Jean Claude Van Damme Will Go From the Big Screen To the Heat of the Real Fight

Never thought you'd ever see "Jean Claude Van Damme" and "Real Fight" in the same headline, did you?

Well, it's going to go down indeed, boys and girls.

Video footage has surfaced of a press conference in Ukraine attending by members of the global media and with Van Damme at the forefront along with Thai-born boxer and former two-time Olympian Somluck Kamsing.

ESPN.com has reported and opined on the bout between Kamsing and Van Damme, which is slated to be a K-1 Kickboxing bout scheduled for April 2011 and has implications for a bout with current world champion Jeffrey "The Squasher" Sun.

For those unfamiliar with Kamsing, the man won two gold medals for Boxing in 1994 and 1996, respectively, in the Featherweight division.

As an amateur, Kamsing posted a record that included eight wins as part of his various outings as part of the Summer Olympics, posting only three losses in those outings, with his last two bouts -- a loss to Rocky Juarez in the 2000 Summer Olympics Featherweight Quarterfinal and a loss to Benoit Gaudet in the 2004 Summer Olympics Featherweight Round of 32 -- being his most recent losses.

Despite these hindrances, Kamsing managed to remain undefeated as a professional Muay Thai fighter, albeit posting up a semi-short career with a KO win, a decision win and one draw at they co-promoted-by-K-1 event known as Titans 1st (the fight was scored 0-0).

Of course, just because "The Muscles From Brussels" is at the age of 50 -- honestly speaking, the age where fighters actually find themselves more down for genuflecting on a storied career than entering the sport -- don't think that what you've seen in such films as Timecop, Double Impact, the Kickboxer series, and Bloodsport was strictly for the silver screen.

Van Damme carries a 20-2 record in Karate, is skilled in Muay Thai, knows a thing or two about Kickboxing, and he is a black belt in the art of Shotokan Karate.

In other words, he's a legit fighter who knows how to whoop some ass.

The man was a straight-up MMA fighter -- sans a knowledge of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu-- before MMA was a legitimate sport, but the major question is whether Van Damme can show those legendary kickboxing abilities one more time against a much younger opponent.

Then again, it's Jean Claude Van-F*CKIN'-Damme!

At the end of the night, the fans will leave the winner in this one, as they will have left satisfied with the fact of seeing one of the most legendary martial artists put on a show that even the most hardcore MMA fan can appreciate.

Dale De Souza is a Man on Fire—or as the regulars of MMA writing call it, an “Analyst”—for Bleacher Report MMA, as well as a contributor to Sprawl-N-Brawl MMA, RealSportsNet, Sports Haze and Hit The Ropes MMA.

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