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| His rivalry with Van Damme has become the stuff of legend |
In 1981, while working for the Central Intelligence Agency, Steven Seagal was paired up with a young Belgian operative by the name of Jean-Claude Van Damme.
Unbeknown to either man it was to be the start of a bitter conflict that has spanned two decades and claimed hundreds of lives. Along the way it has engulfed Hollywood movies, assassination squads and Californian pool parties-turned-vicious blood baths.
Each a star of their respective intelligence agencies, after teaming up the two men were immediately a study in opposites.
While Segal maintained a front identity as a modest clockmaker from the Mid West Van Damme balanced his spy work with a career in international disco dancing.
On operations overseas Segal would kill time by meditating in his hotel room and reading intelligence reports. Van Damme meanwhile would hit the town in cut-off denims looking for bored and wealthy housewives.
Always unstable, relations between the two were damaged beyond repair during the infiltration of a Soviet missile installation.
Finding themselves trapped in the heart of the Russian compound they were forced to sneak past a heavily armed female commando. While Seagal suggested incapacitating the woman with a tranquilliser dart Van Damme insisted instead that he could seduce her.
"Jean-Claude," Segal is meant to have told him. "She is a high-ranking KGB agent. You're not going to rub up against her leg and turn her into a Western lackey. Now put your trousers back on and let's do this the right way."
But by then Van Damme had already made up his mind. Leaving Seagal behind he shimmied up to the woman and asked if she would like to see his "Belgian sausage".
Unimpressed the commando took out a pistol and put three bullets into his groin.
"Apparently she was immune to his charms," Seagal quipped in a later interview.
Eventually Seagal had to drag a bleeding Van Damme to safety. Even then Van Damme begged for another chance.
"She wanted me," he sceamed. "I could see it in her eyes."
This would be the last time the two men were recorded as working together. Within a year they had both quit the intelligence community and embarked on rival careers in the movie industry.
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| Van Damme leading combat operations in South East Asia |
Staring at each other from
opposite ends of the low-budget martial arts world the resentment between the
two would only grown.
On the surface they were two rival actors. Seagal was the wise Buddhist, practising Tai Chi and transcendental masturbation. Van Damme meanwhile was the horny little rabbit, immersing himself into the worlds of Lycra, baby oil and cocaine.
In private though they were amassing personal militias and launching brutal waves of assassinations and counter-assassinations.
In the summer of last year I travelled to Seagal's Himalayan retreat to interview the actor in conjunction with a separate article.
Travelling with a small group of Seagal's inner circle we were to encounter five of Van Damme's men on the rocky trail to Seagal's high altitude complex. Luckily, Seagal's men were able to pick off the would-be assassin's with sniper rifles before they became aware of our presence.
"It's normal to find Van Damme's people crawling around," I was told. "But for every one we kill two more seem to take their place."
Before leaving my guides paused for a moment to urinate over the corpses.
"It's customary," they assured me.
When we eventually reached Seagal I asked him for his take on the seemingly never-ending conflict.
"Unfortunately Jean-Claude has never been able to accept his status as the lesser-man," he told me as we strolled through his compound. "Buddha smiles upon us all in different ways, and until Van Damme faces the truth he will continue to drag us all into this pointless war."
I ask him if there is any hope of a peaceful resolution.
He thought about the question for a moment. "There may have been at one point. But recently Jean-Claude made some quite horrific remarks about my ponytail, and after that the situation became quite unsalvageable."
Seagal looked genuinely pained when I asked him what Van Damme said.
"He accused it of lacking vitality," he admitted at last.
After being shown around the compound it was clear that Segal has no intent on scaling back hostilities any time soon.
I was shown a building where a
team of female Ninjas were being trained as assassins. Each of the women
were disguised as teenage volley ball players, a ruse no doubt intended to
seduce the infamously horny Van Damme into letting his guard down.
"We're going to hit Jean-Claude where it hurts," Segal told me. "His cock."
In another buiding a dozen or so of Van Damme's men were being held hostage. Seagal paused for a moment so that he could watch and laugh as the prisoners were taken out for their daily beating.
"This is going to end for a long time, is it?" I asked him.
"On the contrary" he replied. "Van Damme is so racked with venereal disease that he needs to administer a general anaesthetic every time he urinates. This war will be over soon, and then the battle against Lundgren can begin."
"Dolph Lundgren?" I ask.
Seagal stared off into the distance and nodded his head. "That is when our resolve will be truly tested."
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