The 7 Most Badass Man vs. Beast Showdowns

If there is one thing we all know, it is that we are at the top of the food chain but by the grace of God. All around us are animals that are more powerful, more vicious and generally way more badass. But not all humans go down without a fight; some people look these creatures of certain doom in the eye, flex their muscles and say, "Let's do this."

The Showdown

There comes a time in every young boy's life where he must make a choice: Live a quiet, 9-5, soul-crushing life like the vast majority of us do, or take the road less traveled to the Land of the Badass. Nine year-old Drew Heredia left no doubts about how he would answer this question.

By doing this. This was his answer.

The fateful decision came one day as Drew was helping a friend walk her dog. Out of nowhere, a pit bull wrought of pure incandescent rage came charging towards them in full attack mode (we like to believe a smoke machine and some amount of pyrotechnics were involved).

Initially the pit bull attacked the girl's smaller dog, but the worst possible course of action in the history of the world unfolded as the girl tried to separate the two dogs, soon escalating the situation from "two dogs fighting" to "a little girl getting eaten by a dog."

As his lady friend got chomped on by the pit bull, Drew decided it was dog-stomping time and applied a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu chokehold. That's right: He choked the dog out.

Crane Kick? Pussy.

BADASS RATING: 8/10

Sure a pit bull is the smallest animal we have on this list, but we aren't going to hold that against Drew because his act was so fucking awesome he should, upon reaching adulthood, be awarded a medal made of blowjobs.

Just imagine that this picture was a medal, and those kittens were blowjobs. Awesome.

The Showdown

There is a lesson to the following story: There are some places where you should never let your children play, regardless of how much you hate them. In Brazil, that location is simply any place where the local predatory creatures can turn you into a Lunchables meal with feet.

Like this, with feet.

Mateus Araujo soon realized the wisdom in such logic when, while playing with friends in a local creek, he started to feel a very tight hug around his body (this is the one time where turning around to find it's a naked man in clown makeup would've been a relief).

This very unlucky eight-year-old found himself on a one way ticket to the food chain at the non-hands of one of South America's top predators, a 16-foot-long Anaconda--or as it is known in the rest of the world: "That snake that ate Jon Voight".

The anaconda, pictured here during its morning exercise routine.

In any other story this would've been the end, but fortunately for Mateus, his grandfather Joaquim was near, and the 66-year-old man had the perfect tools for some Anaconda slaying: a rock, and knife. Ole Pappy Pereira threw down on the slithering horror, smacking him upside the head for half an hour.

Finally the Anaconda cried, "No Mas!" and let Mateus go, slinking away to join the ranks of Anacondas humiliated by humans. Sorry big, scaly fella, it wasn't your day, but at least you didn't lose to Jennifer Lopez and a washed up rapper.

Badass Rating: 7/10

First, the man was 66-years old, an age where most folks are in retirement homes complaining about how their kids don't call them anymore. Second, consider that he wound up "beating" the snake instead of stabbing it, even though we know he had a knife on him. We like to think that at the sight of the blade the snake called him a coward, at which point the man tossed it aside and said, "I don't need no fucking knife to turn your ass into a pair of boots!" Then he picks up the biggest rock he can find and said, "It's ironic that you already got the munchies, because now you about to get stoned."

"Oh, this is lovely. Say, how many snakes do you think I can kill with this?"

The Showdown

A Norwegian man named Salvesen was wandering in the woods alone one October morning, presumably in search of the rest of his name. What he found instead was a bull moose, glowing with white hot person murdering anger.

Pictured: Something that doesn't look like it can't beat you to death.

The moose charged at Salvesen, who dove behind some trees. He raised his ax and smashed one of the moose's legs, snapping the bone. Deciding it was time to "take the belt off," the moose hit Salvesen with its horns, badly bruising him, then tried to trample the man beneath its hoofs.

Salvesen, in no mood to run away, channeled the energy of his Viking ancestors and swung the ax into the moose's head, dropping it to the ground. He grabbed it by the horns to try and finish the job, but the moose drop kicked him like Chris Jericho and limped off into the woods to write an emotional LiveJournal account of the altercation.

Badass Rating: 7/10

Salvesen, with his cool-as-hell name and ax-wielding encounter with a rampaging moose, proves once and for all that everything awesome happens in Norway. Moose will kick your ass, but he boldly stood his ground and fought off a nigh-invulnerable opponent with nothing but a simple tool and the muscle memory of his forefathers. If they sold Viking blood on eBay, we would buy it by the gross and dump it into every Coke Zero we drink for the rest of our lives.

It could only improve the taste.

The Showdown

Henry Rouwendal was packing his car up one night for a business trip the following morning, sharing his tranquil moonlit driveway with an Italian hoagie (his wife was inside, presumably shedding tears of jealous rage).

Pretty soon the kids will be calling it "mom."

Suddenly, the peaceful evening was shattered by a crushing blow to Henry's back. He crumpled forward to the ground and rolled over to see a black bear deflowering his beloved three meat ciabatta mistress.

Thinking quickly (and with the theme song from The Karate Kid Part Two flowing in his veins), he stomp kicked the bear in the face and neck until it retreated back into the darkness, hoagie in tow.

When asked to describe his assailant, Henry simply said, "He was smarter than the average bear."

Henry managed to crawl back to his front door in just a shade under an hour (the formula for travel after a bear attack is something like 10 minutes per foot for every inch of your ass the bear kicks). His wife, a nurse, tended to the extensive bruising and dislocated shoulder he had suffered, no doubt while the husband demanded she get him back into a shape that would let him plunge into the night to retrieve his sandwich.

Badass Rating: 5/10

There are two types of people in the world: Those who think a sandwich is something to fight a bear over, and those who do not. How badass this story is depends on which of those you are.

Either way, nobody can deny that it takes nards of steel to kick a bear in the face.

Look at that smug bastard.