Lee isn't Japanese. Lee would win. His style was sound for him. His style may not be the best for slower people. But it is based on on beating opponents no matter what move they try by basically reacting to their moves and having that reaction land first. He was great at it, and would be able to pull it off in the MMA. He had exposure to a lot of grappling and wrestling techniques but would probably need a little more before being top notch. But Lee would make it.
If you watch the documentary How Bruce Lee changed the world, they talked to a bunch of MMA people and they said how Bruce Lee was the first MMA fighter. he even wore the MMA gloves on Enter the Dragon. he was ahead of his time for working out, taking supplements and training. Plus if he were in MMA, they would face people in his same weight class. He's not going to fight Brock Lesnar.
I don't know if he'd dominate or even win anything but it's completely stupid to rule him out. His high level of intelligence coupled with fanatical training in a modern environment would surely provide him with a chance. Either way, he's a pioneer and a forefather to modern marital arts. He should be respected as such.
Good documentary by the way.. They just did another one called, Bruce Lee Lives which you can get on Amazon On Demand, good stuff.. Here is Silva talking about Bruce Lee... <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/T4ehi5fSsCs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I think that any person that wins a world championship in a in Karate, Judo, Wrestling, Boxing, etc...would have a better chance at winning a MMA championship than someone who didn't.
One, if you're talking about Asians, not all Asians = Japanese. Bruce Lee != Japanese. As far as recent results, there's a trend of Asian fighters being screwed by the judges in fights just the past year or two. Look at the first Korean Zombie vs. Garcia, Nam Phan vs Garcia, Riki Fukuda vs. Nick Ring, and Omigawa/Elkins. Dana White actually paid win bonuses to the Asian fighters because how blatantly they were screwed. Then you have guys like Stun Gun and Okami who are going to be on the list of contenders for the next few years, as well as guys like Gomi and Akiyama that will always give you a good scrap and is going to hover around top 15 despite nearing the end of their careers. You will also have your win one lose one gate keeper guys like Zhang TieQuan and Dongi Yang. I don't actually know how much MMA you actually watch or know about, maybe you just feel like saying something controversial just to get attention, but I'm thought Bigtexxx doesn't have a reputation of doing that.....
Cartman is that you? <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/xX9-kIN8WbM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
No reason to assume he could or should have even tried. A fight is about conditioning and strategy, not technique. Not to be pretentious either, but it must seem a little annoying to martial art instructors or historians to see as much praise heaped on Lee as there is in favor of Funakoshi, Oyama, Kano, O'Sensei or anyone else who developed or modernized a globally popular art. Or the straight up bad asses who originally thought this stuff up out of thin air hundreds or thousands of years ago.
What if wilt Chamberlain didn't play in the NBA and instead just played for the globe totters the whole time? Yeah you can say Chamberlain would have been great, but how can you say that definitely when all he did was play exhibitions.
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The interesting thing about Bruce was that he understood that the ultimate fighter didn't come from "a style", so as he studied, he basically threw the concept of "what style should I focus on" out the window. The reason this is interesting is that because when MMA "started" with the early UFC, martial arts was basically thrown into the dark ages by abandoning this. It was a contest of kickboxing vs. boxing vs. BJJ vs. karate vs. judo - whose style would win? Each wanted to represent their style. Nowadays, you'd be a fool to focus on one style in MMA - you'd be destroyed. To answer the original question, I believe Bruce had the athletic ability to do great, but would need to study various styles before he entered the ring and compete. If Chuck Norris thought Bruce was good enough to be a world champion, then I'm down.
Yes, he could win it all. Jeet Kune Do equally teaches the four ranges of combat i.e. Punch, Kick, Trap (immobilize opponent to make him susceptible to strikes) and Grappling so it can be a decent art for MMA competition. With the development of today's martial arts, Jeet Kune Do can still evolve if Lee was still alive. With the combinations of "The style without style", Lee Jun-fan can be considered the father of MMA.
I'd take Helio Gracie over Bruce Lee. Also, lets not forget about Kimura... BTW you guys do know Vale Tudo was around way before Bruce Lee, right?
Hell no. With those stupid MMA rules and gloves that limit wrist movement and make fingers useless, all true martial artists are forced to fight with their hands binded. Therefore Bruce Lee might still win but he'll be fighting hard for his victories. If one really studied ANY true martial arts from Asia, they would know one of the first thing they teach is to how not to be taken down by both practising the foundation stance and also where the critical one hit kill spots on the body to strike. In other words, what you guys are seeing in MMA isn't true raw form of martial arts. It's just a more realistic wrestling show with more pain and blood. A big improvement from the old crap called WWE.
