Jeez, this photo reminds me of growing up in the 80s and 90s, seeing magazine covers on news stands and store magazine racks of Soldier of Fortune and various martial arts and "ninja" periodicals, and all the various books by "real ninjas" and "real spec ops" like Frank Dux, Ashida Kim, and all the other Bullshido masters. You would see them pose very similarly to this, often in clothing that was very outlandish "martial arts" costumes, or clothing they felt made them "look like a bad ass" such as surplus combat fatigues or studded leather. Sometimes both at the same time. And of course they would usually be posing with some kind of weapon. Mail order "ninja" weapons and wall-hanger Katanas were very common. Sometimes they might even manage to borrow a buddy's firearm to pose with, often one completely unsuitable for self defense or combat like a .22lr revolver or hunting rifle. If they had a little money to burn they might even hire a model (or half-way decent looking whore if they didn't have a lot of money) to hang off their arm and look totally turned on as the Bullshido master poses for his photos.
The books they wrote about themselves and their totally real exploits would be full of bullshit I could absolutely see Russhole writing about himself if he had gone down the martial arts/military fanboi path instead of the "musical genius pseudo-lawyer" path, and I could absolutely see Russ falling for their shit and totally believing they were really secretly trained black ops Tier 0 super spy operator SEALs without question. He seems to be the kind of gullible fool who would get suckered in by that, shelling out the money to buy their book to learn their totally lethal Two-Step, Five Finger, Poison Palm Dragon Strike technique to take care of any trolls who confront him in real life.