cheesemoney

Not trying to start a flame war, but I just want, in a very brief statement, to find out who thinks Bruce Lee could whoop ass at the top level in this era. The guy was a bad ass, a form of pioneer, and did great things for martial arts, but there are so many out there that believe Bruce can whoop anyone now had he not been knocked off by an advil or whatever. Anyone out there a believer? Let me know briefly why.

Part 2: If you could learn martial arts from any instructor, who would you pick?

Cheese

Konichiwaneko

Bruce lee could win any fight because he is not orthodox. Jeet Kun Do, his own art, basically is use what works and use it well.

Bruce lee kicked and still kicks ass. His approach was very mental also.

I would love Bruce as a teacher. My favorite situation with him is when he told his students about how water conforms yet can destroy.

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cheesemoney

Bruce lee could not win *any* fight.

I can think of 20 people off the top of my head that he could not beat.

He was unorthodox.

He was tiny.

I think Sakuraba, who is tiny, would even whoop bruce's ass.
He's unorthodox, and trains against better competition.

I do hate that mystic mumbo jumbo shit tho.
Water can put out fire or be destroyed by fire if boiled into a pot---or at least released into the atmosphere. SO?

I guess thats what makes the world go round. I don't need my martial arts guy to teach my spirtuality. Some do.

Thanks for your opinions.

Kurant

I think Roy Jones could take em!

bobw

Most top "Octogon" fighters could beat him... he would simply be too small....

Konichiwaneko

Each his own cheese..I believe the mystic stuff. People are machines, like computers and everything else. Hardware is useless without good software.

That mystic stuff teaches you why things work. Yes you can punch, but learn why your punches work.
Example you don't punch with a straight fist, you punch at an angle so you can do more damage on a body blow.

It's not mystic, but it's using your mind to do more damage with your body. Bruce lee knew his limitation and knew how to exploit it.

My favorite fact about bruce :

He was pissed during the mirror scene in Enter the Dragon. He kicked the stunt double so hard he broke his ribs, launched him into a window 5 foot away and shatter like 3 mirrors. I think they rated his kick at like 250 lb's a sq. inch or something like that. Don't qoute me on that number.


Fight wise, I'm sure now there is someone who would beat him...but like the Bonds/Ruth arguement..it's different eras.

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cheesemoney

K.... my brief list of people who would kick Bruce's ass... you tell me why they would not.
Sperry
Bustamente
Royce (even at this age)
Rickson (see above)
Kerr
Coleman
Sak
Noguera
Frye
Both Shamrocks, even at this current slovenly state
Petey
Tito
Belfort
Tank would make it interesting but probably lose
Ninja
An old and washed up Igor Vovchanchin
Wallid
Ralph Gracie = good fight... can't decide who wins
Silva
Gary Goodrich = good fight, but Gary outmuscles him and wins
(yes, that big dumb gary goodrich)

Another argument that I am sick of is that in wing chun, you blah blah blah blah blah and therefore can poke out his eyes, strike groin', which you can't do in the MMA scene.
Like bruce lee practiced evey day striking his students in the eyes...

2) Vale tudo'ers sometimes do actually fight with eye strikes / groin strikes / fishhooks / small joint manipulations, but it evens out in a real fight... both sides can use such techniques. Techniques are only REALLY effective if you practice them constantly and daily, and those strikes can never be constantly practiced.

Good responses so far.
Appreciate you keepin em coming...
Cheese

As for kicking a stunt double and hurting him... comeon... Jean Claude can do that (and does)

cheesemoney

Crap... I left a lot off...
When I get around to it I'll think of some people close to Bruce's weight that I think could kick his ass...
examples include, Barreto, Bitteche, Elvis Sinosic (? maybe), Royce, Wallid, Newton, the old mickey barnett, DEFINITELY Jens Pulver, BJ PEnn...
I would LOVE to see Pulver vs. Lee.
Damn would I pay good money for that one...
I would be so scared to be in the ring against that tiny little Pulver, my 6'2" ass would be crying.
Cheese

cheesemoney

And roy jones vs lee would probably end in roy jones getting his quick, powerful champion ass knocked out from the ground
Or eyes gouged out...
Or groin' ripped to shreds...
Bruce was no dummy.... He wouldn't fight jones on his feet to save his life... What would be the point?

Konichiwaneko

I'm confused though Cheese...

Are we all suppose to agree that larger size = instant victory.

Most of what I see is that Bruce is small. I'm 6 foot, taller then Bruce but he can own my ass in three seconds. I leg press 550lb's also. He would still kick my ass because he had 26 years of martial arts training before he died. Me, I can swing a baseball bat and have 3 years of Tae Kwon Do (the art of kicking someone off a horse)

Get a tall guy like Lennox Lewis...6'4" lot's of reach...but trained in Boxing. Go for his leg. Everyone has a weakness, mostly if they are focused on a fighting style.

Size definately helps, but I think there's more to it. I'll be honest, I don't know many of those fighters on your list though.

You think Jackie Chan would be a good fight? He is legit afterall.

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cheesemoney

Ok Konichi. I know that size can be overcome, but only to an extent. You seem to be suggesting that a small trained MMA fighter could take out someone totally unversed in street style fighting.

Given.

But why do you think they had to stick weight classes in the UFC?
(ok, cause john mccain told us we had to).

Little guys with talent against sluggish untrained ogres was great, but when they brought the big boys in (and all the REAL big boys are in Pride over in japan), the little guys started getting FUCKING killed...
Could you see Royce going against Minotauro, Kerr, or some BEAST of that ilk?

This is the year 2003. Mixed martial arts have been around and well know for well over ten years now. Every fighter knows that just training BJJ, Muai-Thai, etc. isn't nearly enough. Bruce would have NOTHING on any current fighter.
Of course, he was an innovator and can take a lot of credit through his acting in bringing the MA revolution to america.

He would be pummeled.
Ouch...

The fighters on the list are all real fighters...
They are bad actors at best and can't make it except for brief tv appearances by the likes of the two shammies.

ROFL at TKD, the art of kicking someone off a horse....
TKD isn't *completely* useless if you spar full contact...
On a horse....rofl...

The great thing about these real fighters is that they expose what a sham a lot of *Traditional* martial arts are. Don't ever do a martial art that involves kata, unless you're looking for weight loss or self enlightenment or whatever...
It won't help you not get your ass kicked is what I'm trying to say.

Now that MMA's well established, every fighter of ANY persuasion has at least a basic knowledge of whats involved. And we're not talking about boxers fighting Bruce lee... Boxing is fun, but its extremely limited...


Cheese

Konichiwaneko

"He would be pummeled.
Ouch..."

he would also be 56

Cheese innovation man, they great's of yesterday make the greats of today better.

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cheesemoney

Alas, I meant in his prime.
He was a great innovator.
Not saying the greatest--so much credit goes thru the acting with special effects and crap that would never work and has absolutely twisted public perception of martial arts.
Cheese

dtheriault

okay i'm not saying that bruce lee could beat any of the guys mentioned above. who really knows. but something to consider.

speed does count in fighting. a lot. force is strength times speed. if you're pretty strong and really fast it's fairly deadly.

how fast was bruce lee. well he's a small sample. watch the movie "Enter the Dragon" when you get to the fight scene where he's taking on the guy in the white gi with the beard pay attention. remember they both put there hands together and bruce just punches the guy before you say boo.

now comes the scary part.

if you freeze the screen before the punch and advance the frames one by one. you will see that he pulled the guys hand down first with his left hand and then punched him. something that you don't even notice at normal speed.

if bruce was allowed to poke your eyes, kick your groin, hit your throat. he still might get his ass kicked.... but he might make it interesting.

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"Remember, it takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen." -Homer

Unless you are the freakin Highlander, what is the point in learning how to fight with a sword?

cheesemoney

"if bruce was allowed to poke your eyes, kick your groin, hit your throat. he still might get his ass kicked.... but he might make it interesting."

If Bruce was allowed to poke my eyes, kick my groin, and hit *my* throat, believe me, he wouldn't get his ass kicked...
He'd do just fine...
But I'm talking trained professional fighters.

I just think people have this fascination with Bruce that greatly exceeds his *real* (though very good) ability due to the fact that he was an actor.

Jet lee looks quick in the movies too. He doesn't have a prayer in hell in a real fight against a real opponet.

Cheese

cheesemoney

"if you freeze the screen before the punch and advance the frames one by one. you will see that he pulled the guys hand down first with his left hand and then punched him. something that you don't even notice at normal speed. "

In a real fight, you can't just get in close and grab some guys hand, pull it down, and then punch him.
Thats why its in a movie.

You'll see what I mean if you ever watch a few NHB (no holds barred), UFC / Pride / KoC fights.

Cheese

Konichiwaneko

Cheese...from what I heard in accounts though..Bruce was the shit. How can we prove it now other then word of mouth? Ask Chuck Norris, Bruce taught chuck.

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dtheriault

i was a stagegoon for goldenvoice a large local company that produced punk shows in the late 70s early 80s when punk shows were scarier than shit.

you can pull moves on big fast guys but it's gotta work fast and right the first time. i've punched the back of guys hands as they held them up to box me thereby breaking every bone in the back of the hand. i've used aki-jujuitsu moves on guys and i've hit guys with chairs, walls you name it. i'm not that big. 6'1/205lbs, but speed is the shit. now if a huge guy grabbed me and i couldn't get free in a second i'd be dog meet.

my teacher always told me that a good strong nfl player could kick shit on most martial arts guys. i've seen high school wrestlers beat hell on black belts. my favorite scene was down in newport beach i saw some asian guy whip out some tkd on a huge white guy. the white guy caught his leg and preceeded to swing the asian guy multiple times like a baseball bat into a nearby wall. priceless. they probably don't teach a defense for that at tkd school.

as always luck plays a small part in any fight. but yes big good wins out over small good most of the time.

btw youth also plays a factor. i'm over 35 now. watch punk shows safely from the back and pull a muscle reaching for the tv remote too quickly.

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"Remember, it takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen." -Homer

Unless you are the freakin Highlander, what is the point in learning how to fight with a sword?

h2g2Fan

that's why ninja's get ninja stars and swords and shit like that.

Zeld2.0

Heh speed matters a lot - and i highly doubt just anyone grabbing Lee and swining him would really work - sure it sounds possible even for pro fighters, but remember that Bruce Lee IS considered the greatest martial artist around and having that title means just simply grabbing him once wouldn't mean much.

Hell Kareem Abduul Jaabar, Chuck Norris, Joe Lewis, and Steve McQueen were all students of his. He's regarded as one of the greatest for a reason.

Of course fighters today would probably know what he did and could take advantage of it - but I dunno about dismissing the "mystical" stuff so easily. His style was fighting of no style and he could adapt to pretty much anything anyone gave him. The guy really WAS lightning quick and sure its a movie but he really did know how to do those things for the screen - they weren't made up stunts.

hilbert25

Lee was crazy fast, and his little frame could put out crazy amounts of force. I think the force of his sidekick was one of the highest ever recorded, if not, still recockulously high. Size matters a bit, but a blow to the knee as hard as Lee was capable of delivering would probably bring anybody down.

agentsmith

I think Homer Simpson could beat Bruce, with his thick skull and all .

Bumm

i like bruce.......but in reality.....there are tooooo many good fighters.......and they would easily beat lee......


cheese....nice to see a fan of mma

cheesemoney

Hell yeah Bumm... MMA fans I greatly appreciate. As to Zeld 2.0, Bruce is seen as the most famous Martial Artist, and most famous Martial Art master, but lets pretend this is baseball and we have a fan allstar voting. Bruce wins on the fan write in, but the players and coaches don't even cast him a single vote.

There isn't a single top 20 mma artist (and i'm betting this goes to top 1000, 2000, 3000, etc.) that doesn't believe he could kick Bruce's ass in his (Lee's) prime.

Still. Its kinda like the Rickson Gracie dilemma (for you mma fans) out there.
Rickson was bad ass, but how much of his legacy is based upon the fact that he fought a much more unenlightened general opposition... To put it another way, imagine babe ruth, not completing against African Americans, Dominicans, Mexicans, nor having weight training, diet, training, conditioning, etc....
He may have a potential to be great even in current times (thru a time machine), but he probably isn't going to be at the very top of the game...
(If you're listening Bruce, don't kick my ass when I croak).
Cheese

Konichiwaneko

a fighter of all people shouldn't say they could be beaten.

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queedo

Bruce lee was very good but there is always somebody beter.

I would learn from Chun!

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If you think you can or you can't, you are right!

cheesemoney

Chun lee? I'd like to learn her upside down spinning kick...
Yeah. That'd be cool.

Cheese

docbungle

No one would "easily" beat Bruce Lee. Get real. He was the ultimate badass. Of course there is always someone better, but no one was around to prove it when he was alive, and it's easy for everyone to now come forward and say he was a wuss.

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Bad Luck City

agentsmith

who's the michael jordan of martial arts?

cheesemoney

Ummm... right now, I guess that'd be Rodrigo Noguera?
I dunno...
Its too close to tell.

Lee reminds me of the guy who invented the changeup...
It worked, but others went on to write his name out of history by doing it better (course, that won't happen to bruce cause the lucky bastard got into the movies)...
Cheese

Konichiwaneko

I think by the way you talk to him, you obviously don't respect him Cheese.

I can't assume though, but they way you think Bruce sucks and calling him bastard...I think you may be more subjective then objective about this

I think Bruce wasn't hype. Considering Eastern martial arts have been around for 1000+ years and the masters considered him the embodiment of badass.

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cheesemoney

I guess my feelings are this way because 1000+ years of study can't get Eastern Martial Artists into the top 20 at most weight classes, with the exception of Kazushi Sakuraba, who considers himself almost more of a wrestler than martial artists (or a trapper, or whatever you wanna call it--a form of submission wrestling). Eastern martial arts are pretty damned worthless, because for the most part they did nothing but practice kata's and worthless crap that isn't remotely practical. Try to get an Aikido wrist lock against are trained, resisting opponet and you'll see what I mean.

The one thing that I do respect about bruce, other than the fact that he was super fast and fun to watch, is that he was the first one to publicize that all this 1000+ years of training and "mastering" martial arts was total crap. He figured out what martial artists in the rest of the world already knew, that it doesn't amount to shit if you can't use it against a real opponet, but those others just aren't mentioned because they aren't famous actors.

And I'm changing my teacher choice from Chun Lee to Dhalsim, cause I wanna learn the hand trick and the fire breath.

Peace.
Cheese

CyCo PL

I'm sure that most of the octagon fighters today could have taken Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee was a good fighter, and he was cool, but he is way overglorified when it comes to his actual fighting skills... If you think that his real fights would be like his movies, you're mistaken.

cheesemoney

What I'm getting from the people that support bruce is a complete lack of knowledge regarding current fighters. Are there any MA fans out there that study current martial artists that think bruce would have a shot?

And about Chuck Norris thinking Bruce was the greatest... well, Chuck is a tough guy and all, but he's a point Karate fighter turned actor too...

He's not gonna go bang it out with some little Thai guy in the ring, cause he'd get his fucking head knocked off.

Cheese

Konichiwaneko

Cheese..I don't think a good fighter has to be just good at beating people down. I think a good fighter is respected by his peers for his understanding, consistency, and personality.

Not only was Bruce a respected fighter, he was also a respected teacher. Because of that I don't talk smack about him.

All sports have this type of figure. Someone is always better, but sometimes someone has enough personality mixed with skills to make people believe. Bruce Lee made people believe martial arts.

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dtheriault

slightly off topic.

but how do you think guys like bill wallace and jean yves theriault (old school full contact karate legends) would do against todays middle weight class ultimate fighters?

these were guys who were lightning fast, could punch, kick and take a beating.

__________________
"Remember, it takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen." -Homer

Unless you are the freakin Highlander, what is the point in learning how to fight with a sword?

Zeld2.0

Yes those people are good fighters but they learned from somewhere as well. And they might look so damn good on TV or whatever, but if they actually fought against Bruce Lee during his prime?

Size doesn't matter that much if you are good. Of course a really short midget won't stand a chance against a guy 7 foot 3.

But the fact of the matter is, cheese, you probably don't believe in the entire martial arts philosophy and style.

As pointed out above, you said you don't really believe in the energy thing.

But since you don't believe it, of course you're going to say Bruce Lee is nothing compared to those fighters.

Of course, you can't really compare a guy whose been dead 30 years to modern fighters. If the best fighters today fought him at his prime, I would hardly say they would kill him. The guy was fast and he could improvise - he fought w/ no style or pattern so you can't just figure him out.

And grabbing someone's legging and throwing him around isn't so easy if the guy is quick, strong, and smart. He might look weak but the fact is, he could probably break the bones of any fighter today.

docbungle

ditto.

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Bad Luck City

Foopius2

win any fight? no
win almost any fight? for sure

the little 'shrimp' weighed in at just over 100 lbs, and he could hold a 100 lb weight in one hand perfectly paralled to the ground for over an hour.... anyone who can do that is incredible


he could also make grown men (alot bigger than him) fly backwards by holding his fist one inch away from them and punching them without any sort of windup, which is incredibly hard.

no im sure some people could beat him just because of their bruteness and wingspan... but i dont think many could take him

Splice

I am a fan of Bruce Lee as well. But I have been watching the UFC/Pride fights and must admit that if Bruce were to go one on one with a well-versed opponent like Tito Ortiz who would out weigh him by 75 lbs or so (I'm totally guessing). I would think that an even bigger opponent could take on Bruce. The REALITY is this, even if Bruce had lightning fast kicks, once these trained and larger opponents "get him" in their grasp, they would only have to hit him 2-3 times to cause permanent damage. Remember, as Bruce said "pole don't hit back." So yes, Bruce would be fast and hit or kick these bigger guys, but once they get their hands on him, I do believe that Cheesemoney is right, it would be over.

This is why I don't see smaller "kung fu" fighters in these Mixed Martial Arts (UFC/Pride, etc.) fights. For one thing, I think it's that they don't want to jeopardize the integrity of their Shaolin, etc. heritage. But I would have to think also that the other thing is that these fighters are also much smaller and thus would be at a disadvantage. Just my 2 cents.