That sounds very impressive.

5

Marginally bad ass- in high school, a friend who had a reputation of being something of a dick had gotten into a heated exchange with a girl when she hauled off and punched him, several times, in the mouth. Sure, he was being annoying, but nothing that deserved that. The bad ass part? He put his hand over his mouth, bent his head down for a second, then came back up and spit a stream of blood into her face, followed by a tooth. It was cinematic. Not so into guys spitting on girls, so that’s why it’s only marginally bad ass, but damn was it cool to see.

6

Totally bad ass.

Walking with friends on a park trail, there were about 5 or 6 of us walking sort of staggard and certainly not taking up the whole trail. We heard “On your left!” A second later one friend at the back of the group was swatted in the head by a rollerblader trying to get by our group. It seemed pretty intentional. There was plenty of room to get by us. The rollerblader kept going… until he got to the front of the group and the brother (a one-time nationally ranked Kung-Fu competitor)of the guy he hit- grabbed the rollerblader’s arm and flipped him over. In the calmest-almost friendly voice said “Hey, you should apologize to my brother.”

7

I was riding my horse on a trail and the only way to cross this one spot was over this 2ft wide x 1 ft high cluster of rocks. My horse jumps well, the trail was clear & flat on the other side of the rocks, and she would not step foot on the rocks so rather than bushwhack around I moved back and got a trotting start for a small jump. Except my horse gave a giant leap to avoid the Invisible Horse Eating Tigers she perceived lurking in the small rocks, catapulting me out of the saddle.

The badass part is that I somersaulted in the air and landed on my feet next to my horse on the trail, with my hands still on the reins.

Most amazingly, there were witnesses, who clapped.

8

This one may be quickly surpassed, but it was definitely pretty bad ass at the time.

This took place at the local college, where people get together to practice jiu-jitsu. I was sparring with my friend Josh, while some newcomers to the sport that he had brought with him watched us.

Jiu-jitsu is a grappling-based martial art in which the objective is to secure holds on limbs or chokeholds that force the opponent to submit by “tapping out” in order to avoid their limb breaking or going unconscious. While this may sound dangerous, in reality it is very easy to avoid harm to yourself; an experienced practitioner knows when he is at a disadvantage and will give up well in advance of being harmed by the position. Most injuries occur when one’s ego gets in the way – when somebody really doesn’t want to “lose” and tries to avoid tapping out until the last instant in an attempt to escape a position.

Back to the action at hand:

I manage to catch my friend in a choke hold. After a struggle, I am able to counter all his escape attempts and cinch the choke even tighter. He should be tapping out any second now… I pull his arm across his face, locking in the tightest form of the choke. He will definitely have to tap to this. Still no tap… There is no way!.. Suspicious, I loosen up the hold and see his eyes staring straight ahead blankly. Oh no! I immediately loosen my grip and he falls face down onto the mat (he was on his knees) unconscious, making horrific labored snoring type noises. The jiu-jitsu newcomers are aghast, convinced their friend is dead or dying.

In reality, losing consciousness during a choke is not terribly rare, nor dangerous, provided the choke has not been held for long. However, as one might imagine, this can be rather frightening and disconcerting to the person who has been choked out.

While I had read many stories of this sort of thing happening, I had never personally witnessed it. So I was understandably a bit nervous for his safety as well.

But, sure enough, after about 10 seconds he stirred, looked around him, got to his knees, and wiped the drool off his face.

“Josh, you OK?”
“Yeah, I’m fine, you ready?”
“Um…ready for what?”
“Ready to go again; you got me that time, lets go again.”
“Uh…do you know what just happened?”
“Yeah, I passed out. Are you ready?”

Apparently, he was not fazed in the least bit by being choked unconscious. I’m still not sure whether this was motivated more by trying to save face or his competitive nature, but either way I thought it was pretty bad ass.

9

On a subway in NYC, there were 3 teenagers heckling a clearly mentally handicapped man on the train. It was bad enough that a couple of people were telling the guys to knock it off. Just as the train is coming into the next station, their victim though jumps up and runs at them and they knock him to the ground and one of them punches him- another winds up for a kick and one of the people yelling at them to knock it off before dives in front of the kick taking it in the ribs. They punch this guy a couple of times, before he somehow rolls over, grabs two legs and pins two of the guys on the floor (To this day I haven’t a clue how it happened) and held them down with limited assistance until the cops got there. The third kid took off, but my friend and I who had made it from the far end of the car to the middle rushed out the door onto the platform and grabbed that kid before he got to the turnstiles. The cops were there in under a minute (NYPD are amazing at that) took everyone’s names, numbers, and hauled the guys away. Train was away in <10 minutes. But the guy who dove in and took down two guys larger than himself was truly badass. It took two of us to grab and hold the third.

10

Dunno how badass it was, and I didn’t see it, but I still love the story.

Friend of Mr. S’s (let’s call him Conan) is a big hulking scary-looking guy, but has the personality of a teddy bear. He’s sitting in a bar one night with a few friends. There’s a little guy sitting down the bar a ways nursing a drink, and some assholes decided to start hassling him with offers to “take it outside,” etc.

Conan quietly says, “If he goes outside, we go outside with him.”

Assholes decide they don’t want to take it outside after all.

Didn’t even have to lift a finger!

11

My own tale of badassery;

I was working armored and regularly picked up from the property room at the county prison. We’d have to ride the elevator up from the property room along with prisoners who were being released. Slowest damned “elevator” in the world (in quotes because it was actually a hydrolic lift, not a normal elevator), but with a huge, oversized surveillance camera in it.

Every time I was in it with an ex-prisoner, I would stand directly opposite the big camera.

Oh yeah, let me cover one other thing. One block north of the jail, a building full of legal offices, a police substation and the parole offices. One block west, City hall. Kitty corner between them, Federal Court. Family court just west of that. The county government building just south of City Hall. Two blocks east, Juvenile court. In other words, more cops and security officers in that area that perhaps the entire rest of the metro area combined.

Anyway, I get on the elevator and this HUGE guy gets on with me. Perhaps 6’8" and 300 pounds of solid muscle. He takes a look at me, looks at my bag of money, looks at my gun, takes a 6" step toward me, looking seriously pissed off. Keeps repeating this cycle - face, money, gun, step - until he’s literally 4" from me, when he pauses and takes a deep breath. I know that this is the sign that he’s ready to make his move, so at the peak of his breath, I turn, look him straight in the eyes, give him my biggest, broadest, friendliest smile, casually point up at the camera and, in a jovial tone, ask “So how far do you think you’ll get?”

Pause. The world stops. His head spins to look at the camera, his face turns to panic. He takes a big huge step back from me, folds his hands together in front of his belt and looks down, sheepish.

Took a couple of hours to wipe that grin off my face.

Kicking the shit out of people? Not too hard if you know what you’re doing and act at the right moment. Ending potential violence with a smile and a word? That’s more my style.

12

In high school, in the lunchline. For the five millionth time, the huge country twin brothers were harassing Charles,the incredibly awkward and hygienically-challenged genius (1600 SAT).

That’s when the “I just don’t give a shit anymore” look came into his eyes. Next thing you know, one twin had a broken nose. Charles just walked away. The best part was seeing the twin the next day, his face all puffy, wearing a giant gauze and metal splint with gobs of medical tape on his nose. They quit messing with Charles, who got a lot more respect from the entire school from then on.

13

Jasper Schuringa is a badass.

As is John Smeaton.

The first punched and restrained the “exploding pants” terrorist on flight 253, the second kicked a terrorist in the nuts, then beat him round the head, at Glasgow airport.

For beating up terrorists who were on fucking fire, I salute them, and hope I have even 10% of the courage they showed, should the worst happen to me.

ETA: I did not personally witness either of these acts. Hope the OP will forgive my overenthusiasm.

14

In the words of Cracked: Because it’s Scotland, and they still build fucking men up there.

15

Back in the day I hung out a lot at a heavy metal, head banger kind of bar. It was a pretty rough place sometimes. There was a bouncer that was maybe 5’7" might have weighed as much as 140 lbs after a big meal. If you saw him on the street, nothing about him would make you think he was a badass. Saw him take many an obnoxious drunk (many quite large) out of that bar the hard way. Projected a very professional, no nonsense attitude and anticipated what the asshole was going to do and took subtle but effective pre-emptive action. They had other, bigger bouncers too but that guy always seemed to be first at the scene.
I nominate you, Mr. Scrawny Bad-Ass Bouncer Guy!

16

Gary Garrett, Kenpo Karate sensei, was one of three judges/refs at a full contact black belt 5 man team tournement in the late 1970’s. This was back before the advent of 1 year blackbelts down at the karate r us mall outlet factories.

Match got out of control and erupted into the 8 team members joining the sparring pair in a free for all. I saw Gary punch one down, foot sweep a second, then stood there in a perfect horse stance with his back heel on the throat of the guy he footswept pining him down chocking on the floor.
Then he shouted ‘knock it off.’ Everyone kinda froze and took in the scene. The other two refs had also taken out a couple of guys, so the 5 or 6 still standing slowly and quietly backed off. Elaplapsed time maybe 10 seconds until the ‘knock it off.’

Then he helped up the black belt, dusted him off, made both teams bow to each other, and they all walked off mortified. these were maybe 20+ year old ‘gladiator’ guys at the top of their game and 3 middle aged instructors put half of 'em down like little girls.

Gary wasnlt big on belts/ranks beyond his ratty old black belt but years later he formally tested and was awarded either 5th or 6th degree (and I think this was personally from Ed Parker). Gary was always family style and was probably my biggest mentor.

17

Long ago I was walking in NYC with a guy - he was a model, no less - we were confronted by a mugger wielding a knife, demanding money. My friend (I can still see it as if it was in slow motion but it was over in seconds) knocked that knife clean out of the creep’s hand with a spectacular roundhouse kick. I said later, ‘where did you learn to do that??’ and he said, ‘beats me! I just … did it!’

18

My BF was acting in a play and improvised a backflip. In the middle of a fight scene. While holding two swords.

Totally badass.

19

My football coach comes to mind for two things. First off he played pro ball for the Rams as a offensive tackle back in 1950 or so. This guy was huge, with a capitol HUGE. 300+ lbs 6’5" or so.
Ever hear of a gentle giant? That was coach. Always laughing. Easiest going guy I have ever met.
Any in the early 1960s he and his brother (an equally large mammal) went to a Ram’s game. In the row in front of them were some ladies, in the row in front of that were some hell raisers of Hispanic descent. Anyway the hell raisers were using very foul language which was clearly bothering the ladies. (this was the early 1960 an F bomb was serious in mixed company)
Anyway after about 10 minutes of this and the whole group (15 or so) getting louder and louder, coach’s brother leaned down past the ladies and tapped the head hell raiser on the shoulder and said, “Do you mind, your language is disturbing the ladies” As one all of the hell raiser turned around with the intent of beating the crap out of whoever it was that told their leader to shut up. then they saw the size of the two guys sitting there. :eek: They all turned back around and were quiet the rest of the game.
Coach said that after the game he asked his brother if he was worried that they might have wanted to fight. His brother’s response “It would have looked like the Alamo for a while, but we would have done OK.”
My senior year. At a game, bench clearing brawl. Coach wades into 40 or so high school football players and starts grabbing them by the shoulder pads with one hand and throws them over his shoulder to land about 10 feet away. Did I mention he did this with one hand? He did this about 8 or 10 times while cussing a blue streak. fight stopped. The game film of that was priceless.

20

Last winter I heard a recording of a guy saying, “we’re gonna be in the Hudson.”