Hard men loom large in British culture. Sure, America has its action heroes, Chechnya has its nine-year-old kickboxers personally trained by the President, but in Britain we have a sort of trembling respect for our burly bastards and loose cannons: we abide by their arbitrary rules outside nightclubs; we marvel at them riding around with Danny Dyer or Ross Kemp; we imitate them at a moment’s notice. In fact, I bet, in your head right now you are either doing a Cockney accent, or have done a Cockney accent since you started reading this piece.
But one thing we can’t abide by in this country is a would-be hard man, a faker, all mouth and no trousers. Problem is, some poser hard men can go years without being exposed, because nobody around them is hard enough to call them out.
Well, nobody could ever accuse The Fence of being hard enough to be judge, jury and executioner – we are, bless us, on the softer side of the media landscape, and would probably get a walloping if Fleet Street ever turned into West Side Story.
So, we went stateside to find ourselves a hardness appraiser, and got the right man for the job: Arnold ‘Bomaye’ Adams, the reigning and defending BKFC Heavyweight Champion of the world, and the most dangerous man in bare-knuckle boxing. The champ was kind enough to sit down with us and look over the first ten hard men that came to our minds, assessing how they’d handle themselves in the BKFC ring. Got a problem? Take it up with the champ.
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Former US President, Abraham Lincoln: ‘Haha! Not hard at all. I think he gets his ass kicked.’
THE CHAMP’S VERDICT: NOT HARD
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Activist and humanitarian, Steven Seagal: ‘You know, I’ve always questioned him. I’ve seen what he can do in the movies, but is he really capable of doing it in a real world situation? I don’t know. Everything he does is so slow.’
