Guitarist and Professional Grappling Federation co-owner Zoltan Bathory recently shared his perspective on celebrities who practice martial arts.
During an interview, Bathory addressed the topic of celebrity martial artists competing, explaining why many choose not to step onto the competitive mats despite their training.
“Not many of us compete,” he stated. “I can understand that because you’re celebrity, you don’t want to be out there like ‘Oh, some competitive blue belt goes like yeah I kicked his a*s.’ So it’s probably a lot of that in there. People don’t want to use their fame as a stepping stone for someone else.”
Bathory himself stands as an exception to this trend, actively competing in both judo and jiu-jitsu despite his rock star status. However, he noted that several other celebrities do put their skills to the test in competition settings.
When discussing which celebrity martial artists actually compete, Bathory specifically mentioned actor Mario Lopez and Tom Hardy as practitioners willing to enter tournaments. “Mario Lopez competes. Tom Hardy competes. There are a couple of guys that are out there competing,” he explained.
The guitarist also revealed that the entertainment world contains numerous highly skilled jiu-jitsu practitioners that fans might not expect.
“There’s a lot of guys actually who are not even known, highly skilled jiu jitsu guys. Like Ricky Rocket is a third degree black belt. He used to or he drums for Poison. You would never know right,” Bathory shared.
He continued: “Harley [Flanagan] from Cro-Mags, he’s a third degree black belt. Billy [Graziadei] from Biohazard is a black belt as well. So yeah, they’re a lot of us actually.”
When pressed about who stands out as the best from the world of entertainment and jiu-jitsu, Bathory gave his answer: “From the world of entertainment, I would say the Boondock Saint himself,” referring to actor Sean Patrick Flanery. “He’s a serious guy. I never trained with him, but I’m trying to put together that one.”
Bathory also praised Harley Flanagan, noting “Harley is really good,” though acknowledging he hasn’t had the opportunity to train with many of these celebrities since they earned their black belts.
The musician even floated the idea of a charitable celebrity jiu-jitsu competition. “There’s already a celebrity d*ath match. We could make that happen in jiu-jitsu. There are a lot of actors now that are trained as well. So it could be a possibility that this can be done for charity,” he suggested.
