Morrow: Ex-Vol takes on martial-arts masters

BEVERLY HILLS — Bill Duff was in the eighth grade when he got a glimpse at his bleak future.

“My dad took me to the steel mill and said, ‘It’s either this for you or college,’” says the New Jersey-born Duff.

That motivated him. He went to the University of Tennessee on a football scholarship and was co-captain of the Vols during their 1997 SEC championship season.

These days, he’s gone on to pursuits in acting. “The Human Weapon,” his first series, premieres 10 p.m. Friday on the History Channel.

In it, he travels around the world, learning the history of a particular fighting form, then training in it and challenging a master from it.

The show is a production of Knoxville-based Jupiter Entertainment.

Series creator Stephen Land, president of Jupiter, jokingly says, “he goes around the world getting his (behind) kicked.”

Duff, a former pro in football and wrestling, says it’s not quite that way. He often holds his own with the masters, though he won’t say how often he won a match. However, he’s not about to say it’s not a challenge.

“When we work with a lot of masters and they want to show a move, they always pick me, especially in the Asian continents, because they want to see if they can hit me as hard as they can,” he says.

During production, the masters needed to be reminded, “ ‘It’s not OK to hurt him as bad as you can hurt him.”

Often, the masters just like seeing if they can take down “the big American.” Duff is 6-foot-4 and 280 pounds.

He once took on a 60-year-old martial-arts expert who could break boards with his fingertips.

“We were holding 50-pound urns, and he came up to me and fixed me, and then he punched me as hard as he could in the stomach,” Duff recalls.

“And I didn’t know it was coming. I went around with a bruise around my stomach for about two weeks. It’s that kind of, like, physicality in the show. It’s unexpected, and it happens.”

What makes Duff so perfect for this show? Zak Weisfeld, a Knoxville resident who directs the show, says it’s Duff’s willingness to do almost anything.

“We cast a very broad net in terms of who we were looking for because we knew it would be hard to find people who were smart, who were talented, and,” says Weisfeld, “were willing to be punched in the face by masters from Japan.”

Terry Morrow may be reached at 865-342-6445 and Morrow2@knews.com.