The Deadliest Man Alive
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A look at one of the most intriguing characters in the history of martial arts and the filmmaker who is determined to tell his story. How did John Keehan, an Irish kid from Chicago, become Count Dante, the most dangerous man alive? (Previously written for the original Kung Fu Cinema in 2009)
Over the past few years, I’ve had had some experiences with deja vu, a few
premonitions and what some consider precognition. I try to rationalize these strange occurrences by telling myself that it is all coincidence. After all, we’re all connected by “six degrees of separation”, or something like that.
I try to rationalize these things, but in the back of my mind, I know that there is something else involved, an unseen force, something guiding us, bringing us together.
A few weeks ago, while working on an article that covered the classic “Deadly Hands of Kung Fu” comic, I took time to review and appreciate the retro advertisements that frequented the pages. There were ads for books and manuals to make you a fighting master in Karate or Kung Fu. The majority of the ads were benign and I paid them no mind.
However, one ad stood out. It was an ad by some guy who claimed to be
“The Deadliest Man Alive.” The ad said he was the Supreme Grand Master of the“Black Dragon Fighting Society” and he sold a book that taught “The Death Touch” aka “Dim Mak.”
“Dim Mak” struck a cord with me because a few weeks earlier, while speaking to local master martial artist, Bruce Lee’s name came up and the seasoned fighter said that Bruce Lee was actually killed, by the strike known as “Dim Mak.”
The fearsome man in the ad had his hands fixed in a foreboding position. The man called himself “Count Dante” and the ad said that in 1967, he was crowned “The World’s Deadliest Fighting Master” by the world federation of fighting arts.
There was something that attracted me to the ad. Unlike the others, there was nothing comical about it. There was a sense of mysticism to it. I had a feeling about it, and the man in the ad. I couldn’t put my finger on it, and I moved forward, working on the “Deadly Hands of Kung Fu” article.
While still preparing the article I received an email from the insightful reader known to the Kung Fu Cinema community as “Jiujitsu77.”
He sent me an email asking me a question that would send me on a journalistic journey, that would enlighten me about the city that had made an unappreciated and unacknowledged contribution to martial arts culture in the United States.
“Have you heard of the Count Dante documentary coming out of Chicago?” he asked.
When reading the email, I thought the name sounded eerily familiar, but I couldn’t connect it. I Googled Count Dante and I was led to a website, where a filmmaker by the name of Floyd Webb was working on a documentary entitled “The Search for Count Dante.”
Things didn’t register, but while watching the trailer on Floyd’s site, I realized who Dante Was, he was the same guy I had seen in the advertisements, from the “Deadly Hands of Kung Fu” comics. I couldn’t believe it, I was still working
on the Deadly Hands article, and I received an email to check into the very character who roamed the pages.
Only Mark Pollard and a few Marvel folks knew I was putting the article together. It wasn’t deja vu, but it was definitely in the eerie, six degrees of separation space.
The trailer would introduce me to John Keehan, who would become Count Dante. Possibly the most controversial martial artist ever, whose story must be told. A talented fighter whose name is surrounded in controversy because of many criminal activities and eccentric behavior and still, because of his sense of justice and concern for others.
The first time Floyd and I actually spoke, we were on the phone for some time. Floyd introduced to the myth of Count Dante and the figures that were involved in its creation. As Floyd dropped science, my notepad became saturated with names of legendary martial arts masters who warranted their own stories and documentaries.
All of whom had a hand in the formation of “The Deadliest Man Alive.”
To tell Count Dante’s story is to tell Floyd’s story. Both men have been linked by some unseen force, six degrees if you will.
Floyd grew up in the South Side of Chicago. After his father went off to Vietnam, he found himself getting beat up from time to time. “I was a geek, a bookworm, I was tired of getting my butt kicked so I decided to learn martial arts,” said Floyd.
At the age of eleven, his interest in martial arts would eventually lead him to the 2nd World Martial Arts tournament in 1964, where he would come face to face with the redhead kingpin himself, John Keehan.
Floyd recalled the routine of cleaning up at restaurants in Chinatown (Chicago) for pocket money. One particular evening, after work, he and his friends bought tickets to the 1964 World KarateTournament.
He recalls the scene at the 1964 tournament ”It was huge, imagine like 4000 people in this location… I remember the Black Panthers fighting the U.S. Marines. This was the kind of tournament where teeth went flying all over the place.”
Although action-packed, it wasn’t enough to keep the project kids interested, Floyd honestly described their conduct at the tournament, “We were just like any other group of kids we started running around tearing shit up” Floyd’s and company were approached by someone who Floyd described as “a cool and no-nonsense White boy” who told the boys to settle down and that he would take care of them and get them some good seats.
That man was John Keehan. Although Floyd would never train with John Keehan, he would frequently run into him while hanging out with friends while growing up in Chicago.
It wasn’t until Floyd was an adult when he would be prompted, guided if you will, by some unseen force, causing him to start working on a documentary that covered the life of John Keehan. Floyd was actually working on a totally unrelated project when he ran into an old competitor.
“Yo man, I just had dinner with Count Dante,” said the former combatant. Floyd dismissed the comment initially because he described a great number of people in Chicago as punch drunk. He could no longer ignore these comments when four people in a week’s time had claimed to have seen Count Dante.
Finally, a friend had mentioned to Floyd that Dante’s story would be great material for a movie.
These words would be the initiator for the truth about Dante, his alleged death and what had really happened to him.
When I spoke to Floyd about the creation and molding of Dante, he led me on a historical journey. Introducing me to martial arts and fighting powerhouses who created the scene in Chicago and inadvertently Count Dante.
Keehan was born in 1939, and while he was in High School, he boxed at the south side gym. He trained with Johnny Coulon, who was a previous championship fighter and he had been close friends with Jack Johnson.
After high school, he was in the Marine reserves and then the Army (1958–1961). During this period, while stationed on the west coast he would train with notable martial arts experts, T.Y. Wong, Ed Parker, who was one of the earliest pioneers of American Karate, and a very close friend of Bruce Lee, James Yimm Lee. James Yimm Lee was the successful publisher
of his own publications on “poison hand training.”
Keehan had claimed to have met Bruce Lee during this time he spent in San Francisco when Bruce was new to the country.
Somewhere during all of this, Keehan says that he was involved in some covert operation and that he was arming Raul Castro and Che Guevara with guns in Cuba.
After all of this in 1962, John would return to Chicago, where he would continue to train and teach. He would also visit Phoenix and study under Karate master Robert Trias, who was the founder of the United States Karate Association. He earned his second-degree black belt and would fight Gary Alexander for the North American Karate Championship, at Madison Square Garden back in 1962.
According to Floyd’s sources, Keehan would be disqualified because he was “too rough.” There were other who said John got knocked the fuck out.
Keehan also studied with Charles Gryzanski, who has an interesting story of his own. After entering the military in 1950, he became special military police investigator a year after his entry. During this period, and during the US occupancy in Japan, the United States outlawed martial arts training in Japan.
Grzanski working as a military police officer had access to files on suspected trainers of martial arts. He pretended to investigate them but he sought out teachers and instead of arresting them, he learned from them.
Gryzanski would then return to Chicago, with a Japanese wife, and join the Chicago Police department. He would then teach martial arts in the south side of Chicago at various locations including the projects where one of his students would be John Keehan. Charles would also pen several martial arts books, with information he had learned while in Japan. One of these was “Ninja Weapons: Chain and Shuriken.”
Gryzanski was Keehan’s first Karate teacher and he would assist Keehan in forming 1963, World Karate Tournament.
John Keehan would also study Judo under Matsato Tumura, 4th Dan who came to Chicago and taught at the Jiu Jitsu Institute. Matsato, achieved legendary fighting status in Chicago, when he defeated professional wrestler Karl Pojello in 1943, in what would now be considered a mixed martial arts fight. This was done despite the fact that Tumura had lost three fingers on his
left hand due to an accident.
Tumura beat the professional wrestler in one minute and twenty seconds. Pojello was a skilled wrestler and fighter. He won several wrestling championships in Europe. Tumura was the kind of guy, whose skill was so intense that Floyd described a fighter by the name of “Judo” Gene Lebelle, who would frequently hobo on trains, from Los Angeles to Chicago, just so he could train with Tumura.
Aside from skill, Keehan would learn to place value in people, avoiding the prevalent discrimination that was in vogue at that time.
Floyd recalled meeting Mas Tumura and being blown off. In the 50s or 60s, Blacks and other minorities were not allowed to learn martial arts. Floyd says “I remember going to the school and meeting Mas. He introduced himself and politely blew me off.”
However, Floyd had Mas all wrong.
Legendary street fighter, martial artist and teacher of Floyd, Gregory Jaco, who was actually the father of rapper Lupe Fiasco told Floyd that Chumura did, in fact, train Blacks, but in a clandestine manner. Floyd describes it as “Underground Railroad Training”, where he was told that Black men would arrive at the school late in the evening and night, dressed and acting as though they were cleaning the facility, when in fact, they were actually taking lessons inside. Chumura had to teach them this way because he was fearful of losing his license.
Jaco also provided testimony on his encounter with Dante. Floyd describes Jaco as a legendary fighter, and if you go to Youtube, you’ll find
a number of his students paying respect to their teacher.
“He was the kind of guy, when he went places, people cleared out,” says Floyd.
When Floyd was younger, he recalled speaking to Jaco about Keehan. Jaco simply told Floyd “You don’t want to mess with that guy, he is dangerous.”
John Keehan was one of the first martial arts teachers in the United States, to openly teach Blacks and Latinos. This would start the beginnings of many of the rivalries John had with many martial arts schools. Not only did he teach Blacks, but he would train Black Panthers and members of one of Chicago’s most notorious gangs, “The Keystone Rangers.”
There are some rumors, that this may have led to his expulsion from the United States Karate Association. Speaking about the USKA, Keehan told Black Belt magazine in 1969 “ the USKA didn’t have any Negroes in the organization (1964), except for mine, and Trias didn’t like it one bit.
It’s the truth. Of course, now he has no qualms about it, but at the time, that’s the way it was.” Keehan was expelled from the USKA, by Robert Trias in 1964.
His decision to openly train Blacks and other minorities made him popular amongst Blacks in Chicago. Floyd explained that while conducting research and interviewing a number of Keehan’s past students, that you won’t find any Blacks in Chicago with anything bad to say about Dante, because he took a stand and trained them openly when others would not.
His expulsion began the end of John Keehan and the beginning Count Dante.
1965 marked the beginning of Keehan’s problems with the law. Keehan and friend Doug Dwyer were arrested after trying to blow out a window
at Gene Wyka’s school with a dynamite cap. They were caught by the police before they had the chance to blow up the school and Keehan received two years probation.
There is a source that says that 1967, Keehan put on an exhibition at the Medina Temple, where a bull would be killed by a single blow. Keehan bought a bull and drove it around town on a flatbed truck, with signs promoting the event. He picked one of his students to perform the act. Keehan had to cancel because the event had been shut down by some animal protection agency. Even though he wasn’t able to pull off the staged event, you get a sense of his appreciation for promotion and theatrics.
Another strange event occurred in 1967. John organized a martial arts tournament and then steals the funds from the tournament. According
to the research the Floyd has done, Keehan was owed funds from someone who he was working with, which led him to take money from the tournament
that he organized.
During that very same year, Keehan would get one some “Back to Europe” ish, and legally change his name to Juan Raphael Dante. He says that he wanted to reclaim his royal title that was lost by his parents when they migrated to this country. Yeah, and I’m on some “Back to Africa” ish and reclaiming my royal title.
In any event, Count Dante would then open “The House of Dante”, where he did hair. Floyd recalls that Dante had several reasons for doing hair.
“It allowed him to make an income and meet women,” says Floyd. There was no stopping Dante during this period of time. He owned a used car lot,
gift shop and a porn shop.
1968, Dante would publish World’s Deadliest Fighting secrets and according to Floyd, he would make more than one million dollars from his literary venture. The first half of the book includes a number of poison hand techniques, which actually look useful.
The second half is dedicated to “The Dance of Death”, which is a series of steps where you fight until your opponent is on the ground
and then you stomp on him. For some strange reason, Dante chooses to finish this book with a picture of him and a Playboy bunny sitting
in a chair.
In 1970, John released a paper entitled “Karate is For Sissies” where he attacked the tradition and ceremony of Karate, Kung Fu and Judo.
Saying that these arts were not practical in a street fight. This must have been written with the focus of promoting his own system, kata Dante aka “The Dance of Death.”
Count Dante would then be involved in one of the most infamous martial arts battles in Chicago history. On April 24th, 1970 Count Dante led four men to the Green Dragon Society’s Black Cobra Hall of Kung Fu. During this battle, Dante would remove someone’s eye and the life of his good friend Jim Koncevic would be taken. Dante would be charged with murder since he had led Concevic to the hall.
Dante would then seek out mob lawyer Robert Cooley, who published the book “When Corruption was King.” In the book, Cooley describes Dante
as a sex maniac, and discussed how Dante had been living with several Playboy bunnies and the lifestyle that the two lived while getting to know
each other, before the trial.
Floyd tracked down Cooley and interviewed him and Cooley told Floyd that Dante had “masterminded” the 1974 Purolator bank vault robbery for 4.3 million dollars. In his book, Cooley links Dante to the crime and explains how he could have possibly gotten involved.
Several weeks before Dante was scheduled to go on trial for the robbery, he “conveniently” died because of bleeding ulcers.
Floyd Webb visited Dante’s grave and noticed that the Count is buried in an unmarked grave. What is the problem with this? Dante is a military veteran.
In addition, he comes from a well-off family.
Cooley describes Dante’s background in his book as follows “His father was a doctor and he lived in a wealthy neighborhood, where Tommy Dugan and I would pick fights with the rich kids.”
What bothered Floyd and anyone else with common sense is why would someone like this be buried in an unmarked grave?
Then, there is the situation with the name. Supposedly, in 1967 John Keehan legally changed his name to Juan Raphael Dante. Floyd can find no record of
this name change in county records. Cooley speaks about Keehan as though the name change was not legit or legal.
In his book, he says “His real name was John Keehan. “Dante” was the name of a street near where we grew up.” If John had really changed his name, then Cooley would have mentioned this in his book.
You put these pieces together and “The Most Dangerous Man Alive” may be living and breathing. Floyd has continually said that he will never make
another movie like this. After a number of financing issues and the amount of research Floyd has dedicated to this project, he still has another
obstacle. A relative of one of the original Black Dragon members is claiming rights to some exclusive Dante footage. Floyd is hoping to put this behind
him soon and release the film in December of 2009.
Floyd doesn’t want to make another movie like this, and I don’t want to write another article like this. After being inundated with names and dates, this
article started feeling like the dreaded book report at the end of summer vacation. Not because it was boring, but because of the wealth of information.
I finally realized that it isn’t my job to tell Count Dante’s story. The only person who can do this, and who has been putting in the time and effort is
Floyd Webb.
I don’t know where Dante is myself. While researching this article someone told me that he lives in Gary, Indiana and plays drums for this
band called the Wanderers. You may find him on an island with D.B. Cooper, sitting on the beach and enjoying the sunset, and still, you may find him at
Andrew Keilman’s house having dinner.
“Two years ago, a friend of mine, asked me to say some MC rhymes”, but then he didn’t… instead, he told me that he had dinner with Count Dante, and
thus began my search for “The Most Dangerous Man Alive.”
Feel free to read my follow up article on Count Dante:
