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Question regarding Bruce Lee

30K views 352 replies 113 participants last post by  kantowrestler 
#1 ·
Bruce Lee vs any UFC fighter

Hi all, I'm new to this forum and was wondering if you could all help me settle a long running debate I have been having with my friends.

Everyone knows that Bruce Lee is the greatest fighter ever and I tell my friends who all watch UFC that he could easily defeat any of them however they all tell me I'm wrong. The main reasons I feel he could beat any UFC (or MMA fighter) is:
  • One inch punch - I feel this is his strongest ally as it requires little room (1 inch) to deploy it so could be done even when being grabbled and the speed of it cannot be blocked. Anyone he hits with this is as good as finished
  • Didn't need to fight people on the ground - from what ive seen most mma is ended on the ground with some unwieldy hold however Bruce PERFECTED the art of beating his opponents whilst they were standing up. In short he would not need to rely about getting them on the ground
  • Mental toughness - the brain can be the warriors strongest or weakest weapon. Bruce was subjected to a rigorous training regime like no other on earth plus allegedly achieved enlightenment so his mental prowess would ensure his victory

There are a few more points but I feel that makes my case, any honest feedback or constructive criticism would be much appreciated. No haterz though.

Shadow Dragon
 
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#92 ·
This is a dumb thread, and here's why:

Because we're talking about any UFC fighter.

Could Bruce Lee beat the holy hell out of Luke Cummo, or Thiago Tavares, or Aaron Reilly? All valid questions.

Could Bruce Lee beat B.J. Penn? It'd be an interesting debate.

But we're talking about Bruce Lee fighting a hypothetical paradigm of a fighter, and no such fighter exists. Every fighter has quirks in his game (even the most generic or the most apparently complete) that make a matchup with any other fighter (Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris or someone who fights in the cage regularly) interesting.

Bruce Lee vs. B.J. Penn is an entirely different debate than Bruce Lee vs. Anderson Silva. It's also different than Bruce Lee vs. Brock Lesnar or Shane Carwin or Gabe Gonzaga.

Bruce Lee was an incredible martial artist. I don't consider him the greatest of all time, but as someone who grew up in Oakland, where he's considered a god, I have incredible respect for his abilities, and his philosophies (which predicted the advent of MMA and contributed to it a great deal).

That said, I don't think Bruce Lee, the way he fought in the 60s and 70s would win a bout in the UFC today against a top fighter.

But if Bruce Lee were alive today, he wouldn't fight the same way he did in the 60s or 70s.

It's like asking "would Ali have beaten Mike Tyson?"

I don't know. I don't think the rope-a-dope would have been nearly as effective, but that's because everyone knew what it was. I also don't think Ali would have been the same fighter, if he was training in the same era as Tyson.

We can have a debate about the abstracts of Bruce Lee's philosophy and the different techniques he used that we can learn from. At the end of the day, we never saw Bruce Lee try and fight a wrestler like Tyson Griffin or Sean Sherk, and we never saw him fight an elusive striker like Lyoto, so there's not really enough data to make a judgment on. Of course, that's my opinion, but I happen to think it's right.
 
#96 ·
Dont you guys think that maybe Bruce Lee would be in MMA today because he goes for the best martial art. He would just evolve hes own technique he made to make it better, But if he used his original technique with no changes when MMA came out i have to say he would lose but. Im pretty sure he would adapt his fighting skills if he saw this MMA.
 
#99 ·
.

However he would need a year or so training before he could compete with the likes of Torres
I would say he would need at least 5 years to even think about competing with Torres

Bruce Lee beat a dude with a armbar in Enter the Dragon. In fact that was in a MMA match they had at the beginning of the movie. Bruce Lee would beat anybody in his weight class in mma today. Bruce Lee was a Kung Fu master and would eventually kill somebody in the ring with a kick or a punch. When a fighter of that caliber fights in mixed martial arts....you will know it.
Please say your joking, he had no special powers. there are many fighters in mma who have way more experience than Lee, and are in better physical condition too. Hell he didnt even fight it was all theory.
 
#98 ·
Bruce Lee beat a dude with a armbar in Enter the Dragon. In fact that was in a MMA match they had at the beginning of the movie. Bruce Lee would beat anybody in his weight class in mma today. Bruce Lee was a Kung Fu master and would eventually kill somebody in the ring with a kick or a punch. When a fighter of that caliber fights in mixed martial arts....you will know it.
 
#101 ·
Since we are talking about mma , how good does jeet kun do play into it I would say0% but back when there was no mma and there were only pure styles jeet kun do fared no better, as a matter of fact ive never seen a jeet kun do practicioner win a fight in my life. And bruce learned any submission at all from judo gene lebelle, who was the real deal. Just for shits and giggles tell me what bruce would do to win a fight with lets say Uriah Faber, how would he beat him for example, what would his strategy be seeing Bruce had virtually no grappling experience :confused03:
 
#103 ·
I love listening to listening to this stuff...in the end its about training and athletics. Take any two guys give them the same amount and level of training (assuming they are on equal terms in technique and all that) and the better athlete wins.

Would Bruce Lee....Michael Vick....Lebron James..whoever be a good MMA fighter....train them like the best ones and yes they would be pretty damn good. Anyone who has been in a real fight knows that unless you are way better technically - and even then - you can't do much with a guy who is vastly stronger...faster...or just a bigger badass - look at Brock.

Would Mike Tyson be a good MMA fighter...probably not...but train him like one and guys in his weight class are fucked.

Why does gsp win...cause he's so technically sound...no..the other guys are trying to do the same thing he just gets there first..take away his some of his naturally given athletic ability and hes matt sera

fell free to pick apart the argument based on small technicalities but the main point is the same. Awesome athletes (Bruce Lee was a bad example) would be awesome mma fighters if they got the same training.
 
#105 ·
i am gonna be a hypocrit for posting in this but...

1.bruce lee left china due to legal problems bc his cocky teenage mindset of being a child actor caused him to accept any challenge that a street fighter threw at him.
so to say he was never in a fight is inaccurate.

2.who ever said a jeet kun do practiciner never won anyfight.....the literal translation for jeet kun do is "using no way as way" One of bruces quotes was Anyone arguing the about the style of Jeet kun do has abvouisly missed the point. it was simply a new idea of mixing multiple art forms. So all the so called Jeet Kun Do Practicioners are wrong in the fact of claiming jeet kun do as a style. its like some group of people claiming to be anarchiests, bc the base idea of that is no orginization in anyway.

3.bruce lee never fought in the ufc and never fought anyone who used mixed martial arts.....ya ya we know and have heard it a million times. He was not the greatest ever, maybe not even the best in his lifetime. he was just the first to look at it in new way and was open to go against tradition for improvement. His best contribution was to bring it to hollywood in the USA launching the american Martial Arts Movement.

So people need to quit making the same stupid arguements that are the same in every Bruce vs the world threads.
 
#110 ·
I can think of a lot of people in the UFC roster who could have a chance at beating him.

Martial Arts, and Mixed Martial Arts has evolved so much since it's creation. Bruce was just one of the first fighters to utilise different Martial Arts, and mix them into one big style.

Ben Saunders uses Jeet Kune Do, the style created by Bruce.
 
#112 · (Edited)
Although you're right that it's not talked about alot, I would have to agree that Bruce Lee was the grandfather of mma. I say this because he was the first martial artist who really wanted to create a style that was a marriage of all the best styles, and more specifically a style that would be very useful in real-life scenarios. In fact, his choice to meld together various forms of martial arts into jeet kune do was arguably what got him killed, and is definitely why he was outcast by the entire martial arts community (well that, and that he had an open invitation to anyone to beat him in his style, and no one could).

I believe that jeet june do is (in my opinion!) the best martial art out there for real-life use, BUT, no SINGLE martial art is going to survive in the ring (and don't give me that Machida Karate crap, yes he uses karate, but not JUST karate).

I do want to finish by saying I remember a fighter (I think in either WEC or ELITE XC) that actually fought with a primarialy jeet kune do style, and he did really well. But I cannot remember his name, or what happened to him.
 
#139 ·
Gene Labelle wouldve smoked Bruce lee back then but NOBODY wanted to fight him. According to Chuck Norris Gene La Labelle was the most dangerous fighter in that era, Think about it nobody else had a great submission ground game in America. Also many wrestlers would have creamed Bruce Lee like Dan Gable for instance, its just that nobody considered wrestling to be a viable fighting style back then. Bruce Lee was sooo small many bigger people would have ripped him apart IMO. Dont let hollywood fool you.:)
 
#113 ·
If there were org's back then, he could have been p4p the best (He likely was p4p the best in the world at fighting). I'm not going to go on and on for a long since this thread has been done to death, but put the same guy in there with fighters of today, and he's going to lose without the use of movie magic.
 
#116 ·
Well bruce lee was not undefeated, I believe he was beaten twice. And I think any top 10 fighter in any weight class in the UFC would completely demolish bruce lee.

The difference between fighting then and fighting now it much like technology then and technology now.
 
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