Interestingly enough, it turns out submission wrestling the king of the forest isn't the worst fighting training you can have, seeing as one of those children grew up to be a UFC powerhouse. Meet UFC lightweight Khabib Nurmagomedov:

Via Courier Mail
That's actually a polar bear he defeated and now wears as a hat.

The fact that he spent part of his childhood grappling with young apex predators probably goes a long way toward explaining why he is now a wrestler, judo black belt, and sambo martial arts champion. He occasionally still dabbles in his primary sport:

Via Khabib Nurmagomedov
Give it up, Yogi; some picnic baskets aren't worth it.

Holy shit, look at that kid! Surely, that's a bad Photoshop of a regular toddler's head on the body of an extra from 300, or maybe a big-budget ad for Gerber protein shakes. There's no way a child that young could be so ridiculously ripped. But, no ...

That is Giuliano Stroe, 9 years of age and, more importantly, rage.

Iulian Stroe
When you can do that, bedtime is whenever you damn well please.

Giuliano is the son of weightlifter Iulian Stroe and one half of Romania's "Hercules Brothers." Yep, there's two of them.

Iulian Stroe
Which, doubtless, is a huge relief to every other child in the city whenever the "Who
wants to arm wrestle Giuliano?" question is raised.

Out of the two, Giuliano has garnered the most attention due to his knack for record-setting feats of strength in his age group (though we suspect competition isn't exactly fierce among the Tonka-weight class). As of 2014, he held two world records: one for vertical push-ups and the other for holding himself in the human flag position. Oh, and he's also an accomplished gymnast. Here he is performing a handstand, while balancing on a couple of fragile glass bottles, at an age when we seriously couldn't stand and recite the alphabet at the same time.

Iulian Stroe
Afterward, he set the age record for bottle eating.

Come, let us Marty McFly all the way to 1930s Texas, to check out its majestic plains and ... reckless child endangerment? Holy shit, is that a kid taming lions?

Popular Science
"Mom wouldn't let me watch The Lion King, so I became one."

It is! That's 11-year-old lion tamer Manuel King, whose father was an animal trainer. Daddy King bred big cats for a living and regularly gave his son lion and bear cubs to play with -- which sounds way better than G.I. Joe toys, though we can't recall ever getting mauled by Tunnel Rat. On his 10th birthday, Manuel received the completely reasonable gift of 10 lion cubs. Rather than eyeing his father suspiciously while slowly backing out from the room, Manuel was all, "Neat, my own army of murder-cats!" and started the training to become a lion tamer.

There was just one minor obstacle: Manuel was so used to playing with the cubs that his survival instincts with the adult lions were lacking. He would often turn his back on the lions and even stopped the training to give them great big hugs. It probably goes without saying that this behavior is generally frowned upon when training massive, potentially man-killing animals.

Popular Science
Like the circus lions say, there's a supper born every minute.

Luckily, Manuel had backup. Seasoned lion trainer John Guilfoyle, who was showing him the ropes, eventually became fed up with his protege's reckless abandon and decided to teach him a lesson. So, one day, Guilfoyle deliberately picked a fight with the lions, letting them floor and maul him just to prove to Manuel that the animals were dangerous. See, that's what a babysitter was back in the day: a dude willing to fight a fucking lion just to prove a point.

The Child Protective Services nightmare you're currently flinching at is a scene from one of the shows put on by knife-thrower Louella Gallagher, who had the maternally questionable habit of making her young daughters stand still while she chucked deadly blades at them. Here's what the whole scene looked like:

Via YouTube
We're just gonna go out on a limb and guess Child Protective Services was a bit less vigilant back then.

Little is known about this sideshow family with the Leave It To Beaver aesthetic, but Texas archivists date her performances to the 1950s and suggest that these kinds of acts were fairly common in the Lone Star State at the time. It's also evident from footage (which you can watch here and here) that Gallagher had at least three daughters, two of whom were 5 and almost 3 years old at the time, who all acted as her assistants. And they were good at what they did.

Via YouTube
"What they did" being stand face to face with the Grim Reaper and wait for him to blink.

While sane people would likely soil their bloomers at the sight of knife-shaped missiles hurtling at their faces, the Gallagher kids just smiled like they were about to spend Christmas in Candyland.

We're not saying New Yorker Ashima Shiraishi got her amazing abilities from a radioactive spider bite, but ...

Forest Woodward
"It was actually a combination of radioactive rhesus monkey and atomic mountain goat."

Today, Ashima is besting boulders too formidable for seasoned climbers thrice her age and smashing gender conventions by routinely becoming the first female on some seriously dangerous climbs. And then she just starts friggin' showing off to rub it all in:

Via Ashima Shiraishi
She then proceeded to climb another 60 feet in that position.

Shiraishi started out at 6 years old, when she noticed a group of amateurs trying to climb Central Park's 15-foot tall Rat Rock. Eager to join in the fun, she quickly clawed her way to the top, and a boulder beast was born. By age 7, Shiraishi could complete climbing routes too tricky for adult pros. One of the most impressive feathers in Shiraishi's climbing cap was scaling the Crown of Aragorn (mountain climbers can be nerds, too) -- a challenge that requires clambering up a wall at a 45-degree angle. It's considered one of the most challenging climbs you can make, and only a handful of female climbers have slain that beast, the youngest of whom was 27.

Shiraishi climbed that shit at 10.

Via Youtube
Next conquest: Mount Doom.

"I believe the children are our future, teach them well and let th- holy crap that little girl just landed a jump-kick to that guy's teeth!" Check it out in 6 Images Of Kids Too Insane To Be Real (That Totally Are). If you don't feel like a total wimp yet, then check out 16 Badass Acts Of Heroism Done By Children. Yeah, we're not that brave either.

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