Episode 1137 - Chuck Norris: His Legacy from Those That Actually Knew Him

Jeremy and Andrew are joined by some familiar past guests to share their memories of the late Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris: His Legacy from Those That Actually Knew Him - Episode 1137

SUMMARY

This episode of Whistlekick Martial Arts Radio is a heartfelt tribute to the late Chuck Norris, featuring remembrances from notable martial artists who share their personal stories and the profound impact Chuck Norris had on their lives and careers. From inspiring confidence in actors to his charitable work with Kickstart Kids, the conversation highlights Norris's legacy of kindness, integrity, and his role in bringing martial arts to a wider audience.

TAKEAWAYS

• Chuck Norris influenced many martial artists and actors.

• He encouraged Don Wilson to pursue acting after kickboxing.

• Bill Wallace shared a memorable sparring experience with Chuck Norris.

• Chuck Norris was known for celebrating the successes of others.

• Alain Burrese emphasized living with integrity and purpose.

• Chris Natzke recalled a personal encounter that inspired him.

• Cynthia Rothrock discussed Chuck Norris’s charitable efforts with Kickstart Kids.

• Jeff Speakman highlighted Chuck Norris’s kindness towards fans.

• Chuck Norris's legacy continues to inspire future generations.

• The martial arts community remembers Chuck Norris as a national treasure.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Honoring Chuck Norris: A Retrospective Introduction
02:05 Don “The Dragon” Wilson: Confidence and Career Impact
05:24 Bill Superfoot Wallace: Sparring with a Legend
08:51 Alain Burrese: Celebrating Others and Living with Integrity
11:34 Chris Natzke: A Personal Encounter with Chuck Norris
17:56 Cynthia Rothrock: Kickstart Kids and Chuck Norris's Charitable Legacy
22:06 Jeff Speakman: The Importance of Kindness and Connection

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SHOW TRANSCRIPT

Jeremy (00:07)

Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome to a special edition of Whistlekick Martial Arts Radio. I'm Jeremy Lesniak.

Andrew Adams (00:13)

And I'm Andrew Adams, and we are the hosts of Martial Arts Radio, which is the world's number one traditional martial arts podcast.

Jeremy (00:20)

And today with the help of some of our friends, we are going to honor the great and sadly late Chuck Norris.

Andrew Adams (00:27)

Yeah, as those listening or watching know Chuck Norris passed away on March nineteenth, two thousand twenty six. And what you might be asking yourself is why are you guys doing this? What's your rationale for putting together an episode like this?

Jeremy (00:40)

Yeah, we generally interview people who are alive. We haven't done a retrospective in quite a long time. And well, there's a pretty good reason for it. Since Bruce Lee passed, there hasn't been anyone else who has been so universally celebrated, both as a martial artist and as not a martial artist, as an actor, as other things, and not just in one area, but across the globe.

Andrew Adams (01:05)

Absolutely. And he's been at the top of my list to get on the show for a long time. And unfortunately we were unable to to make that happen. So this is our way of being able to remember him.

Jeremy (01:16)

Yeah, and and so we reached out to some friends, they sent in their thoughts to us, names that you'll recognize. Don the Dragon Wilson, Bill Superfoot Wallace, Alan Barice, Chris Natzke, Cynthia Rothrock, and Jeff Speakman.

Andrew Adams (01:32)

Yep. And all of these people have been on our show in the past. They have individual episodes which you can go back and listen to. And if you like martial arts content, first off, you're in the right place, but go to our YouTube, subscribe, watch our videos there. You can go on Spotify and listen or watch or any podcast player really you can find us and listen to our audio there.

Jeremy (01:51)

And so without any further ado, let's get started. Our first remembrance is from Don the Dragon Wilson talking about how Chuck Norris helped shape his career.

Don Wilson (02:05)

Hi, I'm Don the Dragon Wilson, and I'm very honored to be able to give this tribute to Chuck Norris. I'd like to thank Chuck for giving me the confidence to become an actor after I retired from kickboxing. I met Chuck Norris through Bill Wallace. We had a mutual friend, Bill Superfoot Wallace, and Chuck showed up at one of my fights, and after the fight, Bill and I and Chuck went to Chuck's hotel room.

And at that time Chuck said that he enjoyed watching my fights and and he would come to other fights. He did come. He announced some of them for TV. He was very supportive of my fight career. And he told me that he believed that I should, when I retire from fighting, move out to LA, take acting lessons, get an agent, and try a second career as a martial art action star. And I would have I would have never done it if it hadn't been for Chuck because my you know I was gonna retire from kickboxing. I did retire in

1984. So it was only a few years later that I was planning on retiring. And I had no plans of moving to LA and no plans of trying to be an actor until I met Chuck until he gave me that confidence that maybe I could do it. And you know, I I right after I won the world title, I went out and bought a brand new red Corvette. And that's when I packed my stuff in that and you can't fit a lot if you know a Corvette, it doesn't have a lot of room to fit stuff to go to LA. But I moved to LA and followed what all actors do, you know, they they take acting lessons and they meet people that are trying to be actors and you know, I followed the same thing that all the other actors do to become a successful actor. But I would have never done it had it not been for Chuck Norris. And you know when I asked other fighters. Chuck is like a generation before I became a pro fighter. He was in this more in the sixties, late seven early seventies. And I started in ‘74. My first pro fight was in ‘74. So Chuck Norris is a generation ahead of me as far as fighting goes. But I heard a lot about him and the consensus was he was the best of his day. And so that's why when Bruce Lee produced his first movie he wanted to fight Chuck Norris and beat Chuck Norris up in his movie. 'Cause Chuck was the top pound for pound fighter in the world at the time. And so that was Return of the Dragon, I believe. And I just gotta say to Chuck thank you. It ha you  told me it was fun and the money was good and you were right. And we all miss you already. You're already missed and we'll get together again. Big referee in the sky will get us together again and maybe we can train together and talk about old times when I when I'm with you. Thank you. I love Chuck. We all love you and we miss you already. Thank you.

Andrew Adams (05:24)

So what I take away from the story that Don gave of Chuck Norris is we all know how much Chuck Norris impacted regular martial artists, just every the average martial artist in the world, but he helped influence celebrities and pro fighters as well.

Jeremy (05:42)

And now, for the man that Don Wilson credits for his introduction to Chuck Norris, here's Bill Superfoot Wallace along with Chris Natzke.

Chris Natzke (05:51)

Hey everyone, Chris Natske here with Superfoot System. I'm here obviously with Grandmaster Bill Superfoot Wallace. How you doing, sir?

Bill Wallace (05:58)

I'm wonderful. How you guys doing today.

Chris Natzke (06:02)

I'm sure everyone out there is good, but you know, obviously we've are all mourning a loss that we've had here in the martial art world over the last several weeks with the passing of Chuck Norris. And so I thought it'd be good for us just kind of connect about this. You know, certainly you and Chuck Norris were connected professionally, but I think what many people may not know is that you were really good friends over a long period of time as well.

Bill Wallace (06:28)

We were very good friends. Yeah. We were super… he was a good guy.

Chris Natzke (06:31)

So I know that there's people are probably wondering this out there in Superfoot land. Did you and Chuck Norris ever compete against each other? Did you ever spar?

Bill Wallace (06:41)

We sparred. We sparred one time.

Chris Natzke (06:44)

Okay.

Bill Wallace (06:46)

This ones funny.  I'm working for a guy named Elvis Presley. I don’t know if anybody ever heard of him or not, but he was a pretty good singer a long time ago. And I'm working at his school  and Tennessee Karate Institute in Memphis, Tennessee. And up comes the stairs is Chuck Norris. And evidently he had just had to do a test in Cape Girardo, Missouri. And he had to fly Memphis, had to come back to Memphis to fly home back to Los Angeles. So he said, I want to stop by and see what you're doing. I said, Okay.

We're sitting there talking for a while. He says, Bill, could we spar? Now understand this is 1978. May uh March. March, May 1978. I'm at the top of my game. I mean,  I'm I feel like I'm invincible. And I said, Yeah, you want to really you really want to spar? He says, Yeah, we'll put the gloves on and go at it. I said, love to. And we kicked everybody out of the school, locked the doors, it was just it was just Chuck and I. And nobody will ever know what happens. I hit him a bunch of times, he hit me a bunch of times. Nobody'll know and nobody I they shouldn't because we had an absolute blast. Most wonderful time I've ever had sparring anybody. Even more fun than they did when I was sparring with Joe.

Jeremy Lesniak (08:06)

And here we have Superfoot being the classiest guy as always. You know, one of the things that always strikes me is how the all these folks from the sixties and seventies,  they weren't just competing with each other, but they were friends and they supported each other in competition of each other. They they it's it's a a great example of iron sharpening iron.

Andrew Adams (08:36)

Hm, absolutly. And our next speaker is gonna talk about something we've heard many times about Chuck Norris throughout his career. Here's Alain Burrese on how Chuck Norris spoke about those around him.

Alain Burrese (08:51)

I want to send thoughts and prayers to Gina and the rest of Chuck's family, and all the friends and followers around the country because we lost somebody very important. I thank Whistlekick for allowing me to be part of this project and sharing a little story about Chuck Norris. I had the opportunity to meet him a few times. On the last time, it was a few years ago at the Shot Show, I told him why this book was one of the favorites in my collection.

And it wasn't just because he signed it for me. But when I was at the book signing with my wife in bookstore in Southern California, I noticed an individual standing beside him up next to the table. And I told my wife, That's Howard Jackson. And she's like, Who? I said Howard Jackson. He's also a great martial artist. Nobody else in the room recognized him. So after Chuck signed the book for me, I went up to Howard.

And I opened it up to a picture inside that had him and Chuck Norris from one of the movies. And Howard signed this book for me too, which I just thought was awesome. And it's the reason this book is one of the favorites in my collection. You know, at the shot show I told Chuck Norris that, and when I mentioned Howard, he lit up and then we started talking about what a great fighter, what a great martial artist, what a great person Howard was. And that's sort of

Illustrates the kind of person Chuck was. Always ready and enthusiastic to talk about the successes of others and cheer others on, help others take time for others. You know, at that same time he gave me one of his challenge coins, which, you know, I like to keep because it reminds me of a couple things.

Reminds me of how he lived his life with integrity, honor, purpose, and heart. And now that he's passed, that responsibility falls on all of our shoulders to live our lives as he did. He set an example, now it's up to us to follow.

speaker-1 (11:11.456)

Again, thoughts and prayers to Gina, family, friends, everyone, because we didn't just lose a martial art icon. We lost somebody that lived with honor, integrity, purpose and hope.

Now let's go.

Andrew Adams (11:34)

You mentioned it earlier, Jeremy, in the beginning, how he was really known universally and celebrated, not just in the martial arts world, but in all sorts of industries, known throughout the world. And I think that really goes to show how Chuck Norris lived his life. T others with kindness and in you know, having such integrity and I don't remember hearing stories of Chuck talking down about other martial artists. And I think that's an important point here.

Jeremy Lesniak (12:09)

Our next speaker we heard from him a little bit before. Here's Chris Natzke talking about Chuck Norris surprising a room full of people, not only with his own appearance, but he brought friends.

Chris Natzke (12:22)

Hey friends, Chris Natzke here from the Superfoot System. You know, I was so honored when Whistlekick asked me to share my Chuck Norris story. And like many of you out there who've been in the martial arts for quite some time, you were familiar with Chuck Norris long before he was ever a TV or a movie star. In fact, this week I've been pulling out my

Original copy of Winning Tournament Karate by Chuck Norris, which I probably got in 1975, 1976. And as I was looking at this, you know, and they and the spine is broken, which had to be taped, and I looked and saw the notes I was taking, I realized at that time the impact he had on me as one of my heroes in the martial arts, wanting to be just like him. But even though the impact was originally started there, what was even more profound for me is the first time that I ever met Grandmaster Norris.

Now, at the time I had been very involved in the National Association of Professional Martial Artists, or NATMA, serving as one of the regional directors. And I was asked to come down with about 50 other martial arts instructors from across the United States to an event called the ACMA, which was the American Council on Martial Arts. And what we were there to do at the Cooper Institute in Dallas, Texas, was to come and talk about ideas.

And received training so we could self-regulate our industry, learning the top teaching methodologies as well as top safety protocols, so we can make sure we made our schools the very best they could be. And not only was I honored to be there as a representative, but also to be there among some of the elite martial artists on the planet. Of course, my instructor, Bill Superfoot Wallace, was there and sat next to me during the course of that time. And a couple of rows ahead of me was Grandmaster Jun Ri, who brought Taekwondo to the United States.

So I think it was at probably around the morning of the second day, Grandmaster Wallace started to get a little antsy. And he he leaned over to me and he said, I'm gonna go see if I can get Chuck to come on by. Now, that of course was Chuck Norris. And this being in Dallas, Chuck Norris and his wife Gina had a ranch in the Dallas area where he was filming Walker Texas Ranger. So Grandmaster Wallace leaves, and I'm really not thinking anything of it, and the seminar continues to move on for another couple hours.

And then one of the speakers is up on stage speaking, and all of a sudden I see his eyes get large about two hours later, and his mouth gets slackjawed, and we all turn around and look, and there in the back of the room is Chuck Norris, his wife Gina, Howard Jackson, Skipper Mullens, and of course Bill Superfoot Wallace. Martial art royalty in the United States. So I remember very clearly Grandmaster Norris coming up, basically.

walking up on stage house left and he came up to the podium and he began speaking to us about the importance of our mission there and and he spoke for maybe about five ten minutes and I remember being incredibly inspired the fact that Chuck Norris was addressing us as a group. Now had he have stopped there, I would have thought that was the coolest thing ever. But then it got better. Rather than exiting the stage when he was complete house left, he came down house right. And all of us were situated in

basically classroom seating. And he came to the first person and said, Hi, I'm Chuck Norris. What's your name? Where are you from? Who's your instructor? And then he did it to the next person and the next person and the next person. In fact, I think his talk was five or ten minutes, but it took him 45 minutes to an hour just to leave the room after he met each and every one of us. And I just remember what a profound impact that had on me, thinking.

You know, here is a man who's an absolute legend in the martial arts. And had he have waved at us and said goodbye and left stage, we would have thought that was the best thing ever. But what he did is he decided to take the time to connect with each and every one of us. And as I've moved through my martial art journey and I've, you know, received positions of, you know, of authority in the martial arts and leadership, et cetera, et cetera, I've always kept that in mind. And I've always remembered how important I was made to feel.

And how important it is for hopefully I'm able to reciprocate that when I'm meeting students, I'm meeting parents, I'm meeting fellow martial artists, is to connect with people and to be there. So that to me is my top Chuck Norris story, and I'm so honored to share it with you. And I just want to say thank you, sir, for having such a profound impact in the lives of so many of us, particularly in me. Thank you.

Jeremy Lesniak (17:02)

You know, I  can't imagine being in an event and being on stage and having to command a room and just kinda looking up from my podium or notes or whatever I'm doing and seeing Chuck Norris in the back.

Andrew Adams (17:16)

And and Skipper Mullens and Howard Jackson like.

Jeremy Lesniak (17:21)

Right. And those two. And just you know, having to keep going. I kinda I wanna find out who that was so we could so we can get the  full story on that.

Andrew Adams (17:30)

That would be fun.

So it wasn't a secret that Chuck Norris did so much to help others. We've already heard from some of them already. but his charitable efforts were often overshadowed by other aspects of his life. And here we've got another friend of Chuck Norris, Cynthia Rothrock, talking about some of the good that he did for the others in need.

Cynthia Rothrock (17:56)

Hi, this is Cynthia Rothrock. I'm so honored to talk about the amazing Chuck Norris. My condolences go out to Gina and his family and all the fans around the world. that we've lost like this incredible man. he was such an icon, he was a legend, he was a spiritual man, he was one of the kindest men I've ever known. He was such an amazing fighter. He brought so many people into martial arts with his films. And I just have to say the first time I met Chuck was back in the nineteen eighties when he first started his program, Kickstart Kids. And all of us we were top competitors in tournaments at that time. So we all went to support him and to support this program because it was so phenomenal that he came up with this idea to support kids that have lost their way or they could get into a bad life, they can get into drugs or they can get into gangs. And he felt a need to get into get them into martial art training to help them with their self-confidence with their morality but they didn't have money to get this. So this foundation and is still going really strong today is to help these kids out. And we just love that idea and we were all there to support him. And I’ve seen this so many times at different Kickstart Kids events, different Comic Cons. The last time that I saw Chuck and Gina and his son London Comic Con and it was really funny because Chuck said to Gina, How come I never use Cynthia's walk Texas arranged and I was like yeah how come? But anyway, you know they are such great people. I did get to work with Chuck on his drink morning kick. so I also endorse that. It's a great drink that they came up with and him and Gina were so are so innovative on health. You know, a lot of times I talk to Gina, she's such a giving woman about like health and vitamins and she's always there for you and there for everybody, you know. and we will always have Chuck with us. It's not that he's gone because I think all of us just carry Chuck in our hearts every day.

And another interesting story is Chuck was Tang Soo Do and so was I. He studied a little bit before me, but he studied under Jay Shul Shin when he was in Korea and Jay Shul Shin was my grandmaster in Tang Soo Do, so we kinda had that combination going. And I remember with Richard Norton one day we went I went with them over at Chuck's house and it was like at five AM.

And I was like, my gosh, it's so early. So I get up and I drive there. So I had to leave my house about four AM and it was like the hardest workout I ever did. Done about like a thousand kicks. And I was just so impressed, you know, with his energy and his abilities. And even till the last still going strong, you know. So he's in our hearts forever and I definitely think he will be like just like Bruce Lee, everybody will remember him from now until eternity.

Andrew Adams (21:24)

You know, it's interesting listening to Cynthia Rothrock talk about his rationale for starting up the Kickstart for Kids program. You know, we, Jeremy, you and I have often talked about, and the show believes that the world would be a better place if everyone trained martial arts. And, you know, Chuck Norris had that philosophy as well. Everyone benefits from training martial arts, and we should all work to help make sure that, you know, others are training.

Jeremy Lesniak (21:51)

Yeah. And we've heard how Chuck Norris treated others, but here's another martial arts movie icon talking about how he was inspired by the way Chuck Norris treated his fans. Here's Jeff Speakman.

Jeff Speakman (22:06)

Hi everyone, I'm Jeff Speakman from the movie The Perfect Weapon. I just want to send my sincere condolences to the Norris family and to the millions and millions of fans and admirers of Chuck Norris. Because of his untimely passing, we were very lucky to have him as long as we did. I've met him many times and he was absolutely a gentleman.

Very generous and kind with his time and his comments about my work. And of course, we had a great connection with my former teacher, Ed Parker. but you know, I do have a story that probably few, if any, have to share, and that is when we were done filming The Perfect Weapon at Paramount, they really got behind the movie after they saw how it was going to turn out.

And so they hired w what they use all the time, one of the best companies to help people to learn how to speak in public. And so I worked with these people for many, many days over several weeks. And they were the best in the business at what they do. And so one of the things they kept saying to me over and over was you know, how important it is to be attentive to your fans and that you you can sign an autograph and ten people will hear about it.

And if you turn someone down, a thousand people would hear about it. And so one of the people that they always brought up over and over again who really mastered this and really led with the smile and a handshake was Chuck Norris. And they went out of their way to tell me this has nothing to do with a karate guy and a karate movie coming out, that they always used Chuck Norris an example of the way to be in public and how he would come across.

And that's exactly correct. That's how I remember him. And he's a national treasure for us in the United States. And I hope he's recognized that way. And I want to thank my friends at Whistlekick for getting this out to all of you. And just remember, we're only here for a brief time, and we're all caught in the same birth-death cycle. So always throughout your life, try to model yourself after people like Chuck Norris, who do the right thing. Whether it costs them money or not. It's never about money, and it's never too late to be kind and helpful to other people. And that is the true spirit of the martial arts. Please take care.

Jeremy Lesniak (24:42)

You know, I I can only imagine as popular as Chuck Norris has been

Andrew Adams (24:46)

for decades.

Jeremy Lesniak (24:50)

For for a very long time. Yeah. How much patience he had to have to to treat his fans that way. We we've we've heard that a couple times, right? Just this man's willingness to kind of submit to an entire world of people and honor and respect them. It blows my mind. It's incredibly inspiring.

Andrew Adams (25:17)

Yeah. It's been great to remember and hear stories of the late now the late Chuck Norris. And we wanna thank you if you are here and watched or listened to this episode. It means a lot that you took some time out of your day to spend it with us and some of our friends.

Jeremy Lesniak (25:35)

Yeah. And if you do love martial arts even beyond Chuck Norris, you really need to check out what we're doing with martial arts radio. We are in our eleventh year and we've done over eleven hundred episodes.

Andrew Adams (25:50)

Yeah, we actually drop two episodes a week. A lot of a lot of podcasts do one a week, which is great, but we are overachievers. So we do two episodes a week. You can find them in any of your podcast players. You can watch the videos on YouTube. You can watch or listen on Spotify as well.

Jeremy Lesniak (26:07)

Yeah, and just a reminder, we said this at the top, every guest that was on this episode with us has a full length episode, their own interview that you can check out and you can again find them anywhere that you find good podcast content. And with that we close the way we always close. Until next time, train hard, smile, and have a great day.