The Last Self Defense Video You'll Ever Need

Bas Rutten's Lethal Street Fighting

With the new year dawning, it’s time for some resolutions. If you’re like a lot of people on the right, you’ll be wanting to hit the gym, shape up, and if you’re so inclined, learn to fight. Now, you could join an active club, but perhaps you’re not the social sort, or just prefer to have at least 15 minutes a day where you’re not talking about Jews. You could go the traditional route and join a standard MMA gym, but those are pricey and no doubt controlled by Jews. You could try to infiltrate an Antifa underground martial arts camp and learn the deadly fighting techniques of your mortal enemies:

No gloves, no pads, and no deadcat on that mic to prevent the audio from sounding like it was recorded on the way to Oz. Hardcore.

But what if I told you there’s a better way?!

YOU’RE SAYING THERE’S A BETTER WAY?!!!

That’s right! Right now, in the comfort of your own home, for the low price of $20.99 (or free on DailyMotion), you can learn devastating techniques from a legendary street fighter. In just over 90 minutes, you can gain the skills and confidence to destroy any opponent, any time, anywhere- with some caveats. If you want results, you turn to the best. So borrow your mom’s DVD player, staple together some yoga mats in front of the TV, and find an at least semi-willing training partner (mom?), because you’re about to fire up Bas Rutten’s 2003 classic, Lethal Street Fighting.

That’s the actual picture the seller provided to Amazon for this product. I can’t promise that the zesty astronaut scarf is included, but I’m going to go ahead and say that it is.

Sebastiaan Rutten was born in Tilburg, the Netherlands, in 1965. Growing up, he was a frequent target for bullies, which presumably involved him being chased through tulip fields by sheeshed-up Moroccans. As a teenager, he discovered he had an aptitude for martial arts, and built strength and confidence practicing several disciplines, eventually earning black belts in taekwondo and karate by his early 20’s. To support himself, he worked as a chef and a bouncer while embarking on a career as a competitive fighter, one which carried him through kickboxing, the wrestling-fighting hybrid promotion Pancrase, and the UFC.

All jokes aside, it should be made very clear that Rutten is not only the real deal when it comes to fighting, but a legend. Inside MMA rates him as the 4th-best MMA fighter of all time- a three-time King of Pancrase and a UFC Heavyweight champion, with victories over some of the best competition in the 1990’s martial arts world. If you doubt what an absolute beast Rutten was in his prime, check out his brutal championship Pancrase battle against Masakatsu Funaki in 1996:

With injuries adding up, Rutten retired from competition in 1999 at 34, leaving the ring behind after a 22 bout winning streak (he fought once more in 2006 for another win). For many fighters, the transition to a post-fight career is economically and psychologically difficult, but Rutten was not only a gifted martial artist, but naturally charismatic and funny, and he segued easily into commentary, acting, and coaching. The explosion in popularity of MMA in the early 2000’s meant there was a ready market for pros of proven ability and popularity dispensing wisdom concerning fighting techniques and self-defense, and this made for a perfect niche for him. I remember feeling quite lucky that I’d stumbled onto the DVD of Lethal Street Fighting at Media Play some time around 2005, spending my hard-earned server money on a gleaming silver disk that offered the promise of merciless destruction of my enemies. However, that’s not quite what you get, though it’s all the better for it.

The ‘disco street fighting’ from Here Comes The Boom (2012) is based on a real life encounter Rutten had with a bullshido artist.

It would have been easy to churn out a paint-by-numbers ‘here’s how to escape a full nelson’ type effort, slap his name on it, and cash the checks. That’s definitely not what this is. Lethal Street Fighting is very obviously the result of one man’s vision of what a self-defense video should be, and there are no corporate notes or legal advisors between you and the inner workings of Rutten’s mind when it comes to the instruction. Describing something so profoundly unique takes some unpacking.

To begin with, when introducing himself, Rutten- despite only recently having left behind a prolifically successful career as a fighter- barely notes that fact when describing his qualifications, and only after mentioning his earlier life as a bouncer (the video also seems to be unsure what its specific title is supposed to be). Granted, the awesome early 2000’s graphic overlay describes him as an Ultimate Fighting champion, but that’s about it. He just moves forward briskly after assuring the audience that he’s “been around” and knows “the things.” Given the tone of the rest of the video, it’s clear that Rutten just assumes you know who he is already, along with a bunch of other background.

Most notably, one of the Lost-style mystery boxes in this instructional tape is the gigantic fight in Sweden that he frequently alludes to but never bothers to elaborate on, evidently feeling that- like the Iliad- it’s just part of the cultural memory of the Western world at this point.

Rutten’s friendship with Joe Rogan perhaps accounts for his quite robust physique at the age of 60, which one might attribute to Rogan’s proprietary blend of elk meat, TRT, and hallucinogens.

There are quite a few other prerequisites to getting the most out of this program. For one, unlike with most self-defense instructional videos, Rutten seems to take for granted that his viewing audience consists primarily of trained fighters, since many of his techniques involve boxing combinations or grappling takedowns that would require a great deal of prior practice to execute- at the very least, he expects you to have read his book. The setting for the video- a bar- is no coincidence; Rutten apparently assumes that this is where his viewership spends all of their free time, and many of the techniques he demonstrates require the use of items like bar stools or beer bottles- but then, Rutten also seems to anticipate that the tavern patrons he envisions will be toting around knives and baseball bats, so presumably at least some of the techniques will be applicable for disputes at salmon canneries or little league games as well. The notion that it might be a good idea simply to avoid the stabbier sorts of dives to begin with is presumably so bizarre and contemptible that Rutten does not entertain it. If you want to party the right way, you’ll probably need to shove a rocks glass into someone’s face at some point, and that’s just how life is; Rutten is here to help.

Many of the scenarios are thus very specific to the sort of milieu that Rutten inhabits. In this scene, for example, Rutten remarks in an offhand way that women getting choked happens “a lot,” casually demonstrates the correct way to choke a woman, and then describes how to deal with that common scenario by noting what happens when you strangle an infant according to Israeli commandos:

The most effective elements of the video for the average viewer are where Rutten demonstrates very practical techniques that are easy to employ, ones which are purely defensive. The ‘thinker’ stance with the chin tucked in is great and applicable anywhere- similar to the ‘prayer hands’ pose the Gracies recommend in their self-defense book.

It works best if you narrate it with the appropriate “BAHNG! BAHNG! BAHNG!” as you land each shot.

But what really sets Lethal Street Fighting apart from other self-defense videos is the underlying theory of violence. Rutten has a very expansive definition of what constitutes “defense” and a gleeful, almost childlike indifference to any potential legal consequences that might arise from following his advice. For example, to return to his woman-choking segment, once you move past how Rutten takes for granted that the women in his world can casually overpower their male attackers before executing headbutts, knee strikes, and roundhouse kicks to the face, note that after succeeding in breaking free, Rutten then recommends that you stab your assailant with a broken beer bottle.

Lesson 1: You should never be more than arm’s reach from some glass alcohol container, ever. Your life may depend on it.

That would certainly . . . work, but it’s possible that slashing up an unarmed person with an improvised weapon might lead to further issues down the line. Yes, it’s arguable that the person still represents a lethal threat, but then again, to get to that point you must have demonstrated high-level striking skills already, and it’s at least worthy of consideration that the legal system might deem it overkill in a very literal sense. Rutten, for his part, simply notes that “anything goes” in a street fight, which is true in one sense, but since there’s no such thing as “street court” or “street jail,” other parties may later hold you to a different standard. Perhaps he simply figures that his target audience doesn’t call the cops or go anywhere where anyone else does either, so it’s a moot point.

Rutten seems to have been profoundly influenced by the post-911 foreign policy of the contemporary Bush administration, since his go-to heuristic when dealing with potential threats is the preemptive strike. Rutten sizes up his fellow bar patrons like Donald Rumsfeld profiled Iraqi peasants- potential threats to be eliminated at the first sign of trouble, or better yet, before that. As seanbaby from Cracked.com once hilariously noted of the video, in “at least half the bar fight scenarios, he's the one who initiates the violence.”

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And as with the W. administration, there’s a comically vengeful savagery informing Rutten’s philosophy. Here, Rutten explains how to defend yourself from an unconscious attacker by sodomizing him with a bottle of Tabasco sauce:

You might think he’s joking, but remember, Rutten specified that he’s drawing from personal experience with these scenarios (he mentions the hot sauce more than once), and even where he’s more clearly being serious the same mindset is at work:

PAYBACK! That’ll teach you to walk over to me and say things.

Here, Rutten shows you how to defend yourself from fat shaming against a man sitting down with his legs crossed. After you’ve crippled him for the indefinite future, roundhouse kick all of his friends- just kidding- you should actually punch them before walking away, avoiding any further confrontation by being the bigger man. It’s called de-escalation:

And finally, Rutten isn’t wholly unaware that the cops might attempt to harass you during your normal evening round of cocktails, headbutting and glassing, so don’t worry, he covers his bases there too. On the off chance the police do enter one of the no-go area bars he favors and attempt to apprehend you, here’s how to escape custody by putting the officer in a wrist lock and kneeing him in the face:

The big question with any self-defense program is, ‘does it work?’ But with Lethal Street Fighting, the answer comes with a lot of asterisks. Certainly, Rutten has beaten up a lot of people, and if you can do what he can do, you’ll be able to beat up a lot of people too. But if not, you’ll probably find that throwing punches and kicks untrained is as dangerous to you as to anyone else. But there are concerns apart from the issues of personal physical safety. I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure a plurality of what he recommends has a good chance of landing you in prison. As one random YouTube commenter noted, a good subtitle for this video would be “how to turn a simple verbal dispute into an aggravated battery charge.” Perhaps David A. Westbrook has the relevant case law background on Bud Lite bottle related grievous bodily harm, or Prof. Adrian Vermeule can inquire from the Harvard Law School resident expert on barfight jurisprudence (assuming it’s not him) for more clarity, but I would expect that the law would frown on grabbing a man by the back of the neck and knee striking him into a CTE diagnosis for touching your chest with his finger.

To his credit, Rutten has given serious thought to his philosophy, and closes with a short monologue where he lays out, directly, his thoughts on violence. In this postscript- perhaps added after some fretting notes from the distribution company’s legal team- Rutten urges his viewers to avoid conflict if possible, notwithstanding his earlier advocacy for going full Grok-on-Will-Stancil with hot sauce, and declares that despite what you might think given everything he’s said and done for last 90 minutes, he’s not a violent person.

He’s not lying. Rutten is not a violent person in the sense that he seeks to harm others for his personal gratification. People like that prey on the weak, and Rutten spent his life testing himself against the best the world could offer him. But Rutten is a warrior. Some force drove him, not to a life of violence, but to confront the violence that life presented. He was a sickly kid from a middle-class family who found his calling braining people with barstools and fighting hand-to-hand in front of thousands of spectators. It’s his nature, and it’s that authenticity that shines through as the best and most useful aspect of this video.

What Rutten is really teaching is not various ways to crotch-kick low-life alcoholics. It’s that violence fundamentally is not avoidable; one can only confront it, succumb to it, or defer it somewhere else. Most adults don’t regularly engage in the kind of brawling where you would need the techniques on offer here, but that’s only because other people- the police on behalf of the state- have been delegated to deal with that savagery on our collective behalf, and only on rare occasions will a psychologically healthy person be called upon to push a receipt spike into someone’s neck. Rutten opens our eyes to the sort of mindset required to survive in a world where things are very different, where the veneer of civilization is removed, where cops are, at most a minor, distant nuisance that interferes with the normal brutality of life when it deigns to enter the demi-monde and round up unfortunates who haven’t yet learned from Rutten how to break their forearms.

If you choose to do what Rutten advocates, you are more likely to go to jail than if you flee or call the cops. But if you need to use Rutten’s methods, you will be more likely to survive when there’s nowhere to run and no authorities on hand. He’s not preparing you for the world around you, but for the one most of us are blessed not to see, the one roped off by uniformed officials for our health and safety. It’s something both pre- and post- modern, a world of medieval, honor-based violence and a harbinger of the emerging multicultural bellum omnium contra omnes foisted on the West by politicians insulated (for now) from the chaos they authored. Do watch Lethal Street Fighting, enjoy the humor both intentional and otherwise, but open your mind. You’ll learn more than you expect.

Above: Rutten leaping for joy after winning the raffle at the local Knights of Columbus potluck. Rutten is a devout Catholic who is outspoken about his faith and its implications for his worldview.