Sir_Crocodile
Member
I wish I could have seen guys like Lou Thesz, Ad Santel & Billy Robinson in MMA
Could Bruce Lee be competitive in today's MMA?
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Glass Rebel
Member
Bruce as he was in his prime, probably not, mostly because of the grappling as others have mentioned.
Withprep time and the right training, I believe he could be pretty competitive in his weight bracket if the reports of his dedication to training are true.
With
DKehoe
Member
So how about the Gene LeBell one I mentioned?
On a film set that LeBell was doing stunt work on, Seagal claimed because of his training that he couldn't be choked out and LeBell offered to try and succeeded. While being choked out he apparently shit himself too.
Jest Chillin
Member
It's a bit ironic that you discredit the stories of Lee's fights yet accept Gene's story when there's no corroborating evidence for any of it. They're all just stories and hearsay, both Gene's and Bruce's. So if you're going to accept one as truth, you should accept both.
This is something Gene has alluded to but never outright admitted. Seagal is known to be a dick. He's hurt a lot of people he's worked with and is reputed to sometimes attack people for almost no reason. The story is that he claimed on a set that no one could choke him out. Somehow or another Gene took him on, choked him out, and Seagal shit himself. The story also says that Seagal forced everyone to sign some NDA about it though.
The thing is, all the reports you'll get on guys like Chuck Norris, Bruce Lee, Gene Lebell, from when they were in their prime are going to be stories that are second and third hand by now. There's no way to prove any of it, really. So you can either choose to believe it or not.
wasnt him
DKehoe
Member
I give more credit to LeBell because he actually competed in an early version what you could call MMA fights when he beat a boxer.
He was friends with Lee and has no reason to make up stories about him. He also recently confirmed the Seagal story
Again the difference between Gene and guys like Bruce Lee is that there is actual proof of Gene being a badass. The Bruce Lee stories are always some vague thing about how sometime some Kung Fu wizard showed up, challenged him and Bruce kicked him through a wall.
FlashbladeGAF
Member
Even though Bruce Lee was an actor he was also a martial artist who trained his body to be the perfect weapon for REAL fights with no rules. Not for sport.
He HAD a ground game and if he was alive today he would have evolved his own moves with the new techniques learned today.
He was doing MMA before there was an MMA, and if it was a real fight he would beat the shit out of everyone because in a real fight everything is legal.
But Bruce competing in MMA the sport, that gets a little tricky to speculate on, because you have weight classes, illegal moves, etc.
We aren't talking about Bruce the actor here. Bruce was constantly learning. To think he would suddenly stop shows how little you know of Bruce the martial artist.
He HAD a ground game and if he was alive today he would have evolved his own moves with the new techniques learned today.
He was doing MMA before there was an MMA, and if it was a real fight he would beat the shit out of everyone because in a real fight everything is legal.
But Bruce competing in MMA the sport, that gets a little tricky to speculate on, because you have weight classes, illegal moves, etc.
We aren't talking about Bruce the actor here. Bruce was constantly learning. To think he would suddenly stop shows how little you know of Bruce the martial artist.
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
Is there any good Japanese MMO tournaments to watch today? I liked watching Dream, but they are bankrupt now.
Pride was the shit 10 years ago
"couldn't even" as if Mike Tyson was some scrub.
I'm sure you could find some Japanese FF14 streams on Twitch.
Seriously though, I have no idea. RIP Pride.
Didn't Bruce Lee basically invent MMA? Didn't he train with and fight legit fighters and often kick their asses? It's unfortunate there's no footage of it (kinda strange actually), but it's difficult to imagine all these people are lying. While he was a kung-fu martial artist in his movies he basically rejected kung fu in real life. I imagine if he'd been transported 30 years into the future and trained for 3-5 years or whatever he could have been really successful in his weight class.
Was there ever a point where they weren't?
The Smoking Bun
Banned
Could Bruce Lee be competitive in Today's MMO's? Which would be his favorite?
iburntmytongue
Member
Yea, that turned out to be a viral ad for something or other. Too bad it wasn't him, because it does look awesome.
Pinko Marx
Banned
I'd like to think Bruce would play a pacifist healer class
Jest Chillin
Member
Bruce and Gene were friends, yes. They worked together on occasion. Gene says he taught Bruce some Judo and Gene is supposedly the one who sent Chuck Norris to Bruce to train and so on and so forth. However none of these claims were made while Bruce was living. The only stuff that's been corroborated really is that they worked together a few times. I'm not saying Gene is lying but pointing out how none of it can really be fact checked. Nobody really backs Gene's stories but there's also no harm in them so why trash the stories? People just let them be.
Bruce's legend does often get exaggerated and all that but there are things that aren't as deniable. He without a doubt fought in street fights often as a youth in China while he was a student of Wing Chun. It was common at the time. He was sent to the US to get away from all of that. He undoubtedly had to fight a few times to defend himself being that he was Asian, living on the West Coast in a Post-WW2 US. None of those stories are unbelievable or extravagant. The man knew how to fight and he'd been in street fights in his life. Sure he likely wasn't this unbeatable machine that some people view him as, but he's not David Carradine either.
iburntmytongue
Member
Is there a reference you can supply for the Gene LeBell fight?
Nothing Japanese worth noting, OneFC is the biggest Asian company doing anything right now. Vaguely Pride style rules and based out of Singapore. A few of the stars from Dream ended up there (Shinya Aoki, Bibiano Fernandes both have titles in OneFC).
DonasaurusRex
Online Ho Champ
he probably wouldn't have done fighting as a sport everybody can't get their ass beat for points and succeed.
iburntmytongue
Member
It makes me wonder if the MMA are putting on a show....
The point of a fight is to take out the other guy as quickly and effectively as possible. Bruce Lee was the embodiment of this ideology, so I would like to imagine all fights with him would end before they begun(unless they were evenly matched, then it'd be a fight worth seeing).
Even though Bruce Lee was an actor he was also a martial artist who trained his body to be the perfect weapon for REAL fights with no rules. Not for sport.
He HAD a ground game and if he was alive today he would have evolved his own moves with the new techniques learned today.
He was doing MMA before there was an MMA, and if it was a real fight he would beat the shit out of everyone because in a real fight everything is legal.
But Bruce competing in MMA the sport, that gets a little tricky to speculate on, because you have weight classes, illegal moves, etc.
We aren't talking about Bruce the actor here. Bruce was constantly learning. To think he would suddenly stop shows how little you know of Bruce the martial artist.
people underestimate his ground game because they only see him punching and kicking in the films but he trained with like the best people including Gene Labell
DKehoe
Member
Here is Gene talking about it on his site and here is Gene talking generally about Bruce.
I don't want it to seem like I hate Bruce Lee or anything like that. I do like him. I just don't think it's realistic to claim that he could have been great in MMA since there is such little evidence to suggest he could. He was a great athlete obviously but that doesn't necessarily translate into being a great fighter. Just assuming that he could have developed great grappling is a pretty big jump. There are plenty of high level strikers who haven't managed to develop a ground game that matched their striking ability just in the same way that there are plenty of great grapplers who haven't managed to get their striking to be as great.
Especially in that era there is so little to go on to be able to tell who was actually legit and who wasn't. Unless they went to Brazil and fought one of the Gracies or something like that then there wasn't really much of a showcase to show what worked and what didn't. And there isn't really much in the way of records other than rumours for a lot of guys.
Gene is one of the few guys from then that actually has a fight you can look at as an example of his ability. Pro wrestling promoters would also bring him in to ensure that a champion that was about to leave their teritory would actually lose when they were meant to because they knew they didn't stand a chance against Gene if it turned into an actual fight.
You didn't post up any evidence, just some hearsay by stunt guys that claim he kicked their ass. There's no proof either way, that's what I'm saying.
ihearthawthats
Banned
How does gene's account go against bruce being good for mma?
It sounds like they were horsing around. Imo the very fact that he was warning/threatening him shows that he didn't actually want to fight. He was also laughing afterwards. Plus this was their first meeting, before they became friends and learned his grappling techniques.
After the story, he actually says favourable things:
- He likes grappling and was a willing student.
- He didn't think it was good for movies, potentially creating misconception to the general public that he can't.
- He seemed surprisingly strong for his size, which is advantageous for a sport with weight classes.
It sounds like they were horsing around. Imo the very fact that he was warning/threatening him shows that he didn't actually want to fight. He was also laughing afterwards. Plus this was their first meeting, before they became friends and learned his grappling techniques.
After the story, he actually says favourable things:
- He likes grappling and was a willing student.
- He didn't think it was good for movies, potentially creating misconception to the general public that he can't.
- He seemed surprisingly strong for his size, which is advantageous for a sport with weight classes.
Well, he's argued as the father of MMA. Jeet Kune Do could certainly be moved to a more competition leaning focus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2m3U25Qj7U
If he just teleported into today's MMA, of course he'd have some issues because he wasn't necessarily focusing on competition of this type. If he actually 'grew up' in the era though, I imagine he'd be very competitive. He already was a pioneer of a ground game/arm bars/etc in a mixed style that includes striking ... so I'd imagine he'd have concentrated even more on it to compensate for his size (assuming we're talking about fighting in open weight classes).
If we're talking weight classes, he would have been pretty damn epic. Dude has basically no body fat, is flexible, strong, a hard striker, fast as fuck ... and has a strategic/scientific mind that not only lead to the creation of a style, but is argued to have been wayyyyyy ahead of its time. How would he not have been good?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2m3U25Qj7U
If he just teleported into today's MMA, of course he'd have some issues because he wasn't necessarily focusing on competition of this type. If he actually 'grew up' in the era though, I imagine he'd be very competitive. He already was a pioneer of a ground game/arm bars/etc in a mixed style that includes striking ... so I'd imagine he'd have concentrated even more on it to compensate for his size (assuming we're talking about fighting in open weight classes).
If we're talking weight classes, he would have been pretty damn epic. Dude has basically no body fat, is flexible, strong, a hard striker, fast as fuck ... and has a strategic/scientific mind that not only lead to the creation of a style, but is argued to have been wayyyyyy ahead of its time. How would he not have been good?
samus i am
Member
Absolutely not.
Jack Remington
Banned
Bruce Lee and Mike Tyson would both destroy a chimp.
We aren't talking about Bruce the actor here. Bruce was constantly learning. To think he would suddenly stop shows how little you know of Bruce the martial artist.
Damn. He had more muscles in his neck than I currently do in my body. I need to lift.
Muppet of a Man
Member
This is probably the most reasonable reply in the thread.
Don't mean to single out this post; just all of the posts that casually attribute unverifiable abilities to Bruce as if they're simply a matter of established fact.
There is absolutely no evidence that Bruce Lee was a "quick learner," "really strong" or physically/mentally gifted in any way. The guy was a street brawler and dedicated artist, but about as much as any young fit guy who is really enthusiastic about training in a fighting art. Later on, he was foremost an actor with a nice body, no fight record, no known feats and a carefully crafted image and career in Hollywood. He only did public displays of "fighting prowess" as a way to further build his fame and status as a martial arts legend.
Just to clarify, I don't think he was a bum or a phony. Just that I honestly believe he was only somewhat above-average and would nowadays be a mediocre gatekeeper in the UFC, and only AFTER hypothetically doing multi-discipline training with boxing, wrestling, BJJ, Judo, etc. At his real-life, peak level: a non-contender. One might say I have no evidence to make such claims, but then neither do the people saying he's an exceptional fighter.
This.
Gene and Norris have actual, respectable accomplishments. Bruce Lee's feats amount to baseless bragging and vague stories with no details. Random tough guy challenged him on the streets and Lee swiftly knocked him out in one punch. So what? All this tells us is that Kimbo Slice could've also built himself up to be a legend during that time period of few cameras, spotty fact checking and unproven rumors.
Anyone could pose this shot. What's the story behind this? My guess -- Bruce exhibiting moves with a fully compliant partner for an observing audience, all carefully planned for the wow factor.
IISANDERII
Member
Says a lot about him that he'd beat Gracie even though they're multiple weight classes apart.
The man sure did have some strong fingers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WCQGghedDM
Combat sports aren't real fights?
And everything being legal in a 'real fight' only makes it harder to speculate how Lee would have performed.
cluxdeluxe
Banned
Those are just feats of strength. It has nothing to do with fighting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LkhVeW7VV0
This guy does a handstand on 2 fingers. Way more impressive feat of strength, but no one is claiming this guy would be number 1 in the world at fighting.
Old man upside down on one finger.
Apparently this is all the proof some people need that he would be a top fighter in the UFC.
Sato Koiji
Member
Lee isnt battle proven.
The bum level fighters in the UFC are...and Im willing to say that a bum could beat Bruce Lee.
Im so sorry!!
The bum level fighters in the UFC are...and Im willing to say that a bum could beat Bruce Lee.
Im so sorry!!
The weight difference would be way too much for him to overcome in a fight with Gracie.
I don't see how anyone can think that Lee would magically become significantly better at BJJ than Royce was.
Ninja Scooter
Member
Couldn't you say that about every good to great athlete in history?
People put Bruce on this mythological level (same with Mike Tyson to some extent) that is really unwarranted.
iburntmytongue
Member
Thank you kind sir
Jorok Goldblade
Member
Bruce Lee invented Jeet Kune Do specifically to have a martial art based on actual combat and not showmanship. Not sure how he would do against some of today's great fighters, but he definitely knew how to fight in real-life situations.
Wiktor
Member
I didn;t write it becuse I liked how he looked in movies. As a kid I've read couple books about him and remembered he was quite strong for his weight. I had to look up specific numbers. But he was doing 3x10 reps of 260 lbs bench press. He could also do vertical hold of 70lbs barbell for 20 seconds.
Dude was 135 lbs. For such size those are very impressive numbers.
Wiktor
Member
Realistically Van Damme in his prime would propably beat Bruce Lee.
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