Bruce Lee fought one guy behind closed doors. He says he won in 3 minutes, other observers claim the match took 20-25 minutes and the outcome was unresolved. Bruce refused a rematch in public. He also lightly sparred one of his instructors once in public. (Wikipedia)
He didn't participate in or win any martial arts or combat sports tournaments, only did things like the one inch punch demonstration at a Karate tournament, and exhibition demos in full body armor.
Basically, he didn't do anything other than train and make movies. Fighting high class opponents for real would be actual evidence of his capabilities. He didn't send out open challenges to all the fighters in Brazil and fight them all without any rules like the Gracie family did to develop and prove the real world efficacy of BJJ (the UFC was originally created for this purpose too). He didn't go around brutalizing everyone in Judo and then challenging other styles (including BJJ, boxing, and wrestling) all around the world like Kimura. He didn't win numerous world championships and demonstrate his talent countless times against the largest possible pool of quality live opponents like Sugar Ray Robinson.
Who the fuck is Bruce Lee and why does he matter in the context of fighting, other than having a cool progressive philosophy on crosstraining and inspiring a lot of 8 year old kids?
His legacy is manufactured by movies and his instructors and friends talking him up. There's no empirical basis for it. The empirical evidence we do have actually points to him not being impressive athletically, mostly just aesthetically.
Explain to me the basis for saying he'd be a world class professional striker or MMA fighter. Instructor lineage is irrelevant. Enter the Dragon is not a documentary. The heavy bag doesn't hit back. Chi doesn't exist. People don't seem to think Jet Li would be champion of the world in anything, because he clearly wouldn't be, because despite being a martial artist he's a movie actor and movies aren't real, and martial arts movie choreography bears no resemblance to fighting. Jet Li is too fast for the screen too, and Fist of Legend is way more impressive than Enter the Dragon. Let's proclaim Jet Li UFC champion.
