Bas Rutten

**Sebastiaan "Bas" Rutten** (born February 24, 1965) is an Dutch-American actor, retired mixed martial artist, kickboxer, and professional wrestler who recently portrayed as Rootger in the sitcom series *Kevin Can Wait*.

## Early life

Rutten was born in Tilburg, Netherlands. At the age of 6 he developed eczema and severe asthma. Bas' eczema meant he always wore long sleeves, turtle necks and gloves, and his asthma meant he was unable to partake in exercise, and was consequently relatively skinny. He was bullied on a daily basis as a kid.

Bas started training boxing in the backyard of an elementary school with a friend. Rutten became interested in martial arts at age 12 after his family went on vacation to France, where the movie *Enter the Dragon* starring Bruce Lee was playing at a local movie theatre. Bas could not get in because the movie was rated 17+, so he and his brother Sjoerd sneaked into the theatre. After he saw the movie, he took an interest in martial arts. At first, his conservative parents didn't allow him to pursue, but after two years of begging his parents, at age 14, they allowed him to practice taekwondo. He picked it up very quickly and after a few months he got in a street fight with the biggest bully in town. Rutten, now more confident, took the challenge and broke the bully's nose and KO'd him with the first punch he threw. The police showed up at his parent's place, and Rutten was immediately prohibited by his parents from further practicing martial arts.

At age 21, he moved out of his parent's house and once again started training taekwondo. He was committed, eventually earning a 2nd degree black belt. He then began learning Kyokushin Karate and earned a 2nd degree black belt.

## Career

After his retirement from fighting in 1999, Rutten focused on becoming an actor, getting small parts on TV shows such as *Martial Law*, *18 Wheels of Justice*, *The King of Queens*, "Lights Out" and the Canadian series *Freedom*, as well as appearing in low budget movies such as *Shadow Fury*, *The Eliminator*, and the comedy short *The Kingdom of Ultimate Power* which was featured in the 2005 L.A. Film Festival. It also won the first prize at the short film festival in NY for "best comedy".

Rutten was also the color commentator for the English productions of Pride Fighting Championships events, calling nearly every event from Pride 1 through the 2005 Grand Prix. Known for his sense of humor and first hand knowledge of the sport, Rutten quickly became a fan favorite commentator. In April 2006 he announced that he would not continue to announce for Pride, due to the constant flying to Japan, and being away from his family every month.

Rutten has a cameo in the video game "Grand Theft Auto IV" on the in-game TV show called "The Men's Room." He also did motion capture for the main character's fighting moves. He said that when he arrived at the motion-capture place in New York he asked the people in charge how violent they wanted to have it and they told him to "give it all he got". After two hours they stopped him and said, "It's OK, you don't have to go any further".

He was also featured in WCW vs. the World for the PlayStation, but was named "Thunder Dome" to avoid copyright laws.

On 23 January 2008, he was announced as the new Vice President, Fighter Operations reporting directly to IFL CEO Jay Larkin. His role was to build relations between the IFL and its fighters as well as work on potential match-ups between fighters. He also hosted the weekly shows "Battleground" and "International Fight League" with Kenny Rice. This all ended when IFL went out of business in late 2008.

In 2009, he appeared in the music video for Listen to Your Friends by the rock band New Found Glory, "fighting" lead vocalist Jordan Pundik. Bas and Rice hosted *Inside MMA*, a weekly MMA variety show on AXS TV. The pair also did remote English commentary and play-by-play for Dream events broadcast in North America on HDNet. The pair were eventually replaced by Guy Mezger and Michael Schiavello, who attend the events live in Japan. He is currently appearing in public health service ads, airing on Cartoon Network. He also made a public service announcement against trying out MMA at home but CagePotato ridiculed it for its mixed messages.

Rutten featured in 2012 American sports comedy movie Here Comes the Boom alongside Kevin James and Henry Winkler. Rutten played the role of a former MMA fighter and Dutch immigrant Niko trying to gain US citizenship. In return for his help in gaining citizenship Niko helps train 42-year-old biology teacher Scott (Kevin James) to become a MMA fighter in the UFC. The film also features former UFC fighter Krzysztof Soszynski, former Muay Thai kickboxer Mark DellaGrotte along with cameo roles for Bruce Buffer, Chael Sonnen, Jason Miller, Satoshi Ishii, Mark Muñoz, Herb Dean, Wanderlei Silva, and Joe Rogan amongst others.

On 23 October 2013, The World Series of Fighting announced Rutten as a member of the broadcast team for WSOF events on NBCSN along with Todd Harris.

## External links

* Bas Rutten on Wikipedia
* Bas Rutten on IMDb