Bruce Lee: Legit or Not Legit

[Deleted]

Bolushi Hardcastle @kelmayisaurus oldgreengrolar Wyatt

I think he was legit.

[Deleted]

Cool Appearance in OUATIH:

[oldgreengrolar]

Bruce Lee seems to be known as the best pound to pound fighter (for a human). And while I believe he is legit, someone might be able to beat him.

[Hardcastle]

Somewhere in between. He was basically trying to find MMA, but unfortunately heading down a mistaken path with his foundation in wing Chun/kung Fu. He realised it was flawed and was trying to add to it but it was an impossible task to solve the puzzle without intensive trial and error through real competition, lots of people competing over decades and decades is what you needed to find the optimal fighting style, not one guy practicing traditional martial arts intensively.

Bruce Lee was a dedicated and focused and very smart guy, he was also physically talented, extraordinarily fast and explosive and able to generate tremendous power for his size. IF he was born much later and trained MMA I suspect he may have actually been a great competitor in the flyweight division. His passion and talent for combat would have inevitably led him down that path and he may have even been someone who revolutionised MMA somehow.
But as it stands, the reality is his real world fighting ability had significant limitations, random college wrestlers of his own time could have easily manhandled him if it came down to it. We've since learned what actually works and unfortunately he was wasting a lot of time following false leads in his mission to become the ultimate fighter.

[Deleted]

I think his one-inch punch was more of a push.

[Deleted]

But I highly respect Jeet Kune Do.

[Deleted]

Apr 15, 2023 23:09:19 GMT Hardcastle said:

Somewhere in between. He was basically trying to find MMA, but unfortunately heading down a mistaken path with his foundation in wing Chun/kung Fu. He realised it was flawed and was trying to add to it but it was an impossible task to solve the puzzle without intensive trial and error through real competition, lots of people competing over decades and decades is what you needed to find the optimal fighting style, not one guy practicing traditional martial arts intensively.

Bruce Lee was a dedicated and focused and very smart guy, he was also physically talented, extraordinarily fast and explosive and able to generate tremendous power for his size. IF he was born much later and trained MMA I suspect he may have actually been a great competitor in the flyweight division. His passion and talent for combat would have inevitably led him down that path and he may have even been someone who revolutionised MMA somehow.
But as it stands, the reality is his real world fighting ability had significant limitations, random college wrestlers of his own time could have easily manhandled him if it came down to it. We've since learned what actually works and unfortunately he was wasting a lot of time following false leads in his mission to become the ultimate fighter.

Yeah I agree. Modern Martial Arts are far more effective.

https://www.reddit.com/r/fightporn/comments/v7p05k/guy_picks_a_fight_with_trained_boxer_and_gets/

https://www.reddit.com/r/fightporn/comments/10fbngk/small_guy_use_his_mma_training_to_dominate_a_much/

https://www.reddit.com/r/fightporn/comments/11cuzc8/trained_mma_fighter_chokes_guy_out/

www.reddit.com/r/StreetMartialArts/comments/l62vr0/16_years_old_mma_fighter_knock_out_an_alleged/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/xcgrda/mma_fighter_renzo_gracie_subdues_man_in_ny_subway/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

https://www.reddit.com/r/fightporn/comments/12m9qww/fight_goes_wrong_with_mma_fighter_in_parking_house/

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[CoolJohnson]

Apr 15, 2023 23:09:19 GMT Hardcastle said:

Somewhere in between. He was basically trying to find MMA, but unfortunately heading down a mistaken path with his foundation in wing Chun/kung Fu. He realised it was flawed and was trying to add to it but it was an impossible task to solve the puzzle without intensive trial and error through real competition, lots of people competing over decades and decades is what you needed to find the optimal fighting style, not one guy practicing traditional martial arts intensively.

Bruce Lee was a dedicated and focused and very smart guy, he was also physically talented, extraordinarily fast and explosive and able to generate tremendous power for his size. IF he was born much later and trained MMA I suspect he may have actually been a great competitor in the flyweight division. His passion and talent for combat would have inevitably led him down that path and he may have even been someone who revolutionised MMA somehow.
But as it stands, the reality is his real world fighting ability had significant limitations, random college wrestlers of his own time could have easily manhandled him if it came down to it. We've since learned what actually works and unfortunately he was wasting a lot of time following false leads in his mission to become the ultimate fighter.

Bruce Lee is a pioneer.

Pioneers are great at discovering new techniques/studies, but they are completely outmatched by the modern version of their field of study.

[Deleted]

I agree with Hardcastle in that, he was trying to find the "ultimate martial art" by coming different fighting styles to try crack n crack the code, which he ultimately failed to do. Largely because the foundation arts of his form of fighting: Jeet Kune Do, was based on; Wing Chun, Boxing, Fencing, Taekwondo and Jiu-jitsu. The trends with all five of these martial arts is that they're rather old, and most of them are B.S. for self-defence. In fact, the only two useful martial arts that made Jeet Kune Do are Boxing and Jiu-jitsu, and even then, little influence was used from these two arts in the create of JKD. The big ones were Wing Chun and Taekwondo. Now, Wing Chun is completely bullshit. I think that's 100% agreed upon in the fighting community, it is literally just flinging your arms around, in fact, if you were in a street fight, you'd have a better chance of winning by using the basic "street fighting" style with the boxing stance etc., than if you were to use Wing Chun. Taekwondo is similar. It is legit but quite bad. A D tier martial art. It can only be used in wide open spaces, and even then, if you're wearing jeans or fancy footwear, then you're going to have a tough time doing well in a street fight, and if you fall over even once, it's pretty much over. Plus, it just isn't realistic, using kicks as your only form of attack is quite bad. Fencing I won't even get into, helps with stance, but that's really it, and even then, just opt for boxing. Jiu-jitsu is actually solid though, sadly he didn't really grapple much, so it was kind of a waste, and it could be argued if he even added JJ into JKD, I guess he grabbed people's arms sometimes, but still, taking a lot of silver from a pile of gold. He would've actually been better off just sticking to one of these martial arts; either boxing or JJ. After Bruce Lee died the fight for the "ultimate martial art" was still up for grabs, with kickboxing coming next, only a few years after Lee's deaths. Kickboxing was far, far better than Jeet Kune Do, far better. The combination of boxing (a really good martial art) and karate seemed like it'd be awesome. Too bad karate is pretty bad, and kickboxer's boxing skills usually pale in comparison to a sole-fledged real boxer. It wasn't until the 90s that MMA really was finalised into the ultimate martial art, with the Gracie family demonstrating that it was possible to beat others guys simply by being a good grappler, and overtime, it evolved into this ultimate, rugged martial art that used modern tactics whilst still retaining some important, actually useful elements from old martial arts.

To put it simply, imo, he was legit, but not a great fighter. A good martial artist for his time, but a mid-tier fighter. He rarely fought anyone, and when he did, he was sloppy;

When he was a kid in HK, he had at least one "roof top" fight, which was a common way for Kung Fu schools to test their Kung Fu at the time. He won, but got a black eye and wanted to quit after the first round but his senior wouldn't let him. Ip Man was, reportedly, pleased he did not quit and thought it would help him going forward. In high school he fought a "boxing" match as part of a tournament with a British Ex Pat school that was paired off with his private high school (his family was well to do). The Brit boxed, Bruce boxed and used wing chun techniques with boxing gloves on and reportedly won. In college, he fought a black belt in Karate. I believe that Linda Lee witnessed the fight but I may be misremembering. He won but it was reportedly extremely sloppy. As a young adult he fought his famous challenge match with Wong Jack Man. It was a win for Bruce or a draw depending on who you believe, but everyone agrees it was sloppy. I believe that is it for attested fights. On the one hand, four fights is not nothing and he arguably won them all. On the other all the evidence is that it was sloppy as hell, which is not surprising given his lack of sparring opportunities up to that point. Later we have the sparring footage of him at Long Beach with Taky Kimura. People bad mouth it a lot, but ... it is not modern. Watch the Seoul Olympics version of TKD or UFC 1. Martial arts has come a long way. Later still there are stories of challenge matches on a near daily basis on his movie sets attested by people who were there . . . but not really any good descriptions that I have read of the matches. Joe Lewis, Mike Stone, Chuck Norris, Jim Kelly and others who had legitimate tournament records have attested that Bruce was indeed very good. My view is that it is safe to say he was very good for his time, without necessarily thinking he was the best martial artist alive ... certainly not the best of all time in terms of fighting ability. (Even if he was in terms of influence and promoting the arts)

[Deleted]

One thing I will say is that his kicks were absolutely amazing. Like even for modern day they're incredible. If you watch his only sparring video though, then you'll see his leg movement is a bit weird, as he uses the technique used in fencing, which he shouldn't have, as it limits the power you can generate from your punches as you don't really turn your waist. Which is the problem with Bruce, his punches were quite bad, and his stance was iffy, but his kicks were out of this world.

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