Episode 662: Count Dante Part I - The Deadliest Man Alive

This is the last top cast on the left.

“Let's go to the cannon for some started.”

[music playing] [music playing] [growling] [growling] [growling]

[growling] [growling] Sweetheart! Sweetheart! Sweetheart! Sweetheart! Sweetheart! [growling]

[growling] [growling] Yeah, it's got to be so many no one. I mean, this... It's got to be a lot of fun noise. Is it good to do?

I think it's good. I think it's good. What is, like, for me, like, a good karate noise. This is a quick, you... [growling]

[growling] [growling]

Depending, depending on where you are, because I'm...

[growling] [growling] [growling] So I'm showing for me. I like, I like the high pitched ones.

I like the ones that hate your ear, like a fucking bullet. Well, you just watched that Bruce Lee movie. Yeah, yeah, watched Game of Death, though. The last, according to what Bruce Lee movie, that they just used all of the footage that he filmed right before he died,

and then replaced all the rest of the footage with a stand-in, a guy who kind of looks like Bruce Lee. We're in really dark glasses. It's a Game of Death. [growling]

[growling] [growling] You die. [growling] There was a depressing movie.

Welcome to the last podcast on the left, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with Henry Zabraski. The man who I think... Do you have the discipline?

Do you have the knowledge? Yeah. [growling] Yes. I have watched at least four Karosawa films in the last month.

“So, honestly, I know a lot of people have pushed back on me,”

but there's no karate in those movies. No, but there's swords. None whatsoever. There's swordsmanship. Sure.

But there are also swordsmanship in Game of Thrones. No, there's the core man on man or speckful battle. One on one. Why, or I coat of the samurai? But the samurai has no kung fu.

So it's good. No. You're right. Nothing to do with kung fu. What's nice is that for a long time because, obviously,

some people have said that I did some sort of... I do, I play many characters over the years. Yeah, yeah. I say talent. Yes.

And I feel that now more than I've ever been... I'm almost Asian. Sure. I'm feel very Asian right now. Why?

Because of Kurosawa. And he's giving me permission. No, he hasn't. Well, I know I watch Heaven Gallion. He's been dead for a very long time.

I watch Heaven Gallion. And I feel like a little Japanese boy. Sure. He has a relation. Watch could do it.

Just one away. Oh, yeah. Watch the last samurai. I'm as Asian as Tom Cruise.

“And we have the man who does not confuse consuming culture”

with being a part of it. Yeah. That's that. That's that. That's that.

That's that. That's that. That's that. That's that. The reason why Henry is so...

Channelling my eat. That's out of my cheek. Yeah. It looks like you're true. And the reason why Henry is going so hard on appropriation today

is that we are starting a series, a nice quick two-part series on a man who, I mean, appropriated Asian culture just in such a beautiful way and in such an incredibly violent way, it's count Dante the deadliest man alive.

I have never seen another show necessarily covered this material.

The first time I read this, as we were going through all the research, I laughed. I laughed. And I laughed. Yeah.

This man is one of the funniest, got to me. Like, personas we've ever even covered on this show. If you called him funny to his face, he would fucking try to script it. He would rip your tits off. If he would beat you half to death for looking at him sideways,

that was sort of his hallmark. The last time I was helping bring the neighborhood together. Yeah. You have the same time. Man, this man, he was like, he was definitely trying to integrate the martial arts.

Trying to, yeah. Well, in April of 1970, a martial arts instructor in Chicago calling himself count one Raphael Dante, storm the dojo of a rival school with six of his students. And by the end of the melee, one man was dead from a gaping neck wound.

It's a, I thought count Dante was the guy we interviewed, who sucked on ladies' backs and called himself a vampire. No, there's a bastard. This is his nephew. But while this incident was at one off,

it still came to be known as the dojo war. There just need to be more than one battle for there to be a war. Sometimes you just need one big one. As far as who count Dante was, most people knew him from the ads.

He placed in various Marvel and DC comic books throughout the late 1960s. In these ads count Dante built himself as the deadliest man alive,

Only if you join his black dragon fighting society.

“These examples of Dante's advertising pattern.”

Yes, this is the deadliest and most terrifying fighting art known to man. And without equal, it's mainly mutilating, disfiguring, paralyzing, and crippling techniques are known by only a few people in the world. Instructing you step by step through each move,

and this manual is none other than count Dante. The deadliest man who ever lived. The crown brings them dead. You can't advertise. I'm going to teach you how to mutilate and paralyze me.

He did, though. He did. Dozens upon dozens of times across both major comic book publishers that like count Dante was, I mean, he was a mainstay in late 1960s comic book.

It's still the reality of that. No, I mean, dubious.

There's a lot of people and just by looking at me as soon

I can't paralyze you. I definitely can. I can do those things. It's not false advertising. I mean, really have to do is at the end just

print for entertainment purposes only at some point. And it removes all culpability. Well, in reality, count won Raphael Dante was born John Keyon. The half Irish son of a wealthy gynecologist from Chicago. Count Dante, call him a pussy.

No, I'm just elbow-deeper. But what one does not realize is that the vagina is actually the strongest muscle on the body. Here, open my Pepsi. Count Dante had used his family's wealth to travel

to various Asian countries dozens of times throughout the 1960s where he learned martial arts techniques from dozens of teachers teaching dozens of disciplines. Now, it is tempting to call Count Dante an outright fraud. But by all accounts, the man did actually know what he was doing

from at the very least a technical standpoint when it came to martial arts. But I love to show it at either video of his one of his instructional's like sessions. And I have to say that it really refutes everything you're just saying.

It's so funny. Because I believe he sort of, he does know what he's doing. But let's just say he cuts to the chase. Instead of doing all the normal kind of like, "Oh, we're going back and forth."

He just smashes your head on the ground. Yes. And that's the difference is that when you're watching him, you're expecting to see Bruce Lee. You're expecting to see somebody who looks beautiful doing it.

Yeah, it looks very graceful. And it looks like there's a lot of discipline behind it. He looks like a grocery store butcher. Yeah. You're the game final fight.

Yeah. He just like go through the streets. It was kind of like streets a rage.

“That's what his fighting style looks like to me.”

Yeah, yeah. He looks like the big guy with the overalls who is also the mayor, by the way. Oh. But Count Dante could watch and almost immediately copy almost any fighting technique.

And people who trained with him said Count Dante was powerful enough

to break a man's arm by slapping him on the shoulder. He's a big dude, he's like six foot, went about between like 180 and 200. But while Count Dante was a talented martial artist, he was also to put it lightly eccentric. As is any Irishman from Chicago who legally changes his name

to Count Juan Rafael Dante. One time I went on vacation. I got a tan and it stuck. [LAUGHTER] So who said that he could break so his arm by slapping the shoulder?

One of his students. There was a lot, but all the people that were spoken to about Count Dante, the guys who studied under him are fought against and they're like, no, he could fight. He was very dangerous. He was a highly, highly dangerous man.

He was a stupid. Yeah, I don't know. But he's not, I don't believe that.

“I think that everyone, it's to me it's like a cult.”

Sure. And they're all like following the cult. Like he could break so one's arm. Well, you see, he doesn't kill somebody. Well, actually he doesn't.

Well, he helps. [LAUGHTER] It's his fault. Well, that's not given away, just yet. [LAUGHTER]

But partly, Dante was eccentric because being eccentric was good bait for the roughy ends of 1960 Chicago. Dante was an innately violent person, so he dressed flamboyantly specifically to attract trouble. Can we?

Yeah. And the jeers and insults thrown his way gave him a reliable excuse to beat men half to death in the middle of the street on a regular basis. That is true. Let me tell you something.

I know about you. My father stuck a tool in your mother's pussy. What are you going to do about it? Why are you going to do about it? I mean, you just walk around dressed like an idiot and wait for someone

to go, hey, nice shirt. And then he just, but he would, but his eyes would bolt out and get stop it.

His eyes would bolt out of his head.

“And he'd be on the other person in a second.”

And he could beat them. You're anyone half to death. But it's just, it's so hard for me to believe that's true. It's because it's the element of surprise, Eddie. Yeah.

But I mean, people who also didn't like him would say the same thing. Yeah. It wasn't just guys who followed him. And his eyes were also like, no, he was fucking awful. But yeah, he could fight.

Okay. I mean, I don't know how technically skilled he was at all times. As far as like looking like it, it's just he was able to take those moves and apply them in such a way. And apply them in like the most violent way possible.

And the most effective way possible. But on the other hand, Count Dante was also a champion of racial integration throughout the 1960 civil rights era. And he partly dedicated his dojos to teaching justice and community. Even if every other lesson he gave was incredibly violent.

His reputation for ending a street fight in seconds naturally attracted a lot of kids who wanted to know how to do the same. And while teaching defensive and allegedly deadly martial arts to young men is the dubious proposition, Count Dante's classes were integrated at a time when most things in America weren't.

But before we hold a Dante as a pillar of the community, he was also a fucking criminal. Oh, yeah. Even some plaque.

“Even setting aside his brief career as a coke smuggler in the early 1970s.”

Dante also participated in or even possibly masterminded the perilater vault heist of 1974 with a mobster named Luigi de Fanzo. He's fake. That's a cartoon character. No, Luigi de Fanzo is a real guy.

They called him the Sicilian Gatsby. Hey, yes, yes. Enjoy my party. Hope you enjoy. Don't worry.

This plenty of Maranara. Whatever. Whatever. He was given. Oh, you know, we had to stick a goal.

Have a very good guess. Yes, very good.

The thickness ice was $4.3 million.

It was one of the largest heights in American history. This, however, was just before a count Dante died while projectile vomiting blood from a stomach ulcer at the age of 36.

Live fast. Die fun. The Dante's involvement in this ice. Now Dante's involvement in this ice is questionable.

“Because as we'll see over the course of this series,”

the count was a pathological liar, a master of his own mythology. But at the same time, Dante did lead a somewhat incredible life. But that life was usually made incredible

by count Dante's continual need to create the conditions for chaos and mayhem in service of building said mythology. It seems to be a lovely antique store you have.

It would be shame if there was anything to strike. [laughter] As far as sources, we used the deadliest man alive.

Count Dante, the mob, and the war for American martial arts by Bingeve Feldheim and a piece from WBEZ Chicago called "How the Deadliest Man alive Stoke Chicago's infamous Dojo Wars."

That one's by Joe DeCault. And both of them tell a story that is very stupid, but also at the same time, fucking incredible.

Like this is, it's such an American tale. Just a guy saying, "I want that, I'm gonna do that,

and I can make it mine." Yeah, I'll be gonna lie and all cost again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's tell the story of Count One Rafaio Dante,

aka Jan Timothy Keyon. But for the sake of clarity, we will be referring to our main character as Count Dante throughout this series. He's really Count Dante.

He is. Yeah, well, he did legally change it to Count Dante. Hey, I'm sure Prince's real name as a Prince. No, that's true.

Well, Count Dante was born on February 2, 1939, to a couple named Dorothy and Jack Keyon. While Jack was Irish, Dorothy was Spanish by birth. And allegedly Dorothy and Jack fled

the fascists in Spain just before the Spanish Civil War began in 1936. This is where the One Rafaio in Count One Rafaio Dante came from. That came from his Spanish,

his funnith heritage. Oh, we're quite Spanish in Chicago. [laughter] Now, the Keyon settled in the Beverly neighborhood, the southwest side of Chicago,

after allegedly fleeing the fascists. Here, Jack Keyon earned a good living, working both as a popular OBGYN and the director of a local state bank. Jack Keyon's son,

the future Count Dante, therefore grew up wealthy.

And he was never embarrassed

about using his parents money to buy and do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. That's important to note. Without that wealth,

Count Dante would have never become a Count Dante. Oh, he's like Taylor Swift. Sure. Yeah, same reach. Yeah.

Same reach, same cultural impact. You know, you just really got out of there. They called him the Dante's. Well, yeah.

Now, when Count Dante was in the third grade, and I don't know why,

“but I love that since when Count Dante was in the third grade.”

[laughter] He claimed that he was hanging around his house when a couple of young streettuffs attacked him. How'd you get my living room? [laughter]

His neighbor, a kid named Tommy Gregory, jumped in to even up the fight. And after the two kids joined forces and defended themselves, they became instant lifelong best friends.

[laughter] Count Dante, however, used this conflict as a motivator. This was allegedly one of only two fights that Dante lost over the course of his entire life. And he vowed that after that day,

he would never lose a fight again.

The only other fight he lost was against that also. [laughter] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Three fights then. Ah, yeah.

I wonder if the IRS would have been another one. [laughter] Let's just say there's no more Sherlock when it comes to detectables. [laughter] Let's also say that this was a time in America

when a man could just run away from his problem. Yeah, you could just leave. [laughter] I jumped into the tree. [laughter]

There are no taxes in trees. [laughter] Well, after this dark third grade day,

“the most important thing in the counts mine to cultivate”

was the ability to physically defend himself. And as it went, he was able to devote his life to this cause because of the way his bizarre mind worked. So, Count Dante was somewhat of an idiot savant. He was one of those guys who can learn and remember almost anything,

but because he's also kind of stupid, he used that knowledge to do the dumbest shit possible at every opportunity. For example, at a young age, Dante became obsessed with people who faked their own death.

So, he learned techniques to control his own breathing, so he could appear dead. [laughter] [laughter] You see, if you could guess about my life or not,

[laughter] I'm gonna stop breathing until I get a huge ulcer. [laughter] Mother, tell me, am I dead or am I alive? I'm dead.

Like dead by me? Likewise, when it was discovered, Count had a fantastic natural singing voice. He began training as an opera singer, supposedly while still a pre-pubescent child.

I could have been a custraddy, but I loved my girlfriend's too much. [laughter] By owing to Dante's experience with his local bullies, the things he devoted himself to the most were the physical arts, like weight, lifting, wrestling, boxing.

And, of course, any and all martial arts available. As his best friend Tommy Gregory put it, Count Dante wasn't happy until he'd completely conquered a new hobby. Everything had to be louder, faster, stronger, and more intense. So, for the count, the only gear he had was full out.

You should hear me on the CB radio. [laughter] What's your handle? Count Dante. [laughter]

I'll just say no. That's easy to find. [laughter] Now Count Dante entered puberty in the mid-1950s. And since martial arts was not the most popular thing in Chicago,

just yet when it came to self-defense, Dante learned boxing at a place called Johnny Coulon's Boxing Gym.

“Now, the thing is, don't remember that karate.”

By the way, don't want over there.

The first thing you don't need to get somebody free,

you go out, bow a lot, bow a lot to bow with it. Do the bow, bow. But the thing I remember is, you punch with the feet. [laughter] What did you do? I was from a soccer cigarette.

What if I want to punch from my hands? That makes you got me and you're not Japanese enough. [laughter] This boxing gym was racially integrated in the mid-50s when segregation was still very much the law of the land

across most of America. So, Count Dante grew up with people who emphasize diversity. People who continually talk about the nonsensical nature of racism and segregation. As far as who taught Count Dante how to box,

it was seemingly Johnny Coulon himself. Coulon was born in 1889. And he'd boxed as the World Bantamweight Champion between 1910 and 1914. When boxing matches would go on for dozens of rounds.

Coulon put boxing on hold to fight in World War I. That's what a whole country.

I want to think that first thing I did was I took that culture.

Oh, I put it right in the bull. [laughter] Well, Coulon returned to Chicago to open his gym in 1923. Now, over the decades, Coulon trained the best. Jack Dempsey, Joe Lewis, Sugar A Robertson, Muhammad Ali,

even Ernest Hemingway came to Coulon's gym for training. Wow. By the time Count Dante began training with Coulon, Coulon was a Chicago legend who could still jump out of the ring over the top rope despite the fact that he was pushing 80 years old.

Land on his feet without having, like, softly, like a kick. Like a kick. Honestly, I could see that it's kind of fun.

We've never martined sure from a rest of development.

Sure.

“Like that's what I really could think of.”

Yeah. Yeah. I got like so many of these guys just claim that they trained these people. Because how many people claim that they trained Muhammad Ali? Well, Muhammad Ali was Chicago.

Yeah. And so it made sense that he would train Muhammad Ali. But he had pictures on the, like, Johnny Coulon, like, even though Count Dante is in the middle of this as kind of a fabulous, the people that he trained with and the people that he actually met and knew

were some of the most, the foremost fighting experts of the mid 20th century. Yeah. They all can't be my Tyson. Yeah. And they also all don't have to be idiots.

Yeah. Yeah. Now for what it seems like, Count Dante began building his fanciful self image at a young age. While the one Raphael and his alias came from his mother's Spanish heritage,

the Dante seemed to have come from his high school years. Dante's alma mater, Mount Carmel High, was located at 6410 South Dante Avenue. Oh, I thought you were going to say the, like, you know, the famous poem, like a famous ancient poet Dante. No, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a street where my high school was at.

That's the, yeah. There we go. There we go. The Dante, however, could have been a tribute to the city that the count obviously loved.

He was a lifelong Cagoan. Dante and his best friend Tommy would wander the neighborhoods of Chicago. Smoking cigars while writing the L to jazz clubs where Dante and Tommy would be the only white kids that just can imagine these two teenage shitheads on the L chopping on huge cigars.

Yeah.

“Honestly, you know what kind of fun though?”

They're going to jazz clubs. Yeah. Yeah. They said they once saw Fat's domino play.

And I say it was incredible.

Yeah. That's be incredible. Yeah. I would love to see Fat's domino play back then. Oh my God.

They're doing great so far. So far, yeah. Yeah. If you believe anybody. Yeah.

Yeah. But I mean, Tommy, Tommy Gregory is seen as a, he is seen as a reliable source. Yeah. He was Count Dante's best friend. But as we'll see, like, he kind of comes in and out of Dante's life.

And the writer of the book at the very least, like, trusted him. Like, checked enough of his sort of checked enough on a time in Gregory's claims. Like, yeah, he's probably Tom the truth most of the time. Like, I said, like, Count Dante is a liar, but he also lived a weird fucking life.

And it was very well documented. Like, he lived his life in public too. Yeah. Man, Nvidia, you sent me of him, like, pretending to rip out that guy's eyes. Like, it was hilarious.

Yeah. Yeah. It was just like, it was like him going at the guy's eyes and the guy going, Oh, they do it again. Like, 30 times in a row.

But the other time when he's like, but then there's the other one where he locks the guy's head and nothing with his legs. It just is kidney punching him. And he's punching him in the kidney. He's punching him in the kidney.

He's punching him in the kidneys. And I was like, that's his student. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we're going to get into how much Count Dante beat the shit out of his own

students and how much his students beat the shit out of each other. Yeah. But it was during his high school years of mischief that Dante would, according to him, garnered his second and last fighting loss of his entire life. And that loss came of course because the other guy fought 30.

See, in high school, Count Dante got new a fight with, quote, a couple of Sicilians who broke into his father's boat. Oh, you know, because of that. You know how much money's in a houseboat. Yeah.

“No, that's what we're saying about a boat house.”

Oh, that boat house. Like, what's probably going to steal like some, you know, rigging. Like a motor. It's a house for boats. It's like a stupid person calling.

It's a house for boats. It's a stupid person calling. Well, Dante took off his shirt when he discovered the burglary and got into a boxing pump. Come on, Harry, are you ready for the appeal?

Do you listen, Gots? But burglars just immediately kicked Dante in the ball. But the fuck! That's down the line, man. You were there.

No, no, no. Both burglars ran away while the count was rising on the ground, clutching his groin and pain. A good karate man could have blocked it. Yeah, you could have.

He wasn't there yet. No, he was not there yet. He's only working on boxing. That's it. That's no kicking in boxing.

This is the late. This is like 1957. So he doesn't even know that feet exist. He's not like, this is like a type of boxing too. We're two men show up.

They get ready to punch each other. They go back and forth. And he's like, well, soon as he got kicked in the ball, honestly, I think it is all mine. He was like, that's incredible.

What an amazing move. I'm your friend. And Count Dante graduated high school in 1958. He enlisted in the Marine Corps reserve. And it seems like this is the point when Dante really started constructing his own myth.

Dante claimed that in the one year he was in the Marine reserves, he was stationed in Japan, Vietnam, and Korea. Everywhere there's rice. He supposedly discovered martial arts for real while in those countries. He claimed he studied at least six different martial arts under 20 different instructors.

They couldn't handle the accountability to one of my bare hands.

But he never stayed with one school for long,

because he said that staying with one school hindered his learning.

"Do not limit me, I am endless." Or he just got kicked out all the time. Go beat. Go beat. Go beat.

John, get out of here. Why don't you just leave? Please leave. Please leave. Get my stand here.

I know it would show you that my kung fu is stronger than yours. But I will leave because my boss is here.

During his travels in the Orient, Count Dante also claimed quite mysteriously, never gave

any other details that he entered a death match in Thailand, and actually killed a man. In this murder, he says allowed him to enter a fighting tournament in Bangkok, where he miraculously fought his way through to win the heavyweight championship. "One of the craziest things I ever saw was that man who came out and turned into complete electricity."

And then there was an Indian man with a super long arms, but I tied him all together and I made him zap each other. This of course almost certainly did not happen. But plenty of guys have died fighting in matches in Thailand because of how brutal their martial arts can be.

Like, I don't even know how it is. It pronounced like mully-times, mully-times, yeah, it's fucking brutal. Dude's died all the time, but matches in which guys start knowing that one of them is going to be beaten to death, they don't actually exist outside of kung fu movies. I don't think so.

No, I think the fucking blood sport you know put in the glass nails, well it doesn't happen. I feel like if you killed somebody, they would disqualify you. Yeah, they'd be like crowned upon, I'm sort of fucking game of death. It's or enter the dragon.

“That's how to enter the dragon, it's not, it doesn't happen.”

Wait, say, aren't we doing this very thing on the White House lawn for the 250th birthday party? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Someone might die, honestly, that would be kind of a blast. It really would be.

They would love it. Unfortunately. I'd like it. Now, the tide death matches aren't the only fishy component of count Dante's time in the military.

See Dante was always a little vague about his time in the armed forces, an author of Benchie

Feldheim through a FOIA request discovered why. Yes, it's because they're ancient, ancient secrets. Well, well, one record as Dante being honorably discharged from the Marine Corps reserve. Most of us here serve as most honorably. Another record chosen being dishonorably discharged.

But he got dishonorably discharged from the army a year after he was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps reserve apparently Dante joined the army after the reserves. But according to his military disciplinary record, Count Dante was busted by the MPs for weed possession and going AWOL for the month of February, uh, during the winter of 1960. That's because black history's months.

You know, I can't hear about that. I was out helping my dojo integrate. But digitally, Count Dante had also crashed a couple of cars, destroyed property, shot at his friend's car, rumors and years, and somehow injured himself by bashing his own head with the butt of a pistol.

He's just trying to prove that he can break the gun with his head.

“Hey, look at me, hey, come on, I remember what time at a party in high school.”

There was this tough guy who said he could break a bottle over his own head and then we're like, don't do it. He's like, I can do it. We're like, don't do it. And then he just started doing it.

But then he couldn't do it. Yeah. Just like kept like hitting the clock. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Everybody went to a party where there was a guy who tried at least once. I remember when everybody jumped on, he could fight the parking lot. Then he just punched the ground early, broke his hand.

Yeah. Good old times. Yeah, this plenty of guys are also think they can beat the sidewalk. I once punched a Mercedes-Benz in its mouth. But according to Count Dante's best friend Tommy, Dante, he just went and vibe him with

the army. He was doing anything and everything to get a discharge, dishonorable or not. But considering Count Dante's behavior throughout his entire adult life, his blowup

in the army could have merely been the first of many periods in which the count lost

all control and caused a lot of mayhem. He's very good at mayhem. Look at you see him just being like, "Got damn out here in the jungle. It's one of the most intense fears I've ever experienced." And they're like, "We're in Southern Florida."

You know, they're training in North Carolina. It's 1960. But there's no conflicts going on at that point. We're not fighting anymore. There's a lot of tension from the Cold War, but yeah, there's no Korea and Vietnam hadn't

started yet to rap. I fight my corrupt whiteness.

“I want to jump ahead too much, but I am legitimately curious, did he ever have a wife?”

Maybe for anything like that, or like a girlfriend? Yeah, he had a couple of girlfriends.

We shall explore the myth of the Dragon Lady.

Rivergina was scaled. The sense Count Dante came from a wealthy family. He didn't have to worry about money in his 20s. Like a lot of wealthy weirdos before him, Count Dante was able to dedicate himself to whatever he pleased after he was dishonorably discharged.

So Dante applied himself to the accumulation of martial arts techniques. Like fucking Batman? Yeah, yeah, it kind of started like Batman. Yeah, it's like Batman. Yeah, it's like Batman.

But if Batman's parents were alive and Batman just wanted attention, what a great way to be Batman. No, it is. Pretty sure that's the joke. But it is important to note that Dante was paying little attention to any of the philosophy

that accompanied all of these martial arts techniques that he was accumulating. See, Dante was, as I said, somewhat of an idiot, savon. He could quickly learn and copy almost anything he saw. It was almost like the Ino Kung Fu scene from the Matrix. But without the discipline that usually accompanies the accumulation of these techniques, Count

Dante was like the proverbial chimp with the machine gun.

In other words, Dante was in possession of powerful techniques, but didn't have the wherewithal

to know how dangerous those techniques could truly be, especially when he quickly started teaching these techniques to other people simply to gain attention. I'd love that like the whole purpose of martial arts is the philosophy in the discipline. It's all about self transformation. It's all about being, you know, like it's about your cheeks.

But all of these like truly like interesting things, yes, self defense. But it's about peace.

“It's about keeping peace by being able to if you need to enforce peace.”

Yeah. You know, and then this guy, it's just so funny. It's just been like fuck peace. I want to punch through an old man's hand and he's like, you know what though? That's a new American brand of karate in so many ways.

Count Dante really is the kind of the beginning of this mixed martial arts bullshit that we see now. Where the whole point is to just beat a man as bad as you can. It's quickly as you can. I miss the old.

It's the courseness of the, the course thing of America. I miss the old UFC fighting when it really, remember when the OG days and it was a Friday. But it was like spinoes, like specifically one style of fighting versus another style of fighting. Yeah.

It was specifically like a boxer with me. That was the old days. Now everybody's mixed martial arts. Yeah. Yeah.

That was like not a thing originally. I missed that. I missed when I was being like, can G could do beat the Akido master? Yeah. Well, that was a holdover from the old days of martial arts tournaments.

Yeah.

“Usually that's what they would do is they would have, you know, you're a karate guy against”

the karate guy and so on and so forth and they would stick to those disciplines. But count Dante came in and just like, let's just put them all together and use them to beat someone into a pulp as fast as possible. Sometimes you just got to grab a guy by the testicles and you're fucking above you. Well, you're sticking your finger up as an astral.

It does work. My count Dante's ignorance of danger was on full display whenever he would flippantly talk about how many people he had allegedly killed in his youth. He later said in an interview with Black Belt magazine, which Black Belt magazine plays a big role in this story.

He said that he had supposedly, and this is a big supposedly killed at least 25 men during his time in the armed forces when we're at no wars at all. Listen to me. You might think I hadn't killed 25 people, but you didn't see me at my open mic.

But Dante, he was always Vegas to how were and why he killed those men.

He always left it up to the other person to decide if Dante killed those 25 men for the army or in various Thai death matches. I once left a box of dynamite in the sun, and it killed an entire hospital. Well, the way it count Dante was fond of waxing philosophical about killing, which implies that he probably never actually killed anyone.

He was quoted as saying, "There is always a surge and not being killed yourself and being a survivor. But I do not get any type of sexual, spiritual, physical, or psychological thrill out of killing somebody."

“"I believe in the human spirit and the individual soul."”

But according to Dante, some of those kills were earned in Cuba, where Dante claimed he had fought as a guerrilla warrior in the Cuban Revolution alongside Fidel Castro's brother Owl. Yeah, you're all right, you're all right. Or why he said he decided to fight with the guerrilla fighters in the Cuban Revolution.

trips to Cuba during the late 1950s, because even though the Revolution was like 1959, he was in and out.

“He probably just took a nap for a week and told everyone he was in Cuba, and I was quite”

nervous, but he continued bouncing around the world with his parents money to study under a series of synths, where he learned even more complex techniques. Actually, I felt that most martial arts instructors, they weren't very good, yeah, he claimed he was a good man, and he was like, "I'm following the fear, but the fear is that he's going to fucking talk for Africa."

Well Dante was gallevant in around Asia, his best friend, Tommy Gregory, moved on with his life.

I guess he'll never see that old Dante again!

Took that job in Phoenix in 1960, but one day, Tommy got a call from Count Dante, who asked Tommy, "Are there any karate schools in Phoenix?" Tommy said, "Yeah, there's one." So Dante packed his bags and headed for Arizona. Surprisingly, the guy who ran the one karate school in Phoenix, this is sort of a serendipitous

moment. Robert Triass, who was actually credited, is the man who brought karate to America. Triass opened America's first karate school in 1946, and soon after published the first American book about karate. It was very dramatically titled, "The Hand is My Sword," a karate handbook.

That's fucking awesome, dude. And for some reason, I'd just, when you say brought karate to America, I'd just see a box, and just go like, "That's just how I got it right now." Was there a bunch of cats in school in life? No, it's the secret of the karate.

These are definitely guys who are going to get pissed off of you for saying karate. You know what I say? Karate. Karate. No, Robert.

No. I love Karate. Is that right? Is that right? Is it Karate?

“Honestly, just from your pronunciation of the word, you have the just the correct.”

I, Q, to be my student. It's wonderful. Here's the first.

Let me show you the first move I learned, accidentally.

Okay. "Sickleball kick." Nice. Nice. (laughs)

Karate was actually very fond of going for the eyes. He claimed to have taken the eyes, many men. I have taken eyes. Do not. Fuddle with me.

Do not. Don't even erase that eyebrow. Give me your roof. Just steal your eye. (laughs)

The rubber trius was a legit dude. He'd been a boxer in the Navy during World War II. And while he was stationed in the Solomon Islands on the Pacific Front, he became friends with the Chinese missionary who knew karate. This missionary would continually ask trius to train with him.

But trius kept declining because the missionary was a far smaller man. In trius was convinced that he would hurt him.

But finally, trius agreed to spar.

And after calling all his friends over to watch, trius got the absolute live and shit kicked out of him by the Chinese karate missionary. I'd like karate now. (laughs) So Robert Trius spent the rest of his time on the Solomon Islands training to learn karate himself.

And when he returned to the United States in the mid-1940s, he brought Karate with him. Can I put this karate in the above? Hold her here. Can I put this up? Who's that?

Who's that? Anything you need to do? Did you hang up by karate in the closet? (laughs)

“So before we check your bag, are you carrying any karate in here?”

Oh no, actually not at all. This isn't karate. (laughs) (laughs) (laughs)

(laughs) (laughs) Sir, sir, we can't allow Karate in the cargo hole. Oh well, let's see what my karate is. (laughs)

Now, for all accountante's bluster in lies, he was actually pretty fantastic at martial arts, or at the very least, good enough to be able to win pretty much any fight. So when he arrived at Robert Trius' karate dojo,

After a month, Dante had his green belt,

“and Dante thereafter helped Trius expand his school,”

the U.S. karate alliance, or the U.S.K.A.

It's finally good to meet a sensei.

I can respect him. (laughs) Yeah, names bad, pop triass. (laughs) (laughs)

What is it from? South Korea. (laughs) According to Count Dante's own pamphlets, the world's deadliest fighting secrets.

He achieved the black belt rank by the age of 23. It was a world record. Then over the next few years, Dante claimed to have earned additional black belts in judo, jete, and a keto. I got the black belt in Bancwasang.

(laughs) Bancwasang. Bancwasang. What's Bancwasang? I looked up a bunch of different names of other martial arts.

Oh, that's my favorite one. (laughs) Bancwasang. What is that, you know? Punching and kicking.

(laughs) Well, those last two, by way, were supposedly learned from the creator of a keto himself. Morahe Oishiba. Oishiba had actually trained elite soldiers

in deadly martial arts for depend during more time, but his soul had become troubled after teaching so many men how to kill with hands, hands that are meant to caress a woman, or eat a peach on a spring day,

under the cherry blossoms of Hokkaido. (laughs) (laughs) (laughs) I love karate very much.

(laughs) I love karate very much. (laughs) Would you rather use your hands for a lover, or to kill a man?

Sometimes I do wish I could go back to just using my hands to embrace, but unfortunately, they must hold the soul. (laughs) So, Oishiba developed a keto

as a way to teach men in the ways of love and harmony through the regulation of their key. Key. That's a vital force, but lay you to be a part of all living entities.

It's sort of like the force to the best of my understanding. I also put it in the same world as Oregon energy. Sure. Like that style or prana,

they talk about a yoga. Durk.

“Dante, however, paid no attention to all that key noise.”

Key's just half of what you've used on a piano. (laughs) And he simply added a keto techniques to his increasing mixed martial art style, a style that was dedicated solely

to beaten every love and shit out of other human beings.

I first of all will say thank you so much for teaching love

because the one thing I love most is causing a man pain. (laughs) Seems like his style was just confusion. (laughs) What you saw in that video is his teaching style.

So when he was teaching it, his idea was like, "Oh, we're cutting through the pump and circumstance. We're cutting through all this fucking dumb extra shit. We're cutting through,

we're getting straight to the asskicking because we're in Chicago and the fucking America." Yeah, Chicago in the 1960s, it's fucking rough out there.

I'm gonna teach kids how to beat the shit out of people. Yeah. Now by 1962, Count Dante had returned to Chicago to open his own dojo.

He was just 23 years old when he did this. Interestingly though, Count Dante's dojo was located above a legendary nightclub called Mr. Kelly's, which had a policy of pairing a music act

with a comedy act nearly every night. So while Count Dante was training Chicago's most violent kids on how to be more violent upstairs, comedians like George Carlin, Richard Prior, and Joan Rivers,

like fucking everybody's fucking flip Wilson, Jackie Gleason, they're sharing the bill with like, "A Reath of Franklin, Elef it's Gerald.

Herbie Hancock." Yeah. The fucking floor below. It's not that fucking blues in Chicago. Yeah, they're down there just wasting their time

singing songs about things in the sky when we're up here doing the real work, beating the fuck out of 14-year-olds. He's just all the time. He's just all the time.

He's like, fuck that noise. They're gonna be here, they're not a fight. The thing that flows my mind is that in 1963, Barbara Streisand made her debut performance at Mr. Kelly's.

Like, they'd be a Barbara Streisand to the entire fucking world and all while Barbara Streisand's like, "Wah, hang on, swing, singing downstairs." Count Dante's upstairs beat the shit out of his students.

What's going on? What's your name? Babs. Nice to meet you. I'm coming up there.

I am the sense I hear at this dojo. And I bet you. Kid puts me in the stomach as hard as you can. Do it, babs. You know my father's a kind of college.

You can take a look at that thing you got there. I don't know how they did it.

“I remember that, but we had that one studio”

that was in Green Point, a below the karate studio. Yeah, it was a fucking nightmare.

We could never record when the karate studio had classes gone.

I just feel like a lot of blues band is way louder than it. Yes. Yeah, hopefully. Yeah, Harvey can't hang cock downstairs in 1962. That's going to be loud.

God, how lame do you have to be? Skip her being a cock. You want past her being a cock.

I just saved him right now. Well, eventually Count Dante's Dojo

“came to be known as the Imperial Academy of Fighting Arts.”

Now in addition to technical skill, Count Dante was also a master at branding. And for his Dojo's logo, he chose a giant black dragon. Dante also applied black to himself. Dying his Auburn Redhair black,

most likely to match the black dragon logo. For Dante was himself, the black dragon. How did you know? I find Redhead's way more terrifying, personally. Sure.

Like a redhead karate master's way scarier than the guy old. His hair died and shit. Yeah. Well, likewise, Dante's students would come to be known as the black dragon fighting society. And while he primarily taught older and working class students,

there were certainly teenagers and criminals, mostly drug dealers in the mix as well. Count Dante, however, did not train his fighters in the traditional way where philosophy comes first and the whole thing is more. It's like a good way to get exercise and learn discipline.

There's a lot of reason why people do martial arts. But the count did not subscribe to control Kumite.

“In which a martial artist pulls back his full strength in abilities,”

while sparring to focus on control and speed. Instead, Count Dante taught his students how to fuck someone up as bad as possible, as fast as possible, by using their full strength and abilities at all times. If you were a part of the black dragon fighting society,

you were constantly training for street fights and brawls,

which meant that Count Dante's students always associated martial arts

with violence and mayhem. On set of using mats, Count Dante's students would grapple on concrete floor. Make sure, yeah, they just fucking slam each other like judo throw into the fucking... I mean, eventually they did get mats, but in the early days, we do not need mats, mats of our weaklings.

Someone's like, "Some kid broke his neck and they're like, "Family's gonna sue you." Yes, we would get one extreme action mat. Well, part of his classes would consist of karate and judo drills to learn the techniques.

Most of the time, we'll be spent actually fighting, as opposed to most martial arts schools where the training is no contact. In fact, it was Dante's belief that fighters needed to hurt each other during training. Sometimes, Dante would have his students practice self-defense scenarios in which the opponent would be given a knife or even a fucking gun.

And the mock-a-sailant would actually try to hurt the other student. Often with great success. Yeah, usually the guy with the fucking doing the karate, not much of a match for a guy with the knife. I would love his your first class.

You go in, it's Tuesday, nine o'clock, you've been working all day. Everything's fine, you're like, "Oh, I can't wait to do this." You're like, "All right, now we hand out the gun." Just be like, "I dare you to shoot me in the head." "I dare you to shoot me in the head."

"I'll see what a student's getting stabbed." "And then drag it and it does the stairs and the roof of Franklin." Just be like, "Let's stupid ass white people." "Yeah, I'm sticking the shit." You know what those guys need for each other?

Some kind of respect. Wait a god. [laughter] They better think. [laughter]

Oh my god. There's a piano. Oh, it's simulate night time attacks. Count Dante kept a dim red light bulb at his dojo. Gotcha.

And would sometimes recreate attacks with a defender was outnumbered six to one. And the defender would of course get the shit beat out of him in the process. This overall method, which Count Dante called the Dante system, would of course be his eventual undoing.

[laughter] It's not a system. Yeah.

“Who would think that teaching a bunch of fucking assholes from Chicago?”

Like, here's how you beat the shit out of someone as fast as possible. Who would think that teaching in the world is a violent place

and to use violence first always is going to fucking lead to something bad.

I just love anything called a system. Oh yeah, the Dante system. Which acts like, "No, books." Turn off the lights and beat the shit out of each other. It's a system.

Don't worry. It's a plan. Every minute of this is absolutely these. Oh, this is organized. I just stepped on a dreadal.

Yeah, we do this. We do our Hanukkah. We do a whole Hanukkah trial. As far as fucking someone up fast went, Count Dante's go to technique for winning a fight was the Throat grab.

This is, of course, very basic. Dante would grip the throat of the opponent and use the power of his body to twist and pull until the other guy gave up. The key is you want to get the guy using these two fingers. By their atoms apple.

Yeah. Really, like, like, a fucking alligator. You know, a super effective to need technique to fucking choke. No, the guy will be choking people in fights for a while. But I've been making noises while they do it.

I grabbed you. Yeah. Count Dante's techniques.

Let's say it didn't always win in friends.

That's what I'm here for.

“And he said that he developed a painful bleeding stomach ulcer from dealing with, quote,”

"All the politics in the martial arts world." Can't even believe I just had to go and fight a whole campaign. They were voting. The whole city was voting to make Katana suddenly go. I mean, I fuck them.

That's why I vote no one. Prop 36. So much pressure. But he would take about a decade for Count Dante to burn all his bridges in the martial arts world. In July 1963, Dante was still close with his American karate sensei, Robert Triass.

And the two of them actually put together the first national karate tournament ever held in America.

This was a legit event held in Chicago's Hyde Park. And it's attendees included Bob Wall. That's the guy who smashed the bottles and entered the dragon. Oh, cool. Get that crazy?

And Bruce Lee himself showed up. They met.

“I mean, this lady at Count Daddy might have met each other.”

Unfortunately, there are no stories, like specifically the two of them, like interacting. But I mean, the police probably thought he was an idiot. The police were like too scared to actually get into a fight he would lose. Yeah, well, if I was him, I would just sit there and just go. Bruce Lee's my best friend.

Looks like Bruce Lee's my best friend. This is one of the funnest days of my life. I mean, the American martial arts team was pretty fucking small at this point. So, and since he what sounds count, Dante was like the co-founder of this karate tournament. I'm sure there were interactions between him and Bruce Lee at some point.

But most honorable. Hello. He's doing the full bow. You know, he's like a Bruce Lee used with sunglasses on just going shut up. Yeah, get out of here.

Yeah, you're not water. Yeah. Regardless of whether or not he bothered Bruce Lee that day. Count Dante certainly established himself as a character during this first karate tournament. As a demonstration, Count Dante tried breaking a brick with his bare hand, which is a cliché today.

But back in the 60s, pretty fucking incredible. Most people in America hadn't seen anything like that. But Dante broke his hand on the first swing. Son of a... Oh my god.

And using that same broken hand, Dante did indeed succeed in breaking the brick. Oh yeah, you're fucking idiots. I don't fucking care who you are. Look at me. Look at me.

No, Dante never needed to worry about money in his youth.

“Remember, Keith Stone is early 20s at this point 2425.”

He still took jobs working as a bouncer in the bars of Chicago south side. From what it seems like though, Dante only took these jobs, so he'd have an excuse to get into fights. Yeah, did. Dante would show up to a bouncing gig wearing a beret and a pink shirt, which attracted the attention of various drunken shitheads who just couldn't help themselves. I like this shirt.

Dante would make a big show of taking out these guys in seconds. He attracted a lot of attention to himself every time. Which I'm sure earned him plenty of students who wanted to know how Dante was able to take down anybody instantly. What you do is you show up sober and you fight these guys who are extremely drunk in front of everybody. And then you're going to win.

You have a black belt in front of you. You easily beat a bunch of drunk men. It's actually... That's kind of fun. I can see why he thought this was fun.

Yeah. But he was also incredibly violent. So he was constantly looking for ways to get that violence out.

And of course that it was a welcome into in the second episode that in it in some pretty bad shit time and time again as it often does.

It's kind of funny though. For a while he was really trying to find almost job, sanctioned violence. He went to the military. He did these other things. He's literally being like, in a way, unlike other serial killers and other people that we've covered criminals we covered.

He is sort of acknowledging his violence. Like, I know that that's ridiculous, but it's like he legitimately is just doing it. And he was trying to be like, "Well, I don't want to do it illegally." Yeah. I want to kill people legally.

Ah, but as the master of Eqito will tell you violence, but gets only more violence. It sounds like the leader of Eqito is an asshole. But to be fair, once a student made it to Count Dante's Dojo, there would be other instruction besides just fighting techniques. Although everything did feed back into aggression. During meditation sessions, Dante would have his students sit in front of a mirror and envision themselves as a tiger.

Or some other wild animal, but mostly tigers. So first sit, I would like for all of you to first know, feel your weight in the chair, excellent.

And you're going to release yourself from the top of your head all the way down to the tips of your toe.

Good. Okay. You're a tiger. You go through, you're in the brush. You're in the brush.

You're like a platter. No, you're a tiger. You're a tiger. You're a tiger. You're filled with milk.

You're a baby tiger. Oh, yep.

“You're a tiger because that's the most aggressive types of tiger, right?”

Oh, look at that. First feed your cups. Very good. Now, let us go in the hot. Or how?

Or how? Or how? Or how? Or how? Every week.

It's time to last track of time.

Well, Dante would have his students create battle faces. Crazy eyes and exaggerated skulls. It's awesome. And an attempt to become wild animals themselves. It's Dante.

No, no, no, no. We ought to be different trees. Dante claimed that martial arts were invented to protect farmers from wild animals as complete noter bullshed. Yeah, we don't know exactly how martial arts started, but it wasn't fucking to fight tigers.

Do you have any idea what it's hard to do to spend your morning side kicking a record? Yes, the wildlife of downtown Chicago. Regardless, Dante said that if one needed to defend himself from a wild animal,

“then a student must become a wild animal himself.”

And prays to lessons. Fuck was on. The next lesson. The petting zoo. See the little stingray.

See how it morphs you on. I'd speak the shit out of the sea cucumber. I very good, my very good. I stopped the llama to that very good. Did you take it time?

I'm not a farmer. The condonte was getting a lot of attention around Chicago and in the growing national martial arts team by the mid 1960s. And that attention was rapidly being converted into a confidence that bread, eccentricity and flamboyance.

These affectations, however, often became dangerous because condonte was, after all, the world's deadliest man. In 1964, for example, Count Dante bought a lion cub from a zoo in Southern Illinois. I suppose had one too many cubs to take care of that year. Dante named the lion cub, Orelia, claiming that it meant golden one.

But Orelia, the lion was a fucking lion. Yeah, in Illinois. Yes, and it acted like a lion for the entire time Dante owned her. Just because you get it as a cub doesn't mean it's not going to be a lion. We understand each other we have the same hair.

It's especially because you know he was just fighting it all the time. Yeah, of course. Yeah. We're not used. Yeah.

The best friend Tommy Gregory remembered that even as a baby, Orelia, the lion could tear anyone to shreds if they weren't careful. Dante actually had to get someone to help him hold down all four of the lion's legs to feed the lion milk from a baby bottle. God damn it, you're going to take your milk and you're going to like it.

Put it in my shirt. Put it in my shirt. Got it out here, yes. I am. But before long, Orelia was big enough to take on walks.

So count Dante began leading his lion through the streets of Chicago using nothing more than a collar and a leash. He's very much on his way to becoming, to gaining like legendary local character status. Yeah. And Chicago.

You have to have a specialized pet. Yeah, to get to be like a legendary local character. You know, these is like, you know, Salvador Daly had the lobster and on the bay. He had his own lion to go whole fine. Yeah.

“I remember Tyson moved to Boca when I was a kid and he had a bunch of tigers.”

Yeah. Eventually, the H.O.A. was like so up. Mr. Tyson. No. Don't think you understand the current person.

I'm kind of tribulations. Don't think you take experience. Can't have pigeons down here to too hot. You want to. If you want to get tigers.

You want my babies to die for you. Because if you kill my babies, I'm going to have to kill you. No. You should make it to your risk. Ha ha ha.

Well, thank you so much, Mr. Tyson. It's been a wonderful meeting. Well, because this was a fucking lion. Aralia kept tearing up Count Dante's apartment. Can't leave a lion home alone.

So hard in a studio. Yeah. So Dante started keeping the lion at his dojo. Much to the secret of Count Dante's long-suffering landlord. You should ask my other landlord.

You're my second landlord.

Okay. I'll remember that. Come on second landlord. My first landlord's over there. And I've already burnt that bridge.

[laughter] I'm just here. It's already in here. There's nothing you can do about it. I've burned through all of my favors in the first month.

Well, according to former students,

“the lion actually became a part of the training.”

When Aralia was about a year and a half old, she would wander into the practice area to sweep the feet out from under students using her massive paw. And according to one student, they learn the art of foot sweeps from the lion's surprise attack.

Like imagine that you're able to, not only you go into this class to get the shit beat out of you every week, but then a fucking lion shows up.

It's the first class you literally gave out guns.

You're at that first class. He gave out guns. You somehow survived. The second class. They're like, okay.

We'll maybe with the new lesson group. I think it's going to be cool. And then there's a fucking lion in the room. And you're like, "I got to stop. I'm going to learn how to play the violin."

Just scratching it. You're a killing sentence. No, he is to kick it right in the vagina. That's my father taught me. I really can't be said enough.

The '60s were fucking insane. Yeah. The '60s were in the '70s were out of hand. Out of pocket. We were too decades.

We were really experimenting with society. Yeah, there's a lot of rules that shouldn't have had made because of guys like count on them. Yeah. The tiger in your don't job.

Yeah. It's super, super, super. You had seams. It needs to be written down. Yeah.

Yeah. Rules that wouldn't make sense 15 years earlier. 15 years earlier. What the dojo. But then in the fucking '60s,

I know what a dojo is. I know what a lion is. Yeah. I know. And I know you can't have a lion in a dojo.

But after about a year of owning a really of the lion, the static from Count Dante's landlord got to be too much to handle. So Count Dante sold her to a businessman from Quincy, Illinois.

“I think she'll do much better mid-state.”

You know, Illinois's built for lions. Yeah. But after just a few days of ownership, the businessman called Count Dante at his dojo and told them to come get this goddamn thing because the lion had bitten him.

And he's bleeding all over the goddamn place. And it swept the land. Yeah. Well. Phone off.

Exactly. Just a little kind of lesson to the guy y'all. A little bit. Yep. And just hung it up.

There we go. It's forget that ever happened. I'm done with life. And now it's time for the ultimate Dante system technique. Forget everything.

I never remember. Soon as something gets too hard. That's it. That's it. Root number one.

Root number one. It's hard. Don't do it. Go for the eyeball. Sorry.

Have a drink. Watch the slide. In the front. Here's the gun. Yeah.

Did you try going for it's eyes? No. The karate continued to grow in popularity throughout the 1960s. While Dante had been the focal point of the Black Dragon fighting society

during the first American karate tournament,

his students got all the attention when they held a second tournament a year later. But Dante's Black Dragons were not getting attention for their skill. Instead, the so-called Dante system had simply made them chaotic

and incredibly violent. Much to the screen of karate master Robert Dreas. It just seems to be, you know, like, with that proud, like, arms crossed. Like, yes.

My students are very strong. I'm just, like, fucking throwing dirt in people's feet. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Yes. Most of them. They were just bowing out of him and just punch him. Yeah. Just skip.

Less than number one. Skip the bow. Yeah. There's a jacket. Why is he waiting for you to attack him?

Go in attack him there. Well, he's sitting on the channel. I think something to start. Yeah. They think the belt shows rank, but it's actually the choke people.

Yeah. Everybody else who entered this tournament was under the assumption. This is a no contact tournament. Yeah.

“Like, we're not going to be, but, like, it's, you know, I think it's, sort of, like, touches.”

Yeah. You know, like, you scored. Yeah. Yeah. Or by, like, by getting through the person's defenses.

Not so with Count Dante's guys. They win it. All they knew how to do was beat the shit out of somebody. They didn't know.

They had never done any of the no contact shit.

So Count Dante and his students were using techniques. I just said, fucking teeth are flying across mats that are covered in blood. I'm just looking at pure success. This means the Dante system is working. So did they win over there, like, disqualified?

It just sort of devolved into chaos. The whole thing erupted into this huge fight between a group of black Muslims and a group of marines. They just got into a fucking brawl. And the brawl got big.

It took a fucking bar fight scene out of a movie. It spilled out into the streets. It's a bunch of guys fucking punch in each other. I got to say, I know a lot of people are disappointed. But this is how I've always hoped every karate tournament would end.

I mean, what's more American than stealing something and ruining it.

[LAUGHTER] A violent practice.

And making it more violent.

For words to steal, violent. Yeah. It's just peaceful. And other shit.

“It's like, that's a praying that's for Manchester.”

This wasn't what karate was supposed to be about. And there were, indeed, other martial arts instructors in Chicago who saw how dangerous Count Dante's methods actually were. A Vietnam vet and martial arts instructor named Gregory Jacko, who was, interestingly, also the father of Rappé Lupé Fiasco.

He was quoted as saying that sooner or later, someone was going to die because of Count Dante's craziness. And he was 100% right. As it went, Count Dante was continuing to be flipping about matters of life and death.

In an interview with CBS, Dante was asked if someone could be seriously into doing karate. Dante escalated the question immediately, saying that you could very easily kill someone using karate if you knew how and where to hit them. But because--

I'll give you one better. Yeah, I'll kill you right now. [LAUGHTER] My karate involves this brick and your face. [LAUGHTER]

Tell me, who's your least favorite? The cameraman or the sound guy? I will gladly eliminate him. But because of statements like this, and because of his students behavior at the 1964 National karate tournament, Count Dante was expelled

from Robert Trier's US karate alliance in a split that was to say the least acrimonious. See, Dante told Black Belt magazine, the split came because he was promoting his black students to the Black Belt rank,

which Dante claimed was, quote, "tacently forbidden" by a Robert Trier's USK age. Basically said, "I left because Robert is a racist." But according to Robert Trier's, he was just getting annoyed by Count Dante's continual and escalating lies about his own past.

Lies that Dante was beginning to extend to Trier's himself without Trier's consent, without Trier's permission. Dante had printed a brochure promoting that 1964 karate tournament, which claimed that Trier's had once fought a bear. They're going to love this.

They're going to love this.

Trier's had never fought a bear.

He'd never claimed that he had fought a bear. Hey, you fought that really hairy guy last week. So I put it down, I saw him. He may as well have been a bear. If he didn't want to look like a bear, he should've shaved.

“All right, you fought the bear, and I believe in you today.”

Trier's also greatly disagreed with Count Dante's belief that fighters needed to actually hurt each other during training. But the last draw, of course, was the fact that Count Dante's students had turned Trier's 1964 no contact tournament into a blood-covered brawl. You people just don't get me.

This is just different vibes. Now, regardless of the real reason behind Count Dante's removal from the U.S.K.A., he immediately countered by forming his own karate organization called the World Karate Federation. Several of Dante's students joined, but it was particularly the students

who enjoyed the full contact sparring, I.E. beating the shit out of each other on a regular basis, who followed Dante most fervently into this new karate world. We will take over the Great Oshikago Land Area one deep-dish restaurant at a time who was in the world before we are over. Every hot dog in America will have ketchup on it.

But, Count Dante, to be totally fair, he continually put his money where his mouth was when it came to racial integration. He trained black students who had been refused training everywhere else in town. And students did seek Dante arguing with his landlord because the landlord was threatening to kick Dante out for training black students.

And also the lion. But it's the black students he's really going on about. Yes, that was what he said.

He said the first thing about the black students.

Yes, he did say something. So, he was using racism to commit many crimes. Possibly. Well, he also genuinely believed. I actually see here, we see here as a genuine, like dumb man's version of being open.

In his mind, he really does.

“I really believe in his heart of hearts.”

He was giving these guys. He thought and believed. He was giving people skills that they would need. And he genuinely believed that the world's of more force was kind of racist. Because it kind of was, right?

I literally was. But I think that he also viewed it as a sales technique. I think it was more often than not. You're going to come to me too because I'm telling you, other people that reject you, I'm going to take you.

Yeah, I think he was just praying on people who had no world's to turn to. To push back on that, that one of his black students has been trying for years to make a documentary about him focusing solely on, like, the racial integration work that he did. There's a lot of things that are right about one thing accidentally. Yeah, there's a lot of people.

You know, Jim Jones. Yeah, Jim Jones. Yeah, Jim Jones integrated, like Indiana, like he did all of you.

Indianapolis. Yeah.

“He was responsible for seriously responsible for integrating Indiana or Indianapolis.”

Black people did he kill in the end?

Quite a few. Quite a few. Hundreds, hundreds, hundreds of majority out of the 900 some odd who died most of him were black. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so because they trusted him. Cancel each other out could say in the end.

Yeah. In the end. You just write you are in this one instance. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'm going to be later in my mind. But that's fine. Sure. But it's also just a side. Count Dante's continual focus on violence eventually turned into full

attempted mayhem by the summer of 1965.

When Dante and a student tried blowing up the windows of a rival dojo,

unassumingly called the Chicago Judo and karate center. It's not struck enough in any of them. There's not even a dragon in the name. How would you know what he's Asian? He's Asian as I.

No dragons. No tigers. No cobras. This place must go. Where's the Asian?

I don't even see it. Just place here for general. So one night. Dante and this student who's just some fucking guy named Doug. They taped a detonating cap and a length of wire to the rival karate centers

front door with the intent of blowing out the windows because the rival dojo owed count Dante money. Doug, you. I'm in number one. We're going Doug.

Deep into the war tonight. He would meet Doug. We're going out there and we're going to bring these race traitors to the ground. I don't think I can trust you, Doug.

Now, God Dante claims that they couldn't light the fuse because he and Doug were simply just two-tronged. Yeah. They'd gotten real wasted before going out and trying to blow up these windows. That's the Chicago.

It was actually that little bear was a white socks game. Account Dante later told the Chicago Tribune that they tried three or four times to light the explosive but the fuse kept falling off and they only gave up because the cops spotted them. Let's put guys in. Like they're just like, they're trying to get it.

Should we do it? Like if you strike. Like if you strike it. Now, fucking not have it. Doug, I trusted you.

Doug, I thought you could pull this. Doug, you were supposed to be the DD for the explosions. I own this place. I just forgot my keys. Oh, God.

Yeah, you tried to get Doug, you're a traitor. I love you.

“Yeah, I honestly thought I could've lighted a fuse just by snapping real hard.”

Yeah, I can't. Like you're straight. But Dante and Doug, they weren't so drunk that they couldn't get into a high-speed car chase running from the cops, which of course resulted in their eventual arrest. This, of course, was only after Doug had thrown 13 blasting caps out of the car window during the pursuit.

Let's just say officers can we please just do this whole thing. Do this whole thing with the Mulligan. Do you think the one time the Chicago cops didn't kill somebody? Yeah, yeah. Now, the cops gave chase because they were actually on the lookout for bombers.

Because there've been a series of similar intimidation bombings happening in that same area of Chicago in the mid-1960s. That's probably why they weren't trying to kill them because they were trying to figure out if they were responsible for all these other crimes. The FBI talked to Count Dante to see if he had anything to do with these other bombings. According to the FBI report, Dante told the FBI that he and Doug had some blasting caps in their possession. Yes, but they were going to throw them in the lake Michigan if only to avoid the exact scenario in which they now found themselves.

Right, somehow found myself with all of these blasting caps. And the blasting caps themselves told me to use them. And I feel in the because of the sacred teachings of Buglassang, I know that most inanimate jobs objects do have a soul and a yearning for activity. And so we thought we would excite the blasting caps. Please don't arrest me, I cannot go to jail with other black people.

I cannot go in there, I will kill. Because he was excessively intoxicated that night, he and Doug decided that the last minute to quote blow off some steam by shattering the windows of their rival Dojo. Instead of throwing the blasting caps into Lake Michigan.

“Oh, so this is after they were arrested, they went back and broke the windows?”

No, no, no, no, he told the, I know it's very confusing, it's so stupid. He told the FBI is like, no, I had some blasting caps, but see, there was all these bombings going on. So we thought throwing them like Michigan. No kids are going to find them. So we're going to throw them in like Michigan, but then you know, we had a few beers.

And now we're saying it's fucking, let's go, let's go, go, go, go, go, go. And then I said, Doug, this is all Doug's idea by the way.

But I said, Doug, that's the most amazing thing we could possibly do.

And we will fight those race traders.

Damn, Doug, we're such a little girl, petty you likes.

So while FBI did let Dante and Doug go, they did note in their report in all caps mind you, that Count Dante should be considered dangerous because he was, quote, reportedly subject to a violent and anti-social behavior pattern and has suicidal tendencies.

“Do you mind if I take this lip of paper and hang on up on my dojo?”

It's actually excellent. But the violence and anti-social behavior pattern is perfect for the Dante system. That's actually one of the main tenets of the Dante system. I would kill myself, but unfortunately I am too strong to do so. It is when the move on, Doug beats the ensemble for us.

After Count Dante got the law off his back, he supposedly studied with a Chinese master named James Lee, who allegedly taught the count the fabled touch of death, a technique known as Denmark, which, according to some, is what really killed Bruce Lee. I think it's true. They said that no, he did not die from a bad reaction to a medication.

Instead he was touched with the touch of death with the Denmark and his heart exploded. It's like five fingers touches we're going to kill you. Maybe we'll see. Yeah, exactly. Because the Bruce Lee supposedly died from a delayed reaction to a Denmark.

It does not. While the concept of Denmark does have roots in the legit practice of acupuncture,

“there's no evidence that the touch of death actually exists.”

The one with the acupuncture have a touch of death.

Like, it's like I never understood why do ships in sci-fi movies have a self that

Nate fucking think they shouldn't. Sometimes they need to have the self-destruct button because whatever. If a villain takes over the ship, he cannot be allowed to have such a powerful ship, such as say the USS Enterprise. There must be a self-destruct made.

So he does not have access to all of the weapon systems on said ship. So Captain Kirk taught you about suicide. Yeah, he keeps coming to the light. We got to keep his coming and go with him. Marcus, I have got to tell you.

Do it. So my favorite captain is Captain Cisco. If I will have you know. Yes, captain Cisco. Yes, the thumbs on guide.

Yeah, that's my favorite start. Fuck off.

“I thought Captain Cisco was one of those that brought all the fucking”

calamari to Apple. Oh, thank you, man. He was the captain of Deep Space Nine. Touch that. But around the time that the count Dante supposedly learned the touch of death,

the one touch that can make a man's heart stop by hitting him in just the right spot, in just the right way. He's flickin' on the ball. That was in 1967. After that, Count Dante fully embraced his local character image

in every way possible. This in 1967 is when Count Dante becomes Count Dante. The former John Keyon legally changed his name to count one Raphael Dante, which he claimed was a rightful title by the by as a descendant of the funniest rooms.

Yes, I'm a part of the conquisitor's. You can tell by my red roots. Yes. Right crimson pubic hair. The freckles.

It can be a way, right? Super Spanish, right? God, I love bull boo. Dante also permed his jet black dyed hair into a massive afro in a Chicago beauty salon that he owned himself.

He's a true entrepreneur. And he started sculpting his facial hair into elaborate sharp devil points and curves using a hair dissolving powder.

Finally, Count Dante done a Dracula style cape.

And wandered Chicago with a walking stick in bust with 24 karat gold. Oh, well, wearing dancers, leotards. Can you see my balls? Basically, Count Dante saw what Satanist Anton Lave was doing in San Francisco around the same time and said, "I'm just going to do that, but with karate."

He literally just stole his whole fucking stick. He stole that whole time. Oh, yeah, he stole all fucking stick. But he's funny because he's like, it was mostly just because it's good for advertising. Well, technically, Count Dante got the lion before Anton Lave got his lion.

Who got it? Yeah, who got it? But yeah, he saw it, but it was mostly the aesthetic. Because it's just, you know, Anton Lave looked evil. He looked like a comic book villain.

And it was also the attitude, the sort of like not really anti-hero thing, but the idea of being a real-life heel, a villain.

Yeah, it's an active showmanship. Look, he saw how much attention Anton Lave was getting. But I can do that same thing. I'll just add martial arts to it, and I can be that guy. I can be a comic book villain.

Because he is. Yeah. And it's also like the shift to the Count Dante persona.

It's basically, I mean, it is just Dante's insatiable need for attention writ large.

Yeah. And keeping with his imitation of Anton Lave, Count Dante also purchased several occult and adult bookstores around Chicago, which he added to the Dojo, the beauty Pauler, and the jewelry store that he already owned. Yeah.

Yeah, he had a gift shop, too.

“I think it's around this time, though, that his dad is like, I'm not giving you any more money.”

Yeah. Because you do not understand my mission. Daddy, I wish you could understand how powerfully Asia and I really am. While being Spanish. I'm just, I'm going to keep Connie John.

My name is Count Dante. Interestingly though, Count Dante also opened a mail order business that sold hardware and other home items. According to Tommy Gregory, Dante was Amazon before Amazon. And Dante actually made a lot of money with just this mail order business.

But ever the eccentric, Count Dante's workforce for his mail order business was made up

of nuns recruited from a local church.

Yeah. It's so fucking good. Yeah. It's so fucking good. Because nuns were the only people that Dante would trust to handle money for him.

Yeah, because they don't fucking get the'll get paid. Yeah. Yeah. Pay the whole thing. That's the other thing.

That's fucking good. Yeah. Well, he's melting the children. I suppose they can help this. I love you, sister Mary Francis.

But I am married to martial arts. Oh, you are a celibate? Well, change all that. Put strength.

“But the nuns were just shipping hardware for Dante's Amazon before Amazon.”

By 1968, Count Dante had discovered the power of merch. Yeah. So he began selling T-shirt, sweatpants, warm-up jackets, and even nun chunks through the mail. All of it promoting the Black Dragon Fighting Society. It's also.

Most famously, Count Dante also sold three mail order pamphlets. Also shipped out by his nuns under the title, "World's Deadliest Fighting Secrets." It's just a nuns. Fuck it just shipping this world steadily as fighting secrets. He's coming in like whatever helps.

Yes. John is certainly God's child, isn't he? Yeah. Dante advertised these pamphlets and comic books. Batman, Spider-Man, Howard the Duck was a really big one for him.

Yeah, well, because a lot of crossover. There's a lot of, there's a, the type of kid who reads, who read Howard the Duck. And the late 60s could love Count Dante. Oh, yeah. Really going to love him.

And also, the advertising space in Howard the Duck was far cheaper than Batman and Spider-Man. No way. How's it the duck? It's a classic, but yeah, it's cheaper. But these ads, of course, were keeping in tradition with other strong men who prayed on

Bullied comic book nerds. Most famous, of course, was Charles Atlas, who's hero of the beach, muscle building ads, were a reliable source of ad revenue for both Marvel and DC for many years. You guys know this, Charles. Those old Charles Atlas, right?

I don't think I do. It shows like a series of panels where, you know, a bully comes and kicks dirt on a guy who's out on a date with a girl. And the girl says, he's the, no sense of the beach. And so the guy orders Charles Atlas's muscle building.

Uh, booklet, he becomes super mussely and he beats up the bully and he becomes the hero of the beach. It's awesome. Yeah, Grandma Morrison turned the whole thing into a great character named Flex mentality. Very cool.

No. And Count Dante's absolutely incredible red and black full page ads. There's pop art masterpieces. And they featured Count Dante himself. Dante looks like fucking Dracula with an afro.

It's not Dracula. And not Dracula. He's white Dracula. He's got a cape. You know what?

I'd go as Colin white Dracula. He's just got, he's just such a funny fucking looking guy.

Never thought of that concept white black.

That's him. Well, in these ads Dante would make incredible promises. He claimed that if you ordered his pamphlets that cost only 25 cents, one could learn the fabled touch of death. One ad said.

It's cropped. On expert at dimmuck could easily kill many judo karate. Kungfu, a kudo and Kungfu experts at one time. With only one finger tip pressure using his murderous poison head weapons. Poison head weapons all caps, by the way.

Poison head weapons. One touch.

“And when you ask, like, how was he able to advertise this?”

Because it didn't work. Yeah. It was stupid. It was all dumb.

But that was the mail order shit.

“What count Dante was doing in Chicago training all those kids in the most violent ways possible.”

That was about to result in the incredibly violent death of one man. That of course came as a result of the so-called dojo war. And the dojo war is how we will return next week for the conclusion to our series. In addition to Count Dante's career as a coke dealer and possible. Thank Robert.

Oh, finally some real businesses.

Oh, yeah. This guy, you know. What a ridiculous character. And I'm very excited to come back next week for some violence. When you hear about this dojo war.

Oh, my God. It's just so. It's just this funny is everything else. It's so stupid. It's so fucking stupid.

Yeah, it's all so ridiculous.

“It's just life is not a kung-fu movie. It never works out like that. And it's almost a shame in that way. It really is because they really try to live it. Yeah, because in kung-fu movies, you don't have a guy go like”

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So take it. Where should we're shooting it momentarily? Indeed. All right, fuckers. I'll switch it now again Hello, the LA Natural History Museum for showing me that it orca exhibit. It's really nice really nice I'm really great time. They invited me for their grand opening. I felt like an actual celebrity Fantastic. That's great. So go learn about a circus. You fucking idiot. Yeah, you think they're like Yeah, there we go. The exit that probably put it as a poll quote. Yeah, yeah, and Mr. advertising the arcade

Go see you fucking idiots. I love some of my backpack now. I fucking strike