Why is Bruce Lee important in MMA, despite not being a fighter?

Was Bruce Lee highly influential to MMA?

  • Total voters
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fries in the bag said:
yeah but how well would prime bruce lee do in the modern bantamweight or featherweight division?

i don't see him winning against merab or ilia
which means he is more of an influencer / movie star than athlete
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Nope bruce lee decapitates both with his 1 inch punch. too fast and too much power for both these bums. even on the ground the 1 inch punch works. And I haven't even gotten into the more advanced Chakra manipulation that modern advanced partitioners of jeet kune do can do and is illegal in UFC as it can explode your head
 
Some of the greatest teachers of all time were never actually fighters, or they dabbled a bit but never went all the way.

This is true in all sports, not just fighting.

Bruce lee was a truly great martial artist, he wasn't a fighter, but he was a master teacher.

He didn't hold dogmas and understood that the most successful martial art is one that incorporated elements of all. He understood the power of boxing, wrestling and well roundedness long before anyone else did.

Which pioneered the evolution of martial arts after centuries of stagnation and old masters who were set in their ways.

Martial arts wouldn't be what it is today without Bruce lee, he set the stage long before the game fully arrived.
 
Mostly just marketing. Vale tudo was born long before Bruce, Oyama was spreding worldwide full contact karate in the sixties, even had challanges vs MT on Lumpinee, judo was an Olympic sport in the sixties, boxing was at his peak, wrestling was around since forever and Sambo since the '20.

The real fighting scene was developing during his time and he was never a part of it.
 
He did do early forums of MMA. Haven't u seen IP man 4, the one with bruce as a side character? We know those movies are 9001% historically accurate down to the last minute detail. Don't u remember that scene where bruce batman style 1vsXs like 20 or so 6 foot 9+ super heavyweights at once and wins without taking a single scratch, just 1 shotting them with short wing chun punches like BAMM dead, bam dead, bam next guy dead, bam bam bam. Bodies were dropping like flies. Bruce 1vs1ing a bantomweight or a 1vs1 against anybody just wouldn't be fair. Merab woulda been the first live broadcast death in the octagon if they fought.
 
BowserJr said:
He trained with Gene Labell who was an even earlier mixed martial artist who fought judo against a top 3 boxer of his day. Gene was heavily involved in early mma/ufc
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Yeah Lebell is another early legend that was mixing styles well before Lee. At least in terms of grappling. But as far as them training, did Lee actually train with Lebell or were they just acquaintances/friends? If so did he pick up any meaningful amount of knowledge from Lebell? If so did he incorporate it into his style? It's difficult to ascertain what's true and what's not about Lee's actual fighting abilities because I hear and read so many conflicting accounts. He was certainly cutting edge in terms of health and sports science. He was cutting edge in terms of what he brought to entertainment and how martial arts and fight scenes in general are depicted in film and television but I still stand by the opinion that his contributions to MA as a whole are overblown, especially in terms of MMA. There are a lot of other guys out there with better arguments to the claim of being the first true modern mixed martial artist and frankly they're probably out of Japan or Brazil, not America.
 
Threads just get worse and fucking worse.
 
Well, the Mask is in UFC HoF, and he isnt even a fake actor-fighter like Bruce Lee.

And LOL at him being a pioneer. Have you heard of Sambo:

"Sambo is relatively modern since its development began in the early 1920s by the Red Army and other forces to improve hand-to-hand combat abilities of their servicemen. It was intended to merge the most effective techniques of other martial arts."

And that is just the recent history of martial arts.
 
I'd say Stallone is more influential to boxing and MMA in terms of inspiring fighters through Rocky than Bruce Lee was.

Bruce Lee was absolutely an innovater and it was cool to see him wearing those gloves and do an armbar in Enter the Dragon and he appreciated the value of boxing and wrestling but I don't think many people were watching "The Big Boss" then joining an MMA gym.
 
cmw43 said:
I'd say Stallone is more influential to boxing and MMA in terms of inspiring fighters through Rocky than Bruce Lee was.

Bruce Lee was absolutely an innovater and it was cool to see him wearing those gloves and do an armbar in Enter the Dragon and he appreciated the value of boxing and wrestling but I don't think many people were watching "The Big Boss" then joining an MMA gym.
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You don't think Bruce Lee inspired a lot of the martial artists or MMA fighters of today due to his films?
 
He's the first person to show jiu jitsu moves onscreen against Kareem Adbul Jabbar.

Also the first person to advocate for cross training multiple disciplines.
 
For the same reason Achilles is a military icon despite not even existing. Icon and inspiration for legit people.
 
He was action movie star with a nice philosophy and some decent thoughts on fitness and training. Meh. I'm not going to say he doesn't matter in the slightest, but he in no way belongs in some pantheon of MMA greatest forefathers. If he had lived longer, perhaps more could be said.
 
Because he was an awesome martial artist? And the sport is called Mixed Martial Arts?
 
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