By: John M Jerva

Welcome to FOOT FIST FRIDAYS! A weekly dose of fight action where the Action-Flix.com experts share their thoughts on some of the greatest scenes of fisticuffs in action cinema history!

Happy Friday everyone and I hope that you all are having a great holiday season and it’s almost time to say good ridance to 2020 and usher in a hopefully much better 2021. As you know Foot Fist Fridays took some time off as I created a new section called Firepower Fridays but now I’m happy to report that I’m keeping my fellow brother Robb Antequera’s seat warm as he takes some time off to do his Action Drunkies Podcast and I will be continuing the legacy that he started months ago. Firepower Fridays and Foot Fist Fridays are going to be rotating each week as we aim to deliver the finest in unarmed combat as well as buttlet riddled shoot ’em up sequences.

Yesterday was my birthday and I turned 48 years young and you all know what that means! I was of age when the fantastic era of DTV martial arts action films flooded the market in the early to mid 90’s. Every week, there seemed to be a new title for action fans to get their hooks on and there was no shortage of top tier talent along the way. Two of those individuals, who just happen to be two of my favorites, were Don ” The Dragon” Wilson and Gary Daniels. Both men excelled in the business at the time and Wilson pretty much released a new movie what seemed like every other week.

What could be better than a movie starring these two greats? Well, that would be a movie where they appeared together and fought each other not once but twice! Yes folks, dreams do come true and in the 1992 fisticuffs fueled classic Bloodfist 4: Die Trying, we got this dream beatdown. The story centered on Danny (Wilson) a repo man who takes a job repossesing a car. Unfortunately that said car belongs to a ruthless arms merchant and it’s very valuable so a chain of violent events are triggered forcing Danny to use his particualr set of skills to save the life of his daughter who has been kidnapped. Danny must take on an army of killers while also dodging the CIA and FBI at the same time but that;s OK because this is The Dragon we’re talking about so I think he’ll be the last man standing.

One of the opponents that Danny must face is the merciless Scarface (love that name) played by, yep you guessed it, British martial arts and action star Gary Daniels. Like I mentioned previously, these two icons of action not only fight at the beginning of the film but they also have an epic 90’s beatdown in the finale complete with show stopping slo-mo moves that will delight all fans. Both scenes are quick ones but they sure do give you the goods as both stars get ample opportunity to demonstrate their skills.

While the first match is good, it’s the finale that tops it as they square off in a warehouse complete with industrial strength fan spinning in the background. Daniels gets the chance to highlight his lethal barrage of kicks while Wilson gets to show everyone what made him a world kickboxing champion. Now it’s important to know that Wilson is the good guy here so, of course, he comes out on top but we all know that things can always turn out differently if the tables are turned.

Wilson would go on to fight many memorable opponents in his films but I feel that his brawls with Daniels are a true highlight in his movie fighting career. Fun fact…both Daniels and Wilson fought each other for real in an exhibition match so you know that these two legends of action were legit.

Well that’s enough chit chat on the matter so it’s time to watch Gary Daniels and Don Wilson center the ring in both fights from Bloodfist 4 as well as their actual exhibition match that I found on YouTube! Remember next week, Firepower Fridays will take over as we showcase another bullet riddled action sequence from a classic flick. In the meantime, watch Wilson and Daniels go at it not once, not twice but three times! The 80’s and 90’s were truly a magical time to be an action fanatic!