In my humble opinion, nothing is a greater test of heart for a man than sports and combat. You can train, study and read all you want but when the jaws of life slams shut, you only have 2 choices – fight or fold. It is after reacting and recovering that you truly know what you are; are you the champion, rolling off of your oponent with his warm heart beating within your teeth, or are you the victim being tended to by the medical staff? The deciding factor isn’t about winning or losing, no, the decider is whether or not your spirit fought back. People try to theorize that the instinct to fight is born of our environment but I believe that it goes deeper than that. Sure the poor kid who has been fighting since birth has enough experience to fight when pushed but that isn’t to say that the trust-fund baby won’t… [Read more]

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One of the profiles that we respect on The Hall is that of men and women who fought, lived and maintained longevity on their own terms. What I mean by this is that any man who could survive into his late adult life within a society that used laws, government, schools and police to keep him “less than” is already a champion. If you add in the fact that a man like this defiantly and legally married 3 women that were of his oppressors and found a way to beat all challengers into a bloody pulp within the boxing ring then what you have is a certified badass. “for more than thirteen years, Jack Johnson was the most famous and the most notorious African-American on Earth.” – Ken Burns If you were a white man who loved boxing in the early 1900’s you would hate John Arthur “Jack” Johnson more than any other Negro in… [Read more]

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“I didn’t play a villain; I played a man doing his job” – Stephen Lang That is how badass actor Stephen Lang describes his role as Avatar’s antagonist Col. Miles Quaritch. It was a brilliant portrayal, lost to many moviegoers due to being blindly distracted by the blue giants dominating the scenes and the protagonist Jake Sully’s quest to score some blue booty (he got it too #beastmode). All it takes is one look at Colonel Miles to know that he isn’t the type of man that you go to begging for a day off. The man looked every bit the committed military type that has been in the dance for so long that he is harder than penitentiary steel. Quaritch lived in a time when the technology allowed for a man’s scars to be removed yet he kept a visible scratch across his puss to remind him daily that he can never let his guard… [Read more]

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I’m Alpha. Tough shit if you don’t like it or agree with me, but I have Superwoman Syndrome. Although syndrome makes it sounds like an affliction (sometimes is, I guess) – I get mad amounts of work done in a day. In a normal day, I’ll probably have 2 meetings, be on my BlackBerry whilst walking, replying and checking more emails, returning and answering calls and staying up to date with friends and family. Trouble with me, is that I.Just.Cannot.Slow.Down. I’m usually wide awake in bed and my mind is always running in fast forward. I don’t know how to relax because I fear that I haven’t got something done in the day. And that of course this affects relationships. Men have accused me of being aggressive, too much to bear or handle, argumentative, hot headed and every name that’s derogatory about being ambitious under the sun. I’m used to it really. When i was… [Read more]

Every strong woman that I have ever dated has been a sweetheart when it came to the actual relationship. I think that a lot of tough girls who stand up for themselves and can physically fight you back, are stereotyped wrongly as this hyper-masculine, evil, bitch that isn’t capable of love. Many of you reading have seen a strong woman walking around with a guy that you assume is either weaker than she is or if he’s muscular – you assume him a big, patient, teddy bear type. Then you wonder at how he could possibly deal with her whenever the arguments start. I’ll tell you this right now, it takes a special kind of guy to date a strong woman – personally I have never had a problem with it. The main reason for this is that strong women in matters of love and affection are no different than the girly girls. Being able… [Read more]

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One of the most annoying and inaccurate stigmas with the martial arts is that you have to be a child or pre-teen to enter and take away anything of value from it. As a practicing Karateka of 23 years I am here to warn you that formal training could and will save your life. The statement that is the title was stated by Nas, a rapping emcee who has made a living echoing the sentiment of the street. Of course if you are familiar with the street’s sentiment, it is “I practice Gun fu not kung-fu” which is arrogance in assuming that a. you will always be in a place where your gun is at the ready and b. you are born with the natural skills to fight. My question to you older folks that shy away from martial arts based on this is – why are you listening to street thugs? Why are you… [Read more]

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One of my favorite cable series as a “History Homer” is Spartacus on Starz, the show is not for the prudish as there are hardcore sexual and homosexual scenes, violence, rape, limitless drama, and full frontal nudity of men and women equally. Homophobes stay far away from it as it will scar you beyond measure, but you regular folks out there ought to check it out if you get a chance. Spartacus: Blood and Sands introduced us to many powerful characters, some honorable, some ruthless and some who were just plain evil. Of all the men and women that we got to know personally, none was more honorable than one Oenomaus the Doctore for the Ludus of Batiatus. Oenomaus The Gladiator Legend Oenomaus was a legendary gladiator whose skills were beyond match, so much so that he was destined to win the coveted Rudis (a wooden sword of freedom) which was awarded to only the… [Read more]

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Rarely does a character in such a foreign time period as early America come alive as much as Bill ‘The Butcher’ Cutting from Gangs of New York. Bill was a brilliantly written and perfectly acted character played by Daniel Day Lewis. He was a flawed patriot, a warrior, a butcher (that was his actual day job) and a man of honor. Imagine all of these things mixed into a tall, lanky, one-eyed panther of a man and you have one dangerously complex sunovabitch. You can’t help but love the butcher; he was the living embodiment of flawed American patriotism that wants all outsiders to stay outside and everything coming to come in faster. Bill was the best part of Gangs of New York… no disrespect to Leo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz and Liam Neeson. To understand Bill the Butcher you have to understand the time period that he lived in. There wasn’t much law, there were… [Read more]