A spokesperson for the upscale topless bar Score's--infamous hangout for the likes of Howard Stern and his cronies--confirms there were indeed fisticuffs involving the parties.
No police report was taken and no arrests were made. Publicists for both Van Damme and Rourke refused to return phone calls on Thursday.
However, Friday's New York news tabloids were breathless with details, not to mention quotes from the I-Decked-Van-Damme man himself.
"He's just a very arrogant and disrespectful person," says Chuck Zito, the ex-bodyguard (who reportedly also worked for Jean-Claude, as well as Sylvester Stallone, Sean Penn and Charlie Sheen), sometime stuntman and current president of the Hell's Angels, in the New York Post. Zito claims responsibility for the Van Damme clocking.
Trouble started when Van Damme walked into Score's with Rourke. Zito walked over to the table to shoot the breeze with his former bosses.
When Zito and Rourke turned their back on Van Damme, the Street Fighter star reputedly started dissing Zito.
"He was saying, 'Chuck Zito doesn't have any heart,'" Zito tells the newspaper. "There are people who will take that kind of abuse. I am not one of them."
So, Zito asked Van Damme to step outside. The way Zito puts it in the Daily News, the so-called Muscles from Brussels took off his glasses and was "gearing up to come at me."
"I just didn't give him a chance," Zito says.
No, he didn't. Zito floored Mr. Hard Target with a one-two suckerpunch combo.
Rourke played peacemaker: "If I weren't there, Chuck would have killed him," the actor tells the Daily News.
Van Damme left the club under his own power, reportedly signing autographs on the way out.
(UPDATED at 5:30 a.m. on 2/6/98)