Gordeau competed at the World Open Karate Championships. Later in his life, following the ideas of Kyokushin founder
Mas Oyama, he trained in
Wrestling and
Boxing in an attempt to make his style more complete. and
Judo. but Gordeau was the only one available and willing to do it. As he had been a
Savate champion the previous year, he was billed solely as a Savate artist. The Dutchman then took stance and threw a right
roundhouse kick to Tuli's face, following with a right
uppercut that cut Tuli's eye, Victorious, Gordeau advanced to the next round, although the bout left him injured, as the kick had knocked out three of Tuli's teeth and two of them had been stuck in Gordeau's foot. The announcers claimed that the third tooth landed underneath their table, although other reports say it landed on the crowd. Gordeau's punch had broken his hand as well, and he came to the next fight with a noticeably swollen fist. In an unrelated matter, Gordeau's debut caused a minor controversy because he appeared to do a
Roman salute before the match, gaining him accusations of being a
neo-nazi, but it was explained that he was actually doing the traditional savate salute. In fact, Gordeau had a
Jewish ethnic background through his father, a Jewish man from France. His grandfather was also shot at the
Amersfoort concentration camp for being part of the
Dutch resistance. His next fight was against Kickboxing champion
Kevin Rosier, who outweighed Gordeau again by almost 100 pounds and was in slightly better health. Still, Gordeau dominated the fight easily, driving Rosier against the fence with multiple
leg kicks and
jabs while keeping distance. After half a minute of harassment, Gordeau pushed Rosier down to the mat with
knee and
elbow strikes to the head, forcing him to cover down shielding his face, but Gracie, after landing some
palm strikes and
headbutts, In 2012, Royce would visit Gordeau's dojo in
The Hague to train, about which the Dutch fighter stated: "It was the first time after 20 years that we spoke. No hard feelings!" Gordeau was pitted against the much lighter
Shoot Wrestling exponent
Yuki Nakai. Taking advantage of the ring they were fighting in, Gordeau grabbed the ropes to avoid takedowns and scored several strikes on Nakai through the first two rounds, including several illegal
eye gouges when Nakai was down from a
heel hook attempt. However, after a third round passed again on the ropes, Nakai scored a
double leg takedown against the ring corner, escaped from a
guillotine choke attempt by Gordeau, and dropped down for another heel hook, this time managing to submit the Dutchman after half an hour of fighting. Refusing to seek medical attention in order to continue in the tournament, Nakai lost the sight in his right eye from the gouge. As with his fouls in UFC, Gordeau was unapologetic of his action, stating that he would do it again if he rematched Nakai. These claims attracted a great deal of criticism. In 2019, however, Gordeau revealed that he and Nakai had privately talked about it, and that Nakai had accepted his apologies and no longer harbored any ill feelings. Gordeau also praised Nakai's fighting spirit during the bout. Gordeau, along with his brothers Al and Nico, owns the Dojo Kamakura in
The Hague. He also trained Dutch
K-1 fighter
Mourad Bouzidi, along with Anil Dubar, and sometimes the Romanian champion
Daniel Ghiță. Famous students are Cem Senol of the Dojo Osaka Netherlands, and Robert Pepels of the Ashigaru Honbu Dojo Netherlands and founder of the Ashigaru Ryu style. Gordeau runs an International Karate Organization together with Pepels, and teaches at camps and seminars worldwide. ==Professional wrestling career==