If bruce lee is alive today, would he stand up to today's modern day fighters like in the UFC?

Question

If bruce lee is alive today, would he stand up to today's modern day fighters like in the UFC?

Answer 1

Bruce Lee was a great action star.

But he was not a great fighter. Losses to Judo Gene and refusing to fight Muhammad Ali being examples.

He would get killed in UFC, even if he was an appropriate weight.

Answer 2

I think it's impossible to say really, like others have said martial arts has evolved immensely over the years.

I think the one thing we have to look at is that Bruce Lee had a natural talent and if he were in his prime in this day and age, who's anyone to say he wouldn't have adjusted accordingly to the current MMA style?  

This is after all the same man who is initially credited with recognizing the need to mix martial arts to begin with

Answer 3

yes. he would have done that really............

Answer 4

he was too fast for anyone,he'd still kick everybody elses' ***.

Answer 5

Who's to say, he was a major innovator in his day and does deserve a good bit of credit for helping to break down the walls that for decades or longer in many cases had stopped nearly anyone from cross training in other styles. He was the first to step up publicly and say that martial artists needed to cross train and learn to fight from all ranges and needed to include ground work in their fighting style. He did some training in Filipino wrestling and after judo Gene LaBelle handled him a few times, he went and started learning from Judo Gene. Now he worked with several competitive fighters in karate and kickboxing, but he himself never competed. Why he didn't, I have no clue; maybe too busy with starting his school and acting or just didn't have any real interest in it. Either way that was his call to make and he made it. Now if you listen to all the things that came off movie sets that he was on he supposedly had lots of challenge matches there and was supposed to have won them all. Maybe he did and maybe he didn't, I wasn't there to see it so I don't know. One thing that is undeniable about Bruce Lee was that he helped to change the face of martial arts in his day and that has carried over and still has repercussions in martial arts today. A lot of mma people don't like to give him any credit, but if they truly beleive in what they are doing they should at least give him some respect for the fact that he was calling for mma 40 years ago.

Could he have held his own today, well as old as he would be I seriously doubt it. If he was still young and in his prime, then maybe he would have and maybe he wouldn't have. In 1993 at the first UFC would he have been able to handle a Royce Gracie or a Ken Shamrock? If he had continued on the way that he had been heading incorporating grappling with his striking maybe he could have. If nothing else though he wouldn't have looked as bad as the overwhelming majority of the guys in the frst UFC's. His striking would have been better than most if not any of the early competitors and he at least would have had some idea of what was happening on the ground.

Judo - Agreed, he never competitively fought so hard to really say and even harder to try to gauge where his level was then or could have gotten to.

You are correct about the cross training to, think off the hook karate so often with Oyama that it's easy to forget that he was also a judoka. I guess what I really meant to say was bringing  the need to cross train to the forefront here in the states. Otherwise I think we pretty well agree, great person and inspiration and very good for martial arts, but actual fighting skills are at least a bit in question. That's why I said, I wasn't there so I don't know about all of his supposed challenge fights.

Not to sure I agree with you on Cung Le. I like him and hope to see him do well. That's life though, we can agree to disagree on Cung Le and just see what he does from here forward.

Answer 6

In an MMA like K-1 definitly. He'd be KING

However, in the UFC and the UFC's stupid judging, poor officating, and scoring that only Dana White knows, Bruce Lee would not be successful in the UFC.

In the UFC if a fighter cannot KO or submit his/her opponent all they have to do, is either run away, (Kenny Florian)  or get take downs,

or leg kicks and run.

But I am sure, with his agility, and ability he would be able to KO most of his opponents in a minute or less.  

Answer 7

Short answer...NO.

But he was ahead of his time. Brue Lee was first to recognise the importance of "mixing" martial arts...and the martial art he developed "Jeet Kune Do" was a mix of many different martial arts.

The problem he has, is Brue Lee never fought top martial arts people of his day...he was mainly an actor, not a fighter.....people like Carlson Gracie and Hélio Gracie are the two most influential martial artists ever (in terms of real fighting). They both actively fought in that time.....and brue lee never fought them.

Also, their style was revolutionary to mixed martial arts because it showed people that if you cant fight on the ground....you cant fight. This style of fighting directly infulenced a whole generation of mma fighters.....some learing the techniques, others learniung how do defend the teqniques etc

The point is, Martial Arts has evolved SO much in the past 15 years that it is hard to see Brue Lee being a threat to even an average mma fighter of his weight,

However, he is still a legend.

Answer 8

yes

Answer 9

I think he would.  You could look at Strikeforce champion Cung Le, who people have said is a "Modern Bruce Lee", and he has been successful.  Lee would have problems with some aspects of MMA though (ground and pound, submission etc.)

Answer 10

He would be 68 years old. I don't think so.

Keep in mind he didn't hold up to 60's and 70's era fighters either, because he never fought. No documented fights, never was in a competetion, despite plenty of full contact tournaments, and even open rules competetions back then.

Even if he was magically teleported through time to his prime today, he wouldn't hang, because he had no interest in competing or fighting in any kind of professional manner. There were tons of tournaments in his day, and he didn't fight in any of them.

Also...

Cung Le is given a lot of love, but keep in mind he has had 6 MMA matches, he fought a rusty and hardly relevant anymore Frank Shamrock, he didn't convincingly knock him out or anything, Frank broke his arm improperly defending kicks. That doesn't make him this amazingly successful MMA phenom.

Also keep in mind most of Cung Le's background is in wrestling, he has great kicks because he studied TKD for a while, and also some sort of generic form of Vietnamese Kung Fu (both under the same master, meaning the guy more or less added some of his own stuff to a TKD program and called it Vietnamese Kung Fu). But he has spent more time wrestling than anything else.

Cung Le is good, but I will be more convinced when he actual goes up against a top 10 middleweight, so far he has fought 5 total scrubs and a far from relevant Shamrock.

Anyway just my opinion, let the multitudes of Bruce Lee worship commence.

LOL Thumbs down already...

Omega: I give Bruce a lot of credit, however he was hardly the first to call for cross training and hard contact, Mas Oyama would be a great example. There were tons of arts founded on the principles of hard sparring and of cross training. Most of the founders of many styles that are popular today came about as the product of cross training.

I give him the credit for bringing Martial Arts to the forefront to the American public. For being an inspirational movie star, athlete and Martial Artist. I don't make him into a superhuman fighting machine that would own anyone he came across.

He was a great Martial Artist, but his abilities as a fighter aren't really documented aside from a few biased eyewitness accounts, and hardly no one agrees on what happened.

Do I think he probably was a good fighter: Absolutely, he was fast, a highly conditioned athlete, and great technique.

Do I think he was the best fighter ever? No, the best fighter ever would actually have fought, there is verification, records, examples of his fighting prowess that extend beyond one or two people.

That is just how I feel, I am a huge fan of him, but I don't have some blind faith that he was the greatest fighter to walk the earth when no evidence suggests it.

Answer 11

With the amount of training hes put himself through & as agile as he seemed to be I wouldn't doubt it.

Apparently the guy could kick like a truck, I've seen some of his training videos. Pretty intense!

Answer 12

Alive today he'd be in his mid to late 60's, matched against John McCain I'd say TKO by Lee, in 1st round, other than that all bets are off.

Answer 13

http://answers.yahoo.com/search/search_r...

asked to many times  

Answer 14

judo gene labelle beat him 3 times in a row using judo technique only so I would say not a chance he would last.I would give him 30 seconds against one of the gracies before he was submitted.