Who is Epic Beard Man?

By Erin Ryan

Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2012 | 6:56 p.m.

Thanks to YouTube, a homeless guy with a mean left hook has been culturally anointed far beyond one of the world’s greatest athletes. The latter is MLB pitcher Nolan Ryan, whose epic career included an epic brawl. The Rangers were playing the White Sox, and 46-year-old Ryan hit 26-year-old Robin Ventura with a pitch. The young batter charged. Ryan stood his ground, wedged Ventura’s head under his arm and “pummeled.”

It was the prevailing fable about respecting your ass-kicking elders. But Epic Beard Man is a better fit for the millennial generation. It started in 2010 with a YouTube video of an old, bearded white man in a fanny pack beating the crap out of a younge

There are fan sites, cartoon parodies and now a movie trailer (possibly fake) starring Danny Trejo. Called Bad Ass, the clip features Trejo, dressed exactly like Bruso, punching, hurling and donkey-whipping everyone in sight. If the movie is real, I have no doubt it’s directed by Quentin Tarantino, who will make us wonder to the last what the hell was in that fanny pack.