Sometimes we come across videos that have no description other than “zOMG TH1S GUY GOT R0cK3D!” and it doesn’t matter, because it’s the quality of the meat, not which cow it came from. In the clip below, we have what seems to be a traditional kickboxing match, since there are no hands dipped in glue and rolled in glass, and I also didn’t see anyone enter to a 15-minute video montage complete with an ACDC soundtrack. What I did see was a guy pull off a flawless 360 kick, landing his foot squarely across his opponent’s dome, dropping him instantly.

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Far be it for me to question what a person chooses to do with his life, so when I came across some videos of a guy named “The Thunder Shin Man” breaking baseball bats with his shins, I thought, “F*ck it, dude’s gotta make a living, right?” Grand Master Dr. Mak Yuree has been recognized with prestigious honors by basically every martial arts organization in the world, so I know better than to make fun of him, especially since his website advertises the ability to teach you how to “break bones like chocolate bars.” So if Thunder Shin Man happens to read this… please don’t kill me.

Back in May, Dr. Yuree set the world record for breaking bats with his shins, and again, out of respect, I’m going to assume that this is a very prestigious record and only a complete and total badass should bother trying for it. Using his secret South Asian method of “Iron Shin Conditioning”, Dr. Yuree broke two wooden baseball bats in half just by kicking them (pictured above). And that’s totally cool. It reminds me of the time in middle school that I beat five kids in a row in pencil fighting. I may go back next week and challenge them again.

On November 14, Yuree went for a new record, as he tried to break three bats with one kick. The results didn’t go as well as I think he would have hoped. Perhaps someone left the chocolate bar in the freezer. Seriously, it kills my shins just to watch the first kick on the video of his record breaking effort, but follow along anyway for more of the Thunder Shin Man’s exploits…

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Danny MacAskill is a world famous BMX rider, or so I’m told, because I don’t know the first thing about competitive riding other than yelling “OHHHHHHHHHH!” whenever someone busts their ass during the X-Games. Nevertheless, after watching some of his videos and giggling endlessly over his name, I have a newfound respect for MacAskill’s work because he’s both incredibly creative and a royal badass.

His latest efforts involved a ride from Edinburgh to his hometown Dunvegan, in the Isle of Skye, which sounds like something from World of Warcraft. I don’t know that personally because I don’t play games on my computer. I use it for blogging and tracking my pushups. I did 6,000 this morning. In 2 minutes. Each key I strike on this keyboard cries out in pain. But I digress.

The video footage of MacAskill’s ride, which was sponsored by Red Bull, is pretty awesome, especially his flips in front of Edinburgh Castle. You can read Danny’s Q&A on his ride here and you can also view the “Way Back Home” ride on the next page, as well as a little collection of his highlights that I gathered from the Interwebs… WHILE DRINKING MOUNTAIN DEW!
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In 1999, Vyacheslav Datsik became a popular name in the world of mixed martial arts when he shockingly defeated Andrei Arlovski at the MFC World Championship after Arlovski had been kicking his ass during most of the fight. Datsik built his MMA record to 12-1 before he just sort of fell apart. He resorted to a life of crime, robbing retail stores before he was eventually caught and declared batsh*t crazy. After serving years in a maximum security mental ward, he was moved to a lower security facility, and this turned out to be a brilliant move because he escaped last weekend. By tearing through a metal fence. With his bare hands. F*cking metal, bro.

Russian authorities are trying to find this psycho gorilla because he’s back to his old tricks of robbing stores, as a cell phone store owner reported that a “hefty” man stole $227 dollars and a Nokia phone from him over the weekend. This dude is like Jason Bourne, only he’s real, completely insane and he will beat you to death. But let’s revisit part of the story for a second:

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All of the internet has been raving over the latest entrance video for the University of Alaska-Fairbanks hockey team. With Leather was fortunate enough to get in touch with one of its co-creators. Jon Dorfman (not pictured) is a native New Yorker and one of the minds behind HiFi3d, a multi-platform digital media shop. Jon was good enough to answer some of our questions.

WL: You co-directed the entrance video for the Alaska-Fairbanks Nanooks hockey team. What the hell is a nanook? Is that like a dystopian breakfast nook in the Arctic?

JD: “Nanook” is an Inuit word for the Polar bear, who they consider the “Master of the Bears.” I whole-heartedly agree.

WL: How did you get involved in the production of what’s being called on Twitter “the greatest film our species has ever created”?

JD: I recently co-founded a computer animation studio called HiFi 3D (www.hifi3d.com) with my co-director Szymon Weglarski. We were looking to create a sample project to get the word out, and we came across a craigslist ad for a sequel to the original “UAF Hockey bear”. We both
loved the original intro, and even though the budget and time frame were absurd, we had to take on the project. We contacted Mike Martinez, who created the original and was producing and writing the sequel, and things took off from there.

As soon as we got the job we started brainstorming ways to make it as over-the-top as we possibly could. We tried to take every idea, push it as far as it could go, and then make it explode. It’s really exciting to see people respond so positively to it and point out the little obscure references that we threw in. Read the rest of this entry »

UPDATE: This is the actual video.

Bruce Lee is one of those rare icons of film that was as badass in real life as he was in his movies. I heard that one time he caught a bullet in between his asscheeks while he was procreating with a stegasaurus. Unfortunately, that wasn’t caught on tape, but this was: It’s a pair of older Nokia ads featuring Bruce [allegedly] playing ping pong with nunchaku and I hate to sound impressed, but I’m impressed. And if that wasn’t enough for you, he then tapes a piece of sandpaper to his ‘chuks and lights a cigarette with them. I actually tried that once in a bar. My results weren’t exactly similar. via Roger Ebert’s blog, via @Enrico_Pallazo_