He actually was a bodybuilder, prior to his acting career now. Obviously, people are asking that question because in most of the movies; he’s pretty jacked and pretty ripped. That’s really what he’s known for. His kind of his calling card as being; this ripped guy, this ripped martial artist in these movies.
He’s in movies like blood-sport, kickboxer, and Double Impact, Universal Soldier, Last Action Hero with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Street Fighter… in countless other movies throughout the past couple of decades here from those.
In 79, he started his acting career than 80-90-2000 and to the present in 2010s and then more recently, he had the 2016 kickboxer vengeance movie. Another 2017 kickboxer retaliation movie.
So, back to the question of; could he have been a bodybuilder? So, he definitely was a bodybuilder based on the photos and the information that I found. But I did find some conflicting information.
So, the most prominent theory out there; it’s not really a theory, but the information that’s put out there. I’m pretty much; every website where you read a bio on Jean-Claude Van Damme, is that he was in fact, the winner of the Mr. Belgium competition.
But if you google search the Mr. Belgium competition, there’s not a whole lot of information that comes up other than sites; that are referencing Jean-Claude Van Damme as winning that competition.
So, obviously either it wasn’t that big of a show because there’s really no information out there on it; when you google it. And it doesn’t talk about any of the other past winners except for Jean-Claude Van Damme.
