Black Belt Legacy: Count Dante’s Inferno — The Deadliest Man Alive, Before “Going Viral” Was a Thing
- Black Belt Team
- Aug 9
- 2 min read
Ready to hear the wild story behind our January 1976 Black Belt cover?
Long before Instagram fighters, YouTube beefs, or TikTok callouts, one man went viral without the internet. No algorithms. No hashtags. Just pure, unfiltered chaos.
His name was John Keehan—though the world knew him as Count Dante, “The Deadliest Man Alive.” He wasn’t just claiming to be the best. He was calling karate a fraud, mocking the sport publicly, and selling himself as the only man who knew the “real” way to fight.
And yes, people believed him.
His roots in martial arts began in earnest with the United States Karate Association (USKA), where John Keehan quickly established himself as a skilled and ambitious practitioner. Training with the USKA. By 1964, he had left the organization entirely, determined to forge his own path.
Throughout the 1960s, Keehan continued hosting tournaments that crossed style boundaries, pairing karateka against kung fu stylists, judo black belts against taekwondo practitioners—clashes that thrilled spectators and rattled traditionalists.
Keehan grew disillusioned with karate’s emphasis on ceremony and tradition over real-world effectiveness. He began developing his own “street-effective” style, which evolved into the Dan-te system—better known as the “Dance of Death.” Mastering its sequence of moves, he claimed, could make anyone a true fighting master.
In 1967, he legally changed his name to Count Juan Raphael Danté, claiming Spanish noble heritage hidden after the Civil War. He boasted of winning secret “death matches” in Thailand and China, killing opponents before thousands.
It was all so over the top, it should have been a joke.
But it wasn’t.
Soon after, he launched his infamous comic book ads, billing himself as “The Deadliest Man Alive.” For a few dollars, readers could order his World’s Deadliest Fighting Secrets—complete with the Dance of Death—and a free Black Dragon Fighting Society membership card. The sensational ads cemented Count Dante’s place in pop culture infamy.
Send away a few bucks, and you’d get his booklet World’s Deadliest Fighting Secrets, complete with the legendary “Dance of Death” and a Black Dragon Fighting Society membership card.
The Dojo Wars
On April 24, 1970, the hype turned real. Keehan and his crew stormed a rival dojo, pretending to be cops before attacking. Minutes later, his best friend and fellow sensei Jim Koncevic was dead. The “Deadliest Man Alive” was suddenly front-page news for all the wrong reasons.
Rumors of a $4 Million Heist
Former mob lawyer Robert Cooley later claimed Keehan had a role in the 1974 Purolator vault robbery—$4.3 million gone in one of the biggest heists in U.S. history. Keehan passed a lie detector and was never charged, but the whispers never stopped.
The Sudden End
On May 25, 1975, Count Dante died in his sleep of a bleeding ulcer. No final showdown. No dramatic last fight. Just gone—leaving behind a trail of ads, rumors, and a fan club that had turned deadly.
It sounds like an urban legend. But it’s real. Every bizarre, brutal, unbelievable piece of it.
In fact we even wrote about it and gave him a cover.
