It was back in September that I first reported that 49-year-old Jean Claude Van Damme was planning to take on Thailand’s 1996 Olympic gold medalist boxer, Somluck Kamsing, in a no-elbows Muay Thai kickboxing match.  Hardly anyone picked up the story, which I thought was strange — maybe they thought it sounded too unbelievable.  Now we have video of JCVD at a press conference confirming the plans with his own waffle-eating mouth.

“I want to do three reality show: One casting one, one behind the scene of a movie called The Tower, and another TV show where I sign to fight with a big champion named Somluck.  He’s a Thai fighter that’s got about 300 fight in English boxing and 250 fight in Muay Thai.
“And once we have all da TV show, we are gonna fight in Macau, in three weeks after the TV show, and the movie come out.  So between September and October, we have a movie come out, the end of three TV seasons, and a fight.  It will be the first time in history and also the first time a guy at 50-years-old  will go for a fight in Macau. [Ed. note: if he hadn't added 'in Macau', I'd point out that Ron van Clief was 51 when he got choked out by Royce Gracie at UFC 4] Which is kind of dangerous, but life is short, and I want to do this for two reasons:  to prove to young people, and to mature people, dat a man can go thought training and also be a movie star, like Hollywood gets reality.”

Considering Van Damme hasn’t competed in martial arts since 1980 (when he was fighting in European karate tournaments), and his opponent is a gold effing medal winner from Thailand, this would seem to be serious case of putting his balls where his brain should be.  I hope he’s actually training and not thinking he’s going to rely on his 80s karate skillz like he’s Lyoto Machida.  Either way, I hope he paid this dude off.  Because if getting your ass kicked is a valid method of promoting a movie, I’ve got a few projects I’d like to pitch Danny Masterson.

vandamme-somluckkamsing

[hat tip: Fightlinker]