Tom Hardy waltzes into a martial arts competition, takes home the gold
Hardy slyly entered the small-town competition under his real name, Edward
Aux News Martial arts
Tom Hardy stunned the 2022 Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Open Championship in England over the weekend when he arrived unannounced, taking down all of his competition. The 45-year-old Venom and Warrior star humbly took home the gold, proving all those muscles aren’t just to look good in all those scantily-clad Myspace profile images.
“Everyone recognized him, but he was very humble and was happy to take time out for people to take photographs with him,” a spokesperson for the event tells The Guardian. “It was a real pleasure to have him compete at our event.”
In the semi-final round, Hardy spared martial arts veteran Danny Appleby, who was rightfully thunderstruck when he learned who he would be competing against. The Hollywood actor entered the competition under his real name, Edward Hardy, maintaining some level of anonymity until he arrived.
“I was shell-shocked,” Appleby says about Hardy’s surprise appearance. “[Hardy] said, ‘Just forget it’s me and do what you would normally do.’”
Appleby continues, “He’s a really strong guy… You wouldn’t think it with him being a celebrity. I’ve done about six tournaments and I’ve been on the podium in every one. But he’s probably the toughest competitor I’ve had—he certainly lived up to his Bane character, that’s for sure.”
In the final round, Hardy faced Andy Leatherland, who described the Mad Max: Fury Road actor as “very focused.”
“I made a mistake and he capitalized on that. He absolutely nailed it, and he subbed me, and it was over relatively quickly,” Leatherland tells Independent.
The Milton-Keyes event marks Hardy’s second martial arts competition win of the year. Back in August, the actor won the REORG Open Jiu-Jitsu Championship in Wolverhampton, a tournament aimed at “raising funds for military personnel, veterans and emergency service workers.” Hardy currently works as a trustee for REORG, a charity that teaches jiu-jitsu to those suffering from serious injuries, PTSD, and depression.
45 Comments
“In the semi-final round, Hardy spared martial arts veteran Danny Appleby”It took me several reads of this sentence to figure out that that you meant “sparred” and not that he “spared” Appleby by letting him live after killing everyone else in the ring. Get some proofreaders, AVClub.Anyway, holy shit, Tom Hardy is a beast.
They are trolling us all with the typos at this point.
Yeah, that’s not a typo, but a very fun mistake. Who knew Tom was so merciful?
I always suspected that under that insanely sexy body was a heart of gold.
Of course he let him live. The guy didn’t have his permission to die.
FINISH HIM!!!
Someone must live to tell the tale.
You think Jizz media is going to spend money on proofreaders? You’re lucky the writers are sentient.
Do we actually have proof they’re sentient…?
Me too, but is it really even sparring if it’s a real competition?It’s a misspelled mistake.
Also it’s Milton Keynes, not Milton ‘Keyes’. It’s bad enough that we in the UK have to suffer the ignominy of having produced Milton Keynes, at least spell the abomination’s name correctly.
You’ve got it wrong. He speared Appleby through the chest with his fist, pulled out his still beating heart and showed it to him. Then he signed autographs and took pictures.Then he killed everyone just by looking at them.
‘meant “sparred” and not that he “spared” Appleby’Obviously he’d leave no survivors.
Please tell me that, after putting someone into a submission hold, he said, in his Bane voice, “Do you feel in charge?”
His real name is Ed Hardy?
I’d’ve changed it.
Talk about burying the lede. No wonder he goes by Tom.
That was my first thought. This is like finding out that Tom Hanks is secretly a competitive slam poet, and he keeps it under wraps by using his real name, Orville Reddenbacher.
Should have changed it to Ed Hardly
Is he secretly also the t-shirt guy?
I’m genuinely surprised he didn’t conceal his identity with some sort of full-face mask.
Nobody would have cared until he put it on anyway.
ha mf doom lol, amazing
Yes, and throw his opponents off by putting on a voice that makes Eddie Redmayne in Jupiter Ascending sound like Kevin Grevioux.
Not to take anything away from the guy, but I wonder how much of a psychological advantage he gets from opponents having what sounds like about five minutes to wrap their heads around the fact that they’re about to fight Venom. Like a lot of the more harshly critical commenters become weirdly deferential when an actual AV club writer dips into the comments, and I have to imagine that effect is magnified when you’re suddenly told you have to kick Bane’s ass.
All I can come up with is, think back to Star Trek: Nemesis and reconceptualize him as store brand Patrick Stewart. It should land you at least a couple punches before he breaks you and throws you in a hole.
I imagine it’s an even split between some being awestruck and others being “oh boy I get to kick Venom’s ass!”I don’t even know BJJ and I’m a fan of Tom Hardy but I’d still get a special jolt out of the chance to test my mettle there.
Truthfully, I’d imagine that no matter how you feel about it, whether you’re excited or annoyed or intimidated or just worried about what happens if you really hurt him, it’s gotta be, at minimum, distracting. His opponent chalks up his defeat to making an exploitable mistake, and I bet that shit happens constantly in Hardy’s first bout with a new guy.
Probably, though my limited understanding of BJJ has also led me to understand that every match ends because someone made an exploitable mistake.
Is waltzing martial arts like the Austrian equivalent of capoeira?
Or Unagi, if you’re American.
It all falls under the “Sexy Dance Fighting” umbrella.
Nah, it was Jiu Jitsu, its the secret art of folding clothes with people still inside of them.
It’s like dressage for buff dudes.
“Tom Hardy waltzes into a martial arts competition, takes home the gold”Does it make you feel better to diminish someone’s years of training? Just because he’s famous?
And didn’t he win some hiphop freestyle competition held in a football stadium a few years back?
And didn’t he win the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his work on enantiomers a few years back?
And wasn’t he also the King of Kong, Chuck Norris?
Well, he did break the neck of the only guy who’d ever beaten him before. But I hear his nutritional advice is also very much on-point.
What do you think he’s doing in this photo?
“My name’s Edward Hardy and I’m here to say, I’m about to Jiu-Jitsu you in a mmaaajor way!”
Although you havent done it, I find it hilarious that many outlets are reporting it as he “secretly” entered a tournament. One of the reasons they use is because he entered with his name Edward (which is pointed out here).. which yea he used his real name you can’t sign up for most things with a stage name. He just didnt announce he was going to show up. I bet he starts secretly entering because I’m sure some people will start checking every tournament to see if Ed Hardy is competing now and it will become a circus
“I could’ve done that!” — Steven Seagal, on line for fifths at the local buffet
Speaking of people named “Ed”, this guy is a black belt in BJJ as well.
I’m going to take this opportunity to again remind everyone that Warrior is an incredible movie and didn’t get enough attention because it was released too close to The Fighter.