Alice Cooper built a career around shocking audiences, but one of the most dangerous moments he ever described happened when he met Elvis Presley in Las Vegas. During the surreal encounter, Elvis reportedly placed a loaded handgun in Cooper’s hand and told him to point it toward him. Elvis had a reason, but Cooper did not have much time to process it.
Cooper later recalled that Elvis wanted to demonstrate how to disarm someone holding a gun. Standing there with a loaded weapon aimed at one of the most famous men alive, Cooper said a darkly comic thought flashed through his mind: pulling the trigger would instantly make him part of history. He never got anywhere close to doing it.
Alice Cooper Tells the Wild Story of Pointing a Gun at Elvis
Before Cooper could decide how to react, Elvis moved. Cooper remembered suddenly finding himself on the floor with Elvis standing over him and a boot against his throat. The King had successfully demonstrated the disarming technique he wanted to show. Cooper later recalled the bizarre encounter with admiration, describing Elvis as an unforgettable and funny character.
As unbelievable as the stunt sounds, Elvis’s interest in martial arts was far more than a passing hobby. He first became interested while serving in the Army, earned his first black belt in 1960 and continued training for years. Graceland says instructor Kang Rhee later awarded Elvis an eighth-degree black belt in 1974.
Inside Elvis Presley’s Karate World During Elvis Week 2026
That makes the newer 2026 look inside the TigerMan Karate Dojo Museum a fitting continuation. It moves beyond Cooper’s incredible gun story and into the martial arts world Elvis took seriously for years. Elvis trained with Kang Rhee in Memphis from 1970 to 1974 and even received the karate nickname “Tiger.”
Elvis Presley changed music with “Heartbreak Hotel,” “Hound Dog” and performances that helped reshape rock and roll, while Alice Cooper later became one of rock’s most famous showmen. Yet their meeting produced a scene stranger than almost anything either man put onstage. Watch Cooper tell the story himself, then see why Elvis’s karate obsession makes that loaded-gun demonstration slightly less impossible to believe.