Jean-Claude Van Damme (born October 18, 1960) is a Belgian martial artist and actor who is best known for his large catalogue of action movies. His Belgian background combined with his physique gave rise to his nickname The Muscles from Brussels. Van Damme has also been called the "King of the Belgians" due to his international superstardom.

When Jean-Claude Van Damme became an international film star, there was some debate as to his ring accomplishments. Former multiple World Kickboxing Champion Don "The Dragon" Wilson even offered Jean-Claude a "$100,000" bounty match to get into the ring and fight him. Van Damme brushed off the "challenge" as a publicity stunt. But, the truth of the matter was that Jean-Claude Van Damme had indeed had a kick-boxing career, which turned out to be very successful on the European scene. Jean-Claude's karate teacher and coach was Claude Goetz in Brussels, Belgium. under Goetz's guidance, Van Damme developed an impressive array of kicks. In 1978, at the age of 18, Jean-Claude made his full-contact karate debut under his birth name, Jean Claude Van Varenberg, with an 18 second knockout over Germany's Eric "Basel" Strauss at a tournament in Antwerp, Belgium. A few months later at Iseghem, Belgium, Van Damme knocked out Emile Leibman in the first round. After fighting on the under-card of the main event between France's Dominique Valera and the U.S.A.'s Dan Macaruso in Brussels, Belgium, in which he knocked out a fighter named Verlugels in 2 rounds, Van Damme started to catch the attention of the Martial Arts World. According to Mike Anders, founder of Professional Karate Magazine, and multiple European Champion Geet Lemmens, Van Damme was definitely an upcoming prospect. In 1979, the nineteen year old Jean-Claude (fighting under his birth name of Van Varenberg) wins the European Full-Contact Championship in the middleweight division. A series of quick knockouts over Andre Robaeys, Jacques Piniarski, and Rolf Risberg, prepare Jean-Claude for the up-coming world championships. Traveling to Florida in the United States, Jean-Claude sets his sights on winning the World Full-Contact Middleweight Title. In his first tournament match, Van Damme scores a knockout over Miami, Florida's Sherman (Big Train) Bergman in the first round of a scheduled 3 rounder in the 160 pound division. However, in his next match, Jean-Claude is defeated by a Belgium fighter named Patrick Teugels. Teugels goes on to become Vice-Champion of the World. In a rematch a few months later, Van Damme revenges his defeat by beating Teugels in less then two minutes. Following the victory, Jean-Claude retired from active competition. Though some sources list Jean Claude Van Damme's full-contact fight record as 12-1 (12 knockouts), it seems more likely his record was 9-1 (9 knockouts). The sport of Full-Contact Karate later became known as Kickboxing. Controversy arose after Jean-Claude's film career took off because none of his fights were found. The basic fact seems to be that his entire full-contact career was fought under his birth name of Van Varenberg, thus there are no fights listed for a Jean Claude Van Damme.

Born on Oct 18 1960, Jean-Claude Van Damme is the son of Eugene Van Varenberg and Eliana Van Varenberg. "The Muscles from Brussels" originally known as Jean-Claude Van Varenberg, started martial arts at the age of 11. His father Eugene Van Varenberg introduced him to martial arts when he saw his son was physically weak. Jean-Claude started with Shotokan Karate and later studied Kickboxing, Taekwon-Do, and Muay Thai. He won the European professional karate association's middleweight championship as a teenager, and also beat the 2nd best karate fighter in the world. His goal was to be number one but got sidetracked when he left his hometown of Brussels. He came to Hong Kong at the age of 19 for the first time and felt insured to do action movies in Hong Kong. So in 1981 Van Damme left Hong Kong and moved to Los Angeles, where he was trying for 5 years. He took English classes while working as carpet layer, pizza delivery man, limo driver, and thanks to Chuck Norris he got a job as a bouncer at a club. Norris gave Van Damme a small role in the movie Missing in Action (1984), but it wasn't good enough to get anybody's attention. Then in 1984 he got a role as a villain named Ivan in the low-budget movie No Retreat, No Surrender (1986). Then one day, while walking on the streets, Jean-Claude spotted a producer for Cannon Pictures, and showed some of his martial arts abilities which led to a role in Bloodsport (1988). But the movie, filmed in Hong Kong, was so bad when it was completed, it was shelved for almost two years. It might have never been released if Van Damme did not help them to recut the film and begged producers to release it. They finally released the film, first in Malaysia and France and then into the U.S. Shot on a meager 1.5 million dollar budget, it became a U.S box-office hit in the spring of 1988. It made about 30 million worldwide and audiences supported this film for its new sensational action star Jean-Claude Van Damme. His martial arts assets, highlighted by his ability to deliver a kick to an opponent's head during a leaping 360-degree turn, and his good looks led to starring roles in higher budgeted movies like Cyborg (1989), Lionheart (1990), Double Impact (1991) and Universal Soldier (1992). In 1994, he scored with his big breakthrough $100 million worldwide hit Timecop (1994). But in the meantime, his personal life was coming apart. A divorce, followed by a new marriage, followed by another divorce. It began to show up in his career when his projects began to tank at the box office - Quest, The (1996), which he directed; Maximum Risk (1996) and Double Team (1997). The three films made less than $50 million combined. In 1999 he remarried his ex-wife Gladys Portugues and restarted his lost career to attain new goals. With help from his family he faced his problems and made movies like Replicant (2001), Derailed (2002), and In Hell (2003) which did averagely in box office terms, but he tried to give his fans the best, his acting in those movies got better, more emotional and each movie was basically in different action tones.