10 Badass Adversaries Worthy Of Fighting Liam Neeson

Few actors will ever come close to matching the badass-ness of Liam Neeson, star of the new adventure thriller The Grey. Over the course of his career, the 59-year-old Irish actor, who's known for both blockbuster action movies like Taken and Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and important dramas like Schindler's List and Michael Collins, has battled, with a style and brutality that puts every Hollywood pretty boy to shame, against the Sith, Nazis, the Albanian Mafia, and Batman, to name a few adversaries.

Having reached a point where most actors aren't believably badass enough to face him, in The Grey Neeson squares off against a pack of wolves that may be his most ferocious on-screen threat yet. But where to go from here? Who is even in the vicinity of this fighting Irishman to merit him pounding on them? We put on our thinking caps to give you: 10 Badass Adversaries Worthy Of Fighting Liam Neeson.

Written by Jason Serafino (@Serafinoj1)

Follow @ComplexPopCult

There isn’t a more unhinged actor in Hollywood than Nick Nolte. His appearance has become increasingly bedraggled over the years and you can practically smell the scotch coming off of his body whenever he’s on the big screen.

With that in mind, we can’t think of another actor who can put Nolte in his place than Liam Neeson. We wouldn't expect Nolte to stay upright for very long during this brawl, but watching these two big-screen veterans show the new school how it's done is just too appetizing of a proposition to pass up.

The sperm whale is known as one of the deadliest whales in the ocean. Liam Neeson can’t breathe under water, but is still one of the deadliest mammals in the big blue sea. If the Irishman did need a breath, we're sure he would simply drag the sperm whale out of the ocean by its fluke and keep working it over, making it look like a cheap carnival gold fish when all was said and done.

If 1997’s gem of a flick Anaconda has taught us anything, it’s that giant Anacondas are more than capable of swallowing full-grown humans whole. Granted, this was just a movie (and one that was so bad it was good) but the threat is always there.

Someone like Liam Neeson wouldn’t get swallowed without a fight, though, and given how much ass he has kicked over the years, he would likely give the giant snake as much indigestion as eating an entire White Castle Crave Case that had been sitting out in the sun for 12 hours. Inevitably Liam would be wearing anaconda skin around his neck like a boa, a la Zsa Zsa Gabor, within 10 minutes, but we're sure the snake would give it a good go.

Ray Lewis is 250 pounds of protein packed muscle, and he's simply one of the most frightening men on the planet. During his NFL career he has paralyzed opponents with fear, sent quarterbacks to the hospital, and turned grown men into little boys. But he has never faced Liam Neeson before. Sure, Lewis has the edge in age, athleticism, and strength, but our dude Liam killed a man with his bare hands in Taken. Advantage: Neeson.

What chance does Zeus, the father of Gods and man, stand against the man who not only played him in Clash Of The Titans, but in doing so also made for a more convincing “king of the Gods”? Zeus is the God of all Gods, sure, but Neeson has appeared in multi-million dollar franchises like Batman, Star Wars, and The Simpsons. Wielding lightning and immortality is one thing, but lending your voice to an episode of The Simpsons that was actually good is an entirely different level of cool.

The most dangerous bird on the planet pitted against the most dangerous Irishman in the Screen Actor’s Guild, and only one is going to walk out alive. The cassowary might look tame, but when provoked, these ravenous birds have been known to deliver near-fatal kicks and maim people with their razor-sharp claws.

And while we would never want to come face-to-face with one of these creatures ourselves, we can’t help but get giddy over the prospect of Neeson taking on this bird on the big screen. The plot would be simple: Maybe one of these feathered terrors kidnapped his daughter, or killed his wife, or took the last Boston cream donut at Dunkin Donuts, and Neeson is out for revenge. Either way, Hollywood needs to get on this potential blockbuster quickly.

There is no doubting the fact that Mega Man 9 is one of the most difficult video games ever created. Want proof? We dare you to try and defeat Hornet Man without succumbing to a massive brain hemorrhage. In fact, we’re certain that the people who designed the game made it this difficult just to leave a generation of video game fans with partial paralysis of their thumbs and dangerously heightened blood pressure.

So we can think of no man better equipped to topple this 8-bit terror than Liam Neeson. He’s taken on Batman without breaking a sweat, so we’re assuming Jewel Man and Dr. Wily should be no problem. Put a few cans of Red Bull next to him, and have Ben Kingsley on hand to wipe the sweat from his eyes, and we’ll be all set.

She has put an end to countless pizzas and metric tons of fudge over the years, and there is no doubt that Kirstie Alley’s mountainous frame would give Liam Neeson a good fight, but the venerable actor has more than enough guile and toughness to get by. But to make this fight really interesting, we suggest it takes place around noon, right when Alley is prepping for her third lunch, with Neeson slathered with Nutella.

Neeson won’t have much luck trying to lift or strike Alley below her neck, but if he keeps her moving for more than three minutes, it’s inevitable that she’ll collapse due to exhaustion. And just like that, another Hollywood heavyweight is down for the count.

Liam Neeson has proven himself capable of defeating terrorists, Nazis, and vicious wolves, but can the towering lad from Dublin take down one of the greatest linguists of the gorilla world and greatest threats to humanity? Koko is an anomaly in the ape world because she has seemingly mastered sign language, which is nearly unheard of.

We all know that when provoked, apes can become extremely aggressive, and despite Koko’s docile nature, she can easily fly off the handle at any time. Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes opened our eyes to how easily a group of primates can take over Earth, and we realized that our only line of defense against a militant gorilla fluent in sign language is Liam Neeson. If he can battle a pack of wolves with his bare hands in The Grey, he should have no problem making a middle-aged ape scream "Uncle" in sign language.

There can only be one European actor who rules Hollywood, and this battle between Daniel Day-Lewis and Liam Neeson would finally decide a winner (sorry, Hugh Grant). Ever since Neeson’s character was killed by Day-Lewis early in Gangs Of New York, these two have been on a collision course for a big-time, climactic throw-down. And when Day-Lewis replaced Neeson as Honest Abe in Spielberg’s Lincoln, we knew this fight was just on the horizon.

Sure these two would try to diffuse the situation with some slick European charm and their boyish good looks, but before long the fists would begin to fly. And even though Day-Lewis has Neeson beaten in the age department, Neeson has a three-inch height advantage which would make it easier to rain blows upon Daniel’s head. In short: Liam Neeson can kick the ass of every carbon-based life form on the planet, actual or fictional.