Well, did he specify that he had to break them? Because he definitely karate chopped most of the ones he attempted to karate chop.

Quick, pretend those coconuts are the Nazis! No wait your ridiculous country would just surrender to them. Okay, pretend they're the jews! No wait you'd just report them to the Nazis. Well I don't know what to tell you.

I think this man must have gotten really drunk and made a boast to friends, then promptly forgot about it until they woke him up one morning and drove him to the event.

Maybe his friends all played a little joke on him and gave him fake easily-broken coconuts to practice with. All that time, he's thinking "Wow! This is easy! I'll bet I could break the world's record for karate-chopping these things!"