the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

Ok, here's the Jet's take on Bruce Lee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bWspgQE7wg

All those above are part of the Bruce Lee Industry
Don’t expect them to say anything that devalues the industry
Those the closest to BL when you earn their trust and get them alone only then do they tell the facts as they are
PS who was the woman Benny was waiting for

https://youtu.be/EkT4J_MSPCI?si=ndjTj6gb9tLJ6aX-

John Little on whether Bruce Lee could actually fight

Quite a few holes in the interviews he has done
Like
BL could cross 8 ft in 5/100’s of a second
Talks a good talk but a bit hard to take seriously

and to have been basically born an actor his acting wasn't that good either.
the best acting part of all his films were the fight against C.Norris, which he won.

Ok, BL was not a great actor, but it's a stretch to call Chuck or Segal actors. Though, afa the question of fighting, Segal didn't do tournaments. And Judo Gene could choke out Chuck or Steven or Bruce or Ali. Still, it's funny to hear people argue about whether they could fight. Afa as the 8ft in 5/100ths of a second, that's not exactly what was said. The 5/100ths was measured on a reaction timer. The covering 8 feet before someone could react to him is anecdotal, but was part of BL's shtick at demonstrations.

Imo, the "fight" question is moot. He's been dead fifty years, anyway. What is undeniable is his effect on martial arts, particularly Chinese mas. If you weren't around in 1965, you can't possibly realize that tcmas were only known to people living in cities with Chinatowns. In 66, was the first person to introduce "gong fu" to a wider audience specifically because he was an actor. First in his role as Kato on The Green Hornet, after which interest in tcmas exploded. and people started looking for teachers. And, teachers began coming, specifically to cities on the east and west coast.

Then, his script "Kung Fu" made it to tv. in 1972. Even though they didn't hire him to play the part he invented, the show was a hit. Few people in the US had ever heard of a Shaolin Temple before that. Of course, because of that, many westerners started wanting to go to China to study. But, they couldn't, yet. That only changed because of diplomatic relations with China changed, in spite of the Cultural Revolution. After Nixon went, the first cultural representatives the PRC sent were martial artists.

In 73, a month after BL died, Enter the Dragon was released. By 1974, "Everybody was kung-fu fighting" was a hit on the radio. If you were born after 1980, you probably would never heard of tcma if it weren't for BL.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Kbk8ch8thKg?feature=share[/youtube]
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Kbk8ch8t ... ture=share

No one is disputing his history
The book is about his fighting
Somehow he has found 30 fights he had
Most were never mentioned in all these years

My point was that it doesn't matter whether he had any "real" fights or not. The underlying question is whether he "could" fight. Anybody can say no, just not because lacked the martial capability.

It's not like he was David Carradine, an actor portraying a martial artist. Though, that's not to say Carradine couldn't fight.

Jon Jones, bizarrely considered #2 P4P in mma history (no idea who the #1 guy is or why he's ahead of Jones), credits BL's ideas for influencing his own brand of MMA. A lot of the MMA crowd consider him godfather of MMA. Good enough. Most martial artists, especially those who did some "fights" can probably "fight" at least a little. If you practice X, you usually can do X to an extent. We can see Rampage Jackson (grew up doing "backyard fights") wasn't the most technical out of that generation of MMA fighters, but he could definitely "fight". I'm sure random RSFer in his/her prime couldn't defeat current Jackson in MMA. It boggles the mind how "expert" everyone here claims to be. OTOH my nephew plays "high level" futbol but he's pretty godawful at it imho. there are different levels to everything.

BL's film history is well known, the impact of his movies was probably greatest in the english speaking countries primary the US, were many took him as a kind of idol.
in british hong kong he were also idolized to almost godly status, back in 88 when i first came to HK 'enter.the.dragon' was still playing at the cinemas.
Could BL fight or not ? a teenager BL was in some teenager streetgang so he could have been part in some hit and run fighting for sure. he seem to have had a quite cocky outlook that probably helped him win some ”fights” without really fighting, especially if opponents were well picked.
the cocky expression often come from being insecure, which i believe BL hid behind a toughguy surface, so at least in that he put on some good acting.

He was partly a Swede so that might explain it all :）

everything wrote:Jon Jones, bizarrely considered #2 P4P in mma history SNIP

you can definitely see it in his use of the oblique kick and eye poke

vadaga wrote:

everything wrote:Jon Jones, bizarrely considered #2 P4P in mma history SNIP

you can definitely see it in his use of the oblique kick and eye poke

is that the kick directly to knee? seems like UFC/MMA should ban it for sure. those accidental on-purpose eye pokes - no idea how they stop it. even w/o those "negative BL influences", Jones is surely influenced by BL's "less negative" ideas. although I suppose BL said those are "effective" techniques for "fighting".

Actually, Jones's use of the oblique kick is part of BL's theory of "attacking the nearest vulnerable target. Of course, the problem is that it's a fighting technique that probably shouldn't be allowed in competition. I'm not sure that Jones or anyone eye-pokes intentionally because they all know the other guy cold do the same. Yeah, there have been exceptions. But, yeah, eye pokes are part of Lee's fighting arsenal.

So, it's a bit ironic that BL's fighting ability can be criticized when he specifically designed his art to eliminate anything that couldn't be used to fight.

if your reach is long, the "accidental" eye poke is likely good tactically (but cheating and unethical).

and yeah he has that "long reach weapon" to "close target" with his kick.

but on jones himself, people talk as if he's "just" these two techniques lmao. he's not #2 p4p because of that. a lot of "spiritual" credit / influence probably goes to BL, getting back on topic.

in other tangents, jones' brother (football player) says he can easily defeat jones in fighting.

since Bruce Lee eliminated out of frustration any pugilist competition（after his one high-school boxing match） that could have earned him a fighter record, he must be turning in his grave now when great competition fighters claim following in his footsteps ：）
A bit ironic how BL in the US was around at the karate tournaments of the day to promote his non competition MA.