Bruce Lee vs. any PFC fighter, who would win?

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
There probably wouldn't be an MMA without Lee's enormous influence having paved the way.

[/ QUOTE ]

Bruce Lee was way ahead of his time as far as MMA, but where is the causal link between Bruce Lee and the birth of MMA? I don't see it.

[/ QUOTE ]

The prejudice and isolationism between martial artists was very real. A student studying more than one style was traditionally seen as a challenge that one teacher had to fight the other. The student would be dismissed rather than allowed to study two styles. Crossing between not just styles, but racially was not done. A man taking gung fu, for instance, could not tell his teacher he was also taking karate.

And of course there were huge mental barriers. Back in his day, it was the norm for everyone to say their style was by far the best -- by far. Little or no credit was given to studying any other style. The common attitude was that even thinking that was disloyal and showed a dilletante(sp?) attitude on the part of the student. As the secrets that make a style work are often traditionally withheld from a student for a very long time, if not forever, "disloyalty" was basically death to one's hopes of gaining the most one could out of a system. So thoughts about what martial arts could be tended to be very linear.

Personally, I myself was told I had to leave a style when my instructor found out I was studying another. All that stuff was very real.

Btw, this sort of prejudice is still quite popular, in the new form of MMA fans saying no style but jiu-jitsu is any good, or that it's much better to be a jack of all trades and a master of none than to be highly developed in any one facet -- unless, of course, that facet is jiu-jitsu! Ridiculous prejudice is part and parcel of martial arts still. But at least today, it is much more widely accepted that cross-training is done out of a healthy practicality rather than out of lack of dedication and respect to one's starting style.

[Haunted Ghost]

Bruce Lee had the same grappling/submission coach as Karo Parisyan: Gene LeBell (who also trained Gokor Chivichyan, Dan Severn, Oleg Taktarov, and others). He also trained with judo master Hayward Nishioka who threw Rickson Gracie and Royler Gracie 5 times a piece at Los Angeles City College in the late 80s when he grappled with them back to back (for the record, he also tapped out a few times but he was already 20 years past his prime then - Nishioka was the guy who brought Bruce Lee and a karate expert to the UCLA balistics lab to help Bruce prove once and for all that a Jeet Kune Do lead punch is superior to the karate traditional punch).

Lee knew leg locks, chokes, throws, take downs, armbars and other techniques long before they became popular. You will find diagrams of these (drawn by Bruce Lee himself) in his book The Tao of Jeet Kune Do. As proof of Jeet Kune Do's open mindedness, Bruce Lee's students Bob Wall, Chuck Norris, Jim Kelly, and Dan Inosanto already had black belts in Brazilian Jujitsu 5 years before UFC 1. Norris actually went to Brazil in the 80s when Rickson Gracie made him tap out at will in some fights that they did over there. This is written about in Norris's book the Secret of Inner Strength.

There is no question that Bruce Lee would do well in MMA today. In fact, had he not died he would probably have organized the first MMA fight promotions. Remember, he had a lot more prestige, MONEY, and fame than Rorion Gracie, the promoter of the first 4 UFCs, who had to depend on Market Wizard commodities trader Michael Marcus for financing.

I bet you guys never knew that Bruce Lee actually had DIRECT ties (thru Gene LeBell) with modern MMA.

[Phil153]

The One Inch Punch would destroy Fedor's manhood.

Bruce Lee FTW. You guys have seriously no idea how much lethal force a Kung Fu master can generate through his wrists.

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
The One Inch Punch would destroy Fedor's manhood.

Bruce Lee FTW. You guys have seriously no idea how much lethal force a Kung Fu master can generate through his wrists.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've been on the end of those several times. My teacher was Kimo Wong, who was trained by and the instructor of Wing Chun Do for James Demile, the fellow who helped Bruce Lee develop his own version of the 1-inch and 3-inch punch(also called the "floating punch"). The impact was tremendous. This little 135 pound guy could hit far harder from an inch away than you could ever believe without seeing it yourself. A typical reaction, actually, was not to believe it when you felt it, and think some trickery was involved somehow. Very good for a laugh. It completely freaked people out. Far better inch punch, by the way, than the kind you typically see demonstrated, which involves huge extended motions of the puncher's body.

[Quadstriker]

[ QUOTE ]

I've been on the end of those several times. My teacher was Kimo Wong, who was trained by and the instructor of Wing Chun Do for James Demile, the fellow who helped Bruce Lee develop his own version of the 1-inch and 3-inch punch(also called the "floating punch"). The impact was tremendous. This little 135 pound guy could hit far harder from an inch away than you could ever believe without seeing it yourself. A typical reaction, actually, was not to believe it when you felt it, and think some trickery was involved somehow. Very good for a laugh. It completely freaked people out. Far better inch punch, by the way, than the kind you typically see demonstrated, which involves huge extended motions of the puncher's body.

[/ QUOTE ]

Very interesting to get someone with some first-hand knowledge of the subject matter in this discussion. Thank you for posting.

[Brock Landers]

What is this talk of Bruce Lee doing coke? Did he really have a problem. This seems very unlike (undude) him and what he preached.

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
What is this talk of Bruce Lee doing coke? Did he really have a problem. This seems very unlike (undude) him and what he preached.

[/ QUOTE ]

This was imagined up by trash biographer Albert Goldman, who would pick out celebrities to trash and write the same thing about them. Even in interviews, he was a really hateful, angry, sneering guy about any celebrity. As soon as he picked Lee as his next subject, it was a foregone conclusion what kind of sh*t he would start slinging.

[sightless]

Who would win in a street fight Bruce Lee or Mike Tyson?

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
Who would win in a street fight Bruce Lee or Mike Tyson?

[/ QUOTE ]

Compare to how Lee regarded his chances with Muhammad Ali, to very roughly paraphrase, "On the street, I could take him; in the ring, not so good." He also said of Ali, and his own size inside the ring in comparison, something on the order of, "Look at how little these hands are. He would kill me." Lee had enormous respect for Ali and was under no illusions as to how suited little guys were to box big guys in the ring. He knew the street was very different, though.

I don't think he'd have anywhere near the same respect for Tyson, but he'd still know better than to fight in the ring outside his weight class.

[krimson]

[ QUOTE ]
Royce Gracie used to wreck people who outweighed him by 50+pounds

[/ QUOTE ]
Royce is actually the perfect example why Bruce Lee doesn't have a chance. The convo in this thread is almost identical to what went on before the Royce / Matt Hughes fight where people were supporting Royce based on what he has done in the past... of course, he got totally obliterated in the actual fight.

MMA has changed so much in the past 10-15 years. It's completely refined now. Bruce Lee may have been ahead of his time in terms of developing a hybrid martial art, but he is waay behind our time.

One inch punch? What a joke. Not saying it's not impressive but how is this effective in a real fight? I'll take Bruce Lee on top of me "one inch punch"ing me in the face over an MMA fighter on top of me dropping elbows anyday. The one inch punch is only good for one thing ... breaking out of coffins.

Also I think people watch too many movies. Some of the comments about Kung Fu masters and stuff. Laughable.