Post: #1

I just read about this guy in the book "Convict Conditioning" and did a little research about him. Was this dude for real?

One story tells about him beating the shit out of 6 beastly longshoremen who attacked him and he put them all in the hospital. Another talks about him taking out 20 Nazi supporters:

"#6.
It's 1939 New York, and a diminutive Jewish gentleman is strolling the streets, just generally going about his business, which may or may not revolve around being Jewish and tiny -- we're not here to assume. And then he spots a sign outside an unadorned building simply reading "No dogs or Jews allowed." Anger wells up within him, and despite all better judgment, our 5'4" hero storms off to fetch himself a ladder and a bat. When he returns, he tears the sign from the wall and hurls it to the ground, where it lands ... right at the feet of the 20 or so angry Nazis watching from below.

Yes, the building was a Nazi headquarters, and it was just chock full of violent, racist assholes. They knocked over the small man's ladder and closed in on him from all sides. One thing was for sure: Somebody wasn't walking away from this fight.

And that "somebody" was 20 Nazis.

Because our tiny hero was, at the time, the world's strongest man.

Joseph Greenstein, aka the Mighty Atom, was a renowned circus strongman, and he quite reasonably proceeded to beat the shit out of every Nazi he could lay his little hands on. He knocked back over a dozen men, breaking arms, noses, legs and presumably the hearts of treasure-hunting femmes fatales everywhere. Joe was arrested and taken to court after the fracas, where he was charged with dozens of counts of battery. The judge, being unable to fathom one man causing so much damage, asked the arresting officer if all of the men involved in the fight were standing before him. Surely, he thought, Joe had accomplices who simply got away.

And as expected, the officer answered, "No, they're not."

Then, before the judge could finish nodding smugly, the officer clarified that there were still half a dozen Nazis in the hospital too hurt to attend court. Presumably, this exchange was punctuated by a double-take, two spit-takes and a monocle pop.

The officer went on to point out, however, that the men attacked Joe, not the other way around. When asked why, the officer simply speculated: "They're Nazis."

The case was immediately dismissed. And Joe's bat was entered into evidence, crated up and stored in a massive government warehouse with all of the other mythical artifacts, never to be seen again.

http://www.cracked.com/article_19585_6-r...z1qbLn4Qp9

Here's some other links about the guy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Greenstein
http://thehumanmarvels.com/1235/joseph-g.../strongman

Post: #2

He had a weapon, so it's believeable. It's the same idea of when you get jumped by several guys: Hit the biggest one as hard as you can and hope he goes down. The smaller guys, seeing their biggest ally get knocked down, will more than likely back off to save their own skins.

Post: #3

He was 5'4", and at the top of his career he weighed 140 pounds.

Germany, along with the other Nordic countries, boasts a lot of pretty tall people. I think Germany's average height right now is 6 feet (btw, the US's is 5'9") - these are fully grown men as well, so I think we can presume that they all weighed around 180 pounds. These were undoubtedly younger Nazi men, probably trained to some degree in hand to hand combat. We can assume that some were soldiers. I mean, I don't think the 45 year old visa stamper would be going outside during his break to take care of a disturbance like that.

Now, seeing as how, according to the story, he was knocked off a ladder onto the ground, and surrounded on all sides by twenty men who were 8 inches taller than him and outweighed him by forty pounds, with some degree of fight training, I'm going to have to go ahead and say that 5'4" Joe Greenstein probably did not come out victorious in this situation - assuming it ever happened.

Post: #4

This smells strongly of having been exaggerated. Just like the Jesse Owens shit, where they make it out like it was some great defeat for National Socialism when a black dude won a gold medal at the Olympics. In reality Owens was treated better in Nazi Germany than he was in the United States: he was afforded the luxury of sitting on white people toilets, which was a no-no back in the good old land of freedom.

Post: #5

bullshit

Post: #6

Fair enough that it does sound farfetched and Cracked.com is no leading authority, but have you guys actually done any research on this guy? He was a monster of a human being at his 140 lbs.

I saw a video once - I think it may have been posted on here a long time ago - of a guy in some middle eastern country taking out somewhere between 8-10 guys who were coming after him. One punch knock-outs again and again, some of them getting back up to chase after him only to be laid out again. He wasn't even anything big - he just knew how to use his fists and with the chaos of all those people coming at him all he had to do was keep landing.

Now, if this strongman guy was really as beastly as they said, he was nearly strong enough to punch through walls from the sound of it, so I could definitely see him doing that kind of damage with each punch. And a weapon as well...

Supposedly, he tried to teach NYPD Brazilian jujitsu before it was even known in this country (not that BJJ would have helped him in a situation like this).

I'm not saying the story is 100% true as it's told, but the guy was definitely a legend and worth reading about. There's a story about his spiritual beliefs and life on Amazon that goes for $50. More than $70 for a used copy.

Would be a trip to check it out.

Post: #7

If you look at the wikipedia entry it all sounds corny and apocryphal.

I did know a guy who was 5'7", solid, but basically normal. He would get into bar fights nearly every weekend so he was always trained. He was able to take down guys much, much bigger than him. He was a boxer (recreational) and a wrestler, and he loved fighting.

Post: #8

(03-31-2012 04:01 PM)The_CEO Wrote:  If you look at the wikipedia entry it all sounds corny and apocryphal.

I did know a guy who was 5'7", solid, but basically normal. He would get into bar fights nearly every weekend so he was always trained. He was able to take down guys much, much bigger than him. He was a boxer (recreational) and a wrestler, and he loved fighting.

My best friend is like this. He's an animal. I've watched people hit him with baseball bats and it doesn't phase him. He will just take it and break it in half. One night we were drinking at the park and he didn't like the streetlight so he climbed the pole scaled the rail and punched out the lens and bulb. The last time he was here visiting we rode bicycles to the bar and some dudes cut him off in the car. He walked in and they said something and he knocked three of them out in 5 seconds then threw a pool ball at someone coming at him that busted his face open.

Post: #9

His biography goes for $186? Holy hell. Even if he was just a hype-artist, he sure was good at it. lol

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mighty-Atom-Gr...Descending

Post: #10

(03-31-2012 04:23 PM)el mechanico Wrote:  My best friend is like this. He's an animal. I've watched people hit him with baseball bats and it doesn't phase him. He will just take it and break it in half. One night we were drinking at the park and he didn't like the streetlight so he climbed the pole scaled the rail and punched out the lens and bulb. The last time he was here visiting we rode bicycles to the bar and some dudes cut him off in the car. He walked in and they said something and he knocked three of them out in 5 seconds then threw a pool ball at someone coming at him that busted his face open.

Yeah, it's a trip how some guys are just as strong as an ox naturally and hyper-coordinated to top it off - these guys kill in a fight every single time as long as they've got fury (or at least the scrappiness) inside too.

I've been in a ton of scraps throughout my life and have never had too much of a problem holding my own with anyone, and there have been multiple times I've even taken on several guys at once at least long enough to get out of the situation and be unscathed while they were sporting some real damage. I've always had a lot of natural brute strength as well.

But I've got at least one or two friends who if we start roughousing around it feels like you're a kid all over again trying to wrestle with an adult, if that makes sense - and with no background in martial arts or mma nor even a regular fitness routine. Most of em' a bit bigger than 140 though.

Roll with some hard dudes but I've never seen any of them break a bat. lol That guy sounds like a monster.

Post: #11

the I'm sexy and I know it guy and this gent


Coincidence???

Post: #12

(03-31-2012 04:23 PM)el mechanico Wrote:  

(03-31-2012 04:01 PM)The_CEO Wrote:  If you look at the wikipedia entry it all sounds corny and apocryphal.

I did know a guy who was 5'7", solid, but basically normal. He would get into bar fights nearly every weekend so he was always trained. He was able to take down guys much, much bigger than him. He was a boxer (recreational) and a wrestler, and he loved fighting.

My best friend is like this. He's an animal. I've watched people hit him with baseball bats and it doesn't phase him. He will just take it and break it in half. One night we were drinking at the park and he didn't like the streetlight so he climbed the pole scaled the rail and punched out the lens and bulb. The last time he was here visiting we rode bicycles to the bar and some dudes cut him off in the car. He walked in and they said something and he knocked three of them out in 5 seconds then threw a pool ball at someone coming at him that busted his face open.

This guy was similar. I saw him take apart two guys while walking home from a bar, for some perceived offense that never really happened. He was sort of like a Pit Bull. And you were always glad he was on your side. Other guys I knew who also had reputations for being good bar brawlers were afraid of him!

Post: #13

A friend was second in state in wrestling at 163 and recruited heavily by Iowa.

I trained hard, boxed, but was four years younger.

Me and a bunch of my friends tried taking him down. We were between 14-16, football players, boxers, wrestlers...So it's not like a game of "How many vie year olds can you take in a fight?"

It's hard to explain...But even wrestling him hurt. His shin bones felt like steel. It was just uncomfortable.

Five of us couldn't take him down. He just threw us all off or let us hang on him.

He was all natural, too. He's one of the only people I've ever been jealous of.

I have to bust my ass for my gains. He'd simply show up to the gym or wrestling room and be elite. (He had a spot at Iowa if he would have graduated high school.)

He was coming of age in the early UFC era. Pat Militech called him trying to get him to train.

If he had pushed himself, who knows what he could have done. Militech built a lot of champs and wouldn't have wasted his time on a nobody...

Some guys are just 1-in-10,000 genetic specimens. Unless you've personally dealt with some freak like that, it's something that's just really hard to comprehend.

Post: #14

Why does this matter?

Post: #15

(04-01-2012 01:10 AM)MrWombat Wrote:  Why does this matter?

Great idea. Go read and post on all the threads you're not interested in, asking why it matters

Post: #16

(04-01-2012 01:10 AM)MrWombat Wrote:  Why does this matter?

Post: #17

(04-01-2012 01:10 AM)MrWombat Wrote:  Why does this matter?

I'll bite.

It matters because if this guy was half as strong as people said or did half the things claimed, his training and spiritual principles would be of great interest to men on a forum that largely centers around lifestyle design.

Hence why he was alluded to in Convict Conditioning, a book about training using nothing but bodyweight. Paul Wade references the man as an example of the difference between the legendary strongmen of the past and the wannabee bodybuilders of today.

As far as the fighting stuff, it's interesting trivia. Browse through the Everything forum I posted this in and you'll see a ton of mundane stuff that really doesn't matter in the big scheme of things. Fat girl says this in the news, look at this dipshit here, what do you think about these new Rawdog condums, etc...

It's all fun n' games, Bra.

But thanks for adding to the convo.

Post: #18

Nazi headquarters. In new York. Sounds legit.

Chef In Jeans
A culinary website for men

Post: #19

The US had strong Nazi support at the time, guys.
And yeah, this story is true. The Mighty Atom was legit. He grew up under the tutelage of an old time strongman and continued his training. He was strong enough to bite quarters in half and break two or three chains with his chest. This is the same guy who could change a tire on a car with no tools. He wasn't a genetic freak either, he was basically a runty little kid who took his health into his own hands, and kept at it, for decades.
Since he had a bat I see no reason why he couldn't have shithammered twenty untrained Nazis.


For anyone interested, here's a clip I managed to find of him

Post: #20

I be there is a real story that this is based on, but I have a feeling it wasn't 20 nazis, probably 3-4 guys yelling anti-semetic shit. Guys like Mighty Atom had their entire careers built on fables. They'd take a story and spin it wildly out of control because people like that stuff. They want to believe, so they do.

Chef In Jeans
A culinary website for men

Post: #21

(04-04-2012 03:03 AM)Hades Wrote:  The US had strong Nazi support at the time, guys.
And yeah, this story is true. The Mighty Atom was legit. He grew up under the tutelage of an old time strongman and continued his training. He was strong enough to bite quarters in half and break two or three chains with his chest. This is the same guy who could change a tire on a car with no tools. He wasn't a genetic freak either, he was basically a runty little kid who took his health into his own hands, and kept at it, for decades.
Since he had a bat I see no reason why he couldn't have shithammered twenty untrained Nazis.


For anyone interested, here's a clip I managed to find of him

State your sources.

Post: #22

Obvious BS. If people are out there who will believe something like this, I'm going into business selling overpriced crap to the gullible.

Post: #23

Haha, do you guys work for the Nazi Anti-Defamation league or something? If you guys want the source, buy his biography or google it and decide for yourselves if you think it actually happened.

I am not sure how to look up old court cases, but Joe Greenstein (the Mighty Atom) was brought to trial. "In 1939 Joe Greenstein was charged with aggravated assault, grievous bodily harm, and mass mayhem". According to the article the old Nazi headquarters was in New York, so if these sort of court cases were digitized (unlikely?) or in a library someplace, it's possible that it could be located here.

Edit: His son, Mike Greenstein, is still around at 93 and was on America's Got Talent doing strongman stunts not too long ago.

Post: #24

^ Way to revive a 2-year-old thread, Hades.

On another note, I've done more reading on this recently, and I believe it was legit.

Post: #25

I've been doing Convict Conditioning for 2 months now. It's really does sculpt your body towards that Adonis ratio that curls and squats don't. What I'm confused about is one man vs. 20 Nazi's at the same time?

Did the Nazi's run at him one by one like the Power Ranger goons?
The maximum possible configuration is 3 Nazi's vs Strongman. Anymore than 3 Nazi's, and the Nazi's would get in each other's way trying to hit him.