Back in the days fighters vs today's fighters...

[QF]

So I was watching UFC's question and answer segment on TV the other day. One of the question was, if we take the peak bruce lee(70's era) and pit him against today's, same weight class UFC mma fighter, who would win?

One of the UFC's representative said he respects Bruce Lee and no doubt he is the father of mixed martial arts, but he will surely lose to most of the today's UFC MMA fighters. His given reason is that training, diet has been better and more effective than back in the days.

You guys agree?


QF

[Banh Mi]

I think Bruce Lee is over rated. We have very little information of him fighting outside of his movies. On the other hand, his history with Wing Chun is dubious. He ignored a public challenge by Wong Jack Man when he started running his mouth about the results of a private match they had, that Wong Jack Man disagreed with.

In short, my money is that Bruce Lee will probably get murdered in the octagon.

[CC]

I agree the Bruce Lee is way over hyped by fan boys.

That said, he was still a fantastic athlete.

I would say that if you took peak Bruce and time-warped him into todays MMA ring, he would lose to most pro fighters in his weight class.

But he is Bruce f**kin Lee so I'd also say that after the loss, give him time to analyse and train in the modern MMA tactics, he would be a competitive fighter in his weight class if not amongst the very top.

[Trien Chieu]

I think peak Bruce Lee would be a champion of his weight class. I think he would be slightly better than fighters like GSP. However, it wouldn't be a easy win for him though.

[Banh Mi]

I agree the Bruce Lee is way over hyped by fan boys.

That said, he was still a fantastic athlete.

I would say that if you took peak Bruce and time-warped him into todays MMA ring, he would lose to most pro fighters in his weight class.

But he is Bruce f**kin Lee so I'd also say that after the loss, give him time to analyse and train in the modern MMA tactics, he would be a competitive fighter in his weight class if not amongst the very top.

I dunno. Bruce hasn't done anything that would suggest to me he is competent in a real fight. Being a mega athlete is a huge and integral part of being a successful fighter, but it takes so much more.
He is a pure striker as far as we know. He can be assumed to have no ground game and no clinch/wrestling game. Skills like that takes years to develop. I can't see him surviving against someone who would aim to exploit that.
He's also not a fan of keeping his hands up. That's gonna mess with his over all style when he has to adapt to that.
And we have no idea how good his chin is, how well he takes a hit, and how well he reacts to taking hits. Generally people who don't do full contact sparring centered around the knock out, don't respond accordingly.
Take a look at how Brock Lesnar, Jose Consecco, Pudzkilla, Cung Le etc. respond when they get tagged.
MMA is a hard sport, transition is never easy. It's either hell in the ring, or hell in training.

[LuNaR]

but he beated chuck norris! lol

[K2Grey]

I think Bruce Lee would lose. Obviously it is hard to make comparisons but just because BL is famous we should not assume he is necessarily much better than other fighters of the 70s, who in turn are significantly inferior to fighters of today.

I believe BL had a ground game, IIRC in one of his books he comments on how a man with 1 year of boxing and 1 year of wrestling experience would be able to defeat people with multiple years of experience in traditional Chinese martial arts. And in many of his movies ground techniques like armbars are demonstrated. But his ground game was unlikely to be as well developed as that of modern fighters, since the knowledge is alot better disseminated today and the talent pool is large.

[Trien Chieu]

he comments on how a man with 1 year of boxing and 1 year of wrestling experience would be able to defeat people with multiple years of experience in traditional Chinese martial arts.

Wow......
This is hard to believe.

[JoeLee]

click to show/hide spoilers

One of the UFC's representative said he respects Bruce Lee and no doubt he is the father of mixed martial arts, but he will surely lose to most of the today's UFC MMA fighters. His given reason is that training, diet has been better and more effective than back in the days.

Was this Bas Rutten's segment on MMA on HDnet? If so he is not a UFC rep by any means.

Bruce would lose. People worship him because he was a famous actor but he was not a fighter, no matter how much his fans will kick, scream and argue this..its a fact. Top level boxers/mma fighters will fight the best fighters in the world 3-4 times a year. They train continuously (depending on the fighter), and 8-12 weeks out they step it up several notches so that they are at their absolute peak going into a fight...there's actually a science behind it. This is something Bruce never did.

Some people worship Bruce like he was a god. Yet a guy like Gene Lebell (who is a legend in his own right but prob would not do well vs modern mma fighters) could pick Bruce up on his shoulder and march him around with Bruce not being able to do anything. Honestly, what do you think a professional fighter like GSP, Anderson Silva would do to him (or even a mid level fighter, who actually fights)?

[JoeLee]

I think peak Bruce Lee would be a champion of his weight class. I think he would be slightly better than fighters like GSP. However, it wouldn't be a easy win for him though.

Bruce would probably be a lightweight.....

He's also not a fan of keeping his hands up. That's gonna mess with his over all style when he has to adapt to that.

It works for Machida lol...ya Joe Lewis, Bruce's only student to actually compete in full contact, mentioned the same thing about WC practicioners being taught to protect their center line instead of their chin.

[Banh Mi]

Bruce would probably be a lightweight.....




It works for Machida lol...ya Joe Lewis, Bruce's only student to actually compete in full contact, mentioned the same thing about WC practicioners being taught to protect their center line instead of their chin.

And Muhammad Ali and Prince Nazeem. But they only have their hands down outside striking distance.

I reckon one of the only people to stand a real chance would be Mas Oyama and Kazuhiko Kimura.

[Trien Chieu]

Bruce would probably be a lightweight.....

If that is the case, then Bruce would be the champion in the lightweight division.

[shortsight]

Those who are not fans of Bruce Lee would think he's over rated because they do not know him than just the movies he was in. Those who are fans of Bruce Lee would think he's that good because they know him more.

While Bruce didn't fight in competition, what I do want to mention is that the 60's top martial artists, gurus, and fighters in his era learnt from him and respected him like he's their master. These were the people who went to his school. What else did he need to prove that he's the best in his era? Now that he's dead, some came out saying it's a sharing of MA knowledge, but there are also some who had mention that these so called MA knowledge sharing was about people downloading from Bruce most of the time. How many of you would believe that masters would walk to your school to teach you, rather than learn from you??

Of cause, he never shied away from learning from others and gave credits where due. He did visit other masters of different styles and learnt from them to create his universal style. But, to say he's over-rated? Well, if this is true, then he's over-rated by his peers in the first place, which tells something!

[JoeLee]

Those who are not fans of Bruce Lee would think he's over rated because they do not know him than just the movies he was in. Those who are fans of Bruce Lee would think he's that good because they know him more.

While Bruce didn't fight in competition, what I do want to mention is that the 60's top martial artists, gurus, and fighters in his era learnt from him and respected him like he's their master. These were the people who went to his school. What else did he need to prove that he's the best in his era? Now that he's dead, some came out saying it's a sharing of MA knowledge, but there are also some who had mention that these so called MA knowledge sharing was about people downloading from Bruce most of the time. How many of you would believe that masters would walk to your school to teach you, rather than learn from you??

Of cause, he never shied away from learning from others and gave credits where due. He did visit other masters of different styles and learnt from them to create his universal style. But, to say he's over-rated? Well, if this is true, then he's over-rated by his peers in the first place, which tells something!

That's pretty much the opposite of the truth. 99 percent of his fans only know him through his movies and that's why the worship him.

Look i'm one of the biggest bruce fans you'll meet. I got into martial arts from either watching loch 83 or return of the dragon..dont remember which came first. Read tao of jkd, and either partially read or skimmed a wack of his books, including his early stuff when he was still calling jkd JF gong fu. Read pretty much every interview I could find with Insanto, Lewis, Norris, stone or any of his other students commenting on him, because it's of interest to me. Watched literally every meaningful bruce vid on youtube (interviews, his home training vids, JKD theory vid ect ect)...and I still believe the guy was overrated. Why? because his fan boys worship him like a god. Bruce never fought professionally, never fought the best fighters in the world..and the quality of martial artist back then is nowhere near where it is today.

Bruce was definitely a martial artist ahead of his time in that he preached conditioning, diet, training (one of the first traditional martial artist to use circuit training), martial arts theory (JKD is essentially mma, and Bruce realized the effectiveness of grappling some 30 years before Royce proved it to the world). But as a fighter he never proved anything.

I respect a guy like Helio Gracie more as a fighter, because he fought. He only won 50-60 percent of his fights, but he was always the smaller guy and always gave up weight to his opponents, and yet he fought everyone. Even Joe Louis (the brown bomber, not bruce's student) who was the heavy weight boxing champ of the world turned down his challenge.

No doubt Bruce was a physical beast and gifted with top tier genetics and more importantly a desire to be the best and confidence to back it up. But then again, that's pretty much summing up every boxing and mma champ there is and how many undefeated champs do you know? That shite only happens in movies...

[JoeLee]

And Muhammad Ali and Prince Nazeem. But they only have their hands down outside striking distance.

I reckon one of the only people to stand a real chance would be Mas Oyama and Kazuhiko Kimura.

And Roy Jones lol....not a huge fan of Nazeem..only true champ he fough was Barrera and he got his arrogant butt handed to him lol

Vs Bruce? Mas was a big dude lol....and a real fighter. Don't know how much is truth and how much is legend at this point but he supposedly fought the thais back when MT was brutal. Kind of makes me wonder if its true though, cus Mas looked to be at least 170-180 pounds and the top lumpinee fighers are no heavier than 147. Anyways, Kyokushin is no joke!

[Banh Mi]

I'm Bruce skeptic.
I mean either Mas Oyama or Kimura are probably one of the few who would stand a chance in the cage. Both of them were buddies with each other as well.
Haven't heard anything of Mas fighting Thais. Just that he had open challenges to his school and no one lasted more than 3 minutes against him.
His 300 man Kumite is nothing to scoff at. The no punches to the face thing that makes Kyokushin a rough transition to MMA I think is likely due to Mas' striking power, but training no hits to the head is still weird.

[Exodus]

Bruce would focus his chi and use kamekameha to defeat anyone in his path LOL

[shortsight]

Haha, I think this is what some Bruce sceptics hate to see from any fans who over idolizes the man. Anyway, I think there will be differences of opinion from Bruce fans and others. It's all guesses in the end.

[Trien Chieu]

he comments on how a man with 1 year of boxing and 1 year of wrestling experience would be able to defeat people with multiple years of experience in traditional Chinese martial arts.

If this is the case, then why did ancient martial artists from all over the world went to China to steal their martial art manuals?