Fifty Manliest Dudes Alive, Part One

Greetings readers, and welcome to my first blog post in almost four months. Rather than give some lameass excuses as to why I so infrequently update this, let's just get right into the blogging. As you can probably guess by the title, I am going to present the Fifty Manliest Dudes Alive. There are a few qualifications for this list, which are as follows:

1.) The person has to be male.
2.) The person has to be alive.
3.) The person has to be manly and not someone who wishes he was manly, so you won't see Quentin Tarantino or anyone like that here.

With that out of the way, let's start it up with our number 50 dude.

50.) Kurt Sutter [Writer]: Kurt Sutter makes the list for being the creator, executive producer of and lead writer for Sons of Anarchy, as well as a staff writer and producer on The Shield. For those that are not in the know, those are easily the two manliest shows on television in the past decade and the fact that he has had a hand in both shows means he must be at least a little bit manly. Also, he is married to Katey Sagal, who you might know better as Peg Bundy on Married With Children. How fucking sweet is that?

49.) Katsumi Yamada [Ninja Warrior Legend]: Katsumi Yamada is a regular contestant on the Japanese game show Ninja Warrior, which is like that ABC show Wipeout, but grueling and manly. On the show, there are four absurd obstacle course stages to clear in order to win the show. In it's history, the course has only been completed a few times. Yamada has competed in 23 Ninja Warrior competitions and has never won. It his life goal to win the show. He takes it so seriously that when the factory he worked at was shut down, he built his own fucking Ninja Warrior course so he can practice all year round in the hopes of winning. After devoting his life and time to Ninja Warrior and not finding a new career, his family disowned him. He once said, "For me there is nothing else except [Ninja Warrior]." For all that, he is called "Mr. Ninja Warrior" and has to be on this list.

48.) Tarmo Mitt [World's Strongest Man Legend]: Tarmo Mitt is owner of one of the manliest names on the list and is the only Estonian to make it. He was a top ten finisher in the always manly World's Strongest Man Competition from 2005-2008. He never won the contest, but he was a regular in the contest and his name is fucking Tarmo Mitt. That's a sweet name and he is a sweet dude.

47.) Elmore Leonard [Author]: Elmore Leonard is one of the foremost writers of pulp/mystery/crime novels over the course of the last fifty years. The following movies/TV shows have been made out of his books - Jackie Brown, Out of Sight, 3:10 to Yuma, Justified, Killshot, Mr. Majestyk, Get Shorty, Be Cool, The Big Bounce, Hombre, and Joe Kidd. These have featured such manly dudes as Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman, Charlie Sheen, Harvey Keitel, Charles Bronson, Gene Hackman, Timothy Olyphant, Mickey Rourke, Robert Forster, Christian Bale, and Mickey Rourke. Most of his books are pretty awesome and even though he is 85, he continues to put out a book or two a year. Not bad for an old man.

46.) Nikki Sixx [Bassist, Motley Crue]: Nikki Sixx wasn't going to make my list originally, as he is a bit of a lunkhead, hooked up with Kat Von D, and his non-Crue side projects suck. I decided he had to make it just because of the fact he was declared legally dead for two minutes after he ODed on heroin. It took two shots of adrenaline to bring him back to life, then when he went back home he shot up again, passed out with the needle in his arm and decided he had a drug problem after waking up in a pool of his own blood. It's also the impetus for him writing "Kickstart My Heart." What a sweet story.

45.) Ace Frehley [Former lead guitarist, KISS]: Ace Frehley is the all-time best member of KISS, both in terms of talent and awesomeness. In 1978, each KISS member made a solo album and his was by far the best. He also wrote the most rocking songs of the KISS catalog. His song "Shock Me" was written when he grabbed a rail on the KISS stage, was electrocuted, and almost died. He quit the band in 1982 after they decided to make a lame concept album, then quit again in 2000 when he decided Gene and Paul suck and it was time to put KISS out of its misery. He also took part in one of the greatest interviews of alltime with Tom Snyder. He makes the list because he is an awesome guitarist and all around awesome dude.

44.) Steve Nash [Point Guard, Phoenix Suns]: Steve Nash is the best Canadian player in NBA history and quite possibly the funniest. He is responsible for making basketball fun and exciting again starting in the mid-2ooos. He is also one of the toughest dudes in the modern era of the NBA. I have seen him get bodychecked into a scorer's table, elbowed in the teeth hard enough to lose one, headbutted in the nose so hard his face looked like a crime scene, and elbowed in the eye hard enough to swell it shut immediately. Each time, he hopped right back up and got right into the game again. He is one of the most intense competitors in the league, it is just too bad that his team has been a bunch of wimps over the years and don't back him up whenever he gets roughed up.

43.) Ray Lewis [Linebacker, Baltimore Ravens]: Ray Lewis has been one of the best linebackers in the NFL for a long-ass time now. He is the only linebacker to win the Super Bowl MVP and people are generally scared of him on and off the field. This ties into why I am not ranking him higher. He may or may not have killed someone. Can't get behind that. There's a line between manly and crazy and killing does in fact cross that line.

42.) Kurt Angle [Wrestler]: Kurt Angle is a 1996 gold medalist from the Olympics in wrestling and is one of the more successful pro wrestlers of the last decade. He is also one of the toughest and craziest dudes in wrestling history. First, he won the aforementioned gold medal while having a broken neck. While in the WWF/E, he was one of the most popular performers and one of the most skilled. He also rebroke his neck a handful of times to the point where he probably should have stopped working matches. This didn't stop him and before he was fired by WWE, he worked a match while suffering a neck injury, broken rib and strained hamstring all at the same time. He then failed wellness tests for steroids and had a pretty major painkiller problem. When he refused to take time off to rehabilitate, the WWE fired him. He claims that he quit because WWE wouldn't give him time off. He now wrestles in the wasteland that is TNA Wrestling. All in all, Kurt Angle is one intense, scary mofo.

41.) Magnus ver Magnusson [World's Strongest Man]: One reason he makes the list is due to the fact that he has the single manliest/awesome name in the history of humankind. Unlike Tarmo Mitt, he is a winner. He won four of the World's Strongest Man competition, second most of alltime. He also was once on The Daily Show. I don't know much else about him, but between the name and his accomplishments, he is pretty goddamn manly. Seriously, how about that fucking name?