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

[kyleb]

Bruce Lee has repeatedly said that if someone seriously trained as a boxer and wrestler for 1-3 years that said person would be able to beat most high-level martial artists in a regular fight.

[Fels krone]

BJ Penn would destroy him. Unless you let them use numchucks.

[D.L.M.]

Is bruce Lee on coke or off coke, does that make a difference in your Op, and which way would help him......

[jordiepop]

bruce lee is the reason that mma is around today. he was the first person to introduce the idea that the best style is no style at all. I have no doubt that if he was in his prime today, he would be a top fighter in the ufc.

[ohgeetee]

"bruce lee is the reason that mma is around today. he was the first person to introduce the idea that the best style is no style at all. I have no doubt that if he was in his prime today, he would be a top fighter in the ufc. "

This is exactly what I was going to say. Bruce Lee was preaching MMA long before it ever came out. His fighting ideas are the core of what MMA is all about.

[Blarg]

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"bruce lee is the reason that mma is around today. he was the first person to introduce the idea that the best style is no style at all. I have no doubt that if he was in his prime today, he would be a top fighter in the ufc. "

This is exactly what I was going to say. Bruce Lee was preaching MMA long before it ever came out. His fighting ideas are the core of what MMA is all about.

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This is the main reason this question, which keeps coming up, is so absurd. There probably wouldn't be an MMA without Lee's enormous influence having paved the way. In aggressive attitude, training commitment, and no-nonsense training and fighting practicality and open-mindedness, he was decades ahead of his time. Without doubt he would have kept growing, and been ever further into cross-training. Lee wasn't behind the eight-ball on this one; he was way way ahead of things.

[Jeff W]

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

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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.

[Blarg]

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

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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.

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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.

[cbloom]

Ok, I looked at his weight.

Bruce's weight went between 125 and 155 during adulthood (125 in later years when coked out, 155 at max). His ideal fighting weight would probably be 145-150, certainly he would easily make Featherweight (136 to 145).

The lowest UFC weight class is Lightweight: 146 to 155 lb. Pride's lightweight goes up to 160. So pretty much all those guys are already heavier than Bruce. In that class, his opponents would be guys like Gomi, Sherk, Diaz, Pulver, etc.

I imagine he could beat or be close with all those guys assuming he trained in modern MMA techniques for a little while.

Bruce wouldn't have a chance with Fedor any more than Gomi would have a chance. In fact it's laughable.

[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.