Fantasy Matchup: PacMan vs Bruce Lee

[heihaci]

James DeMile: Aloha Kevin, I never get tired of reflecting on my time with Bruce because there were only a few of us who have the memories that are part of his Legacy. I was a heavyweight boxer in the Air Force. Over a four year period I had over a hundred fights and never lost one. I had a very big ego and perceived myself as the toughtest man alive. I was 5ft 10inches and weighted 225. I could knock a man out with either hand. Then I met a small 135 lb 5 ft 7 kid who believed his martial arts could beat anyone. I decided to explain the reality of fighting to him and proceded to show him what street fighting was all about. Needless to say I learned humility in about 5 seconds. He not only stopped me cold, but tied me up in such a way that he could hit me at will and the only thing I could do about it was... nothing. Later I reviewed all my previous skills, including boxing and threw all of it out as it was impractical against Bruce's skills.

read the rest of the interview

http://www.cityonfire.com/unknown/interviews/demile/

[nfc90210]

From another forum.

A piece written by A gentle by the name of Tommy Hackett/

(I'll be adding to this later, including more links as references. Feel free to comment. I'm basically compiling my posts on the subject into one coherent essay, and it's got a little ways to go. This is part one of two)

Are you a fan of Bruce Lee? Did you just get into MMA, and wonder how the Little Dragon would have done against one of its exponents?

It's a question that is brought up here, there, and every other martial arts forum. Simply put, it doesn't have an answer. So please, don't ask.

I'm going to preface this by saying that I find Lee a facsinating guy. He demanded the utmost of himself and left behind an unforgettable legacy. I love his movies and have several books by and about him.

We all agree that Bruce Lee had realistic notions on fighting and added a wonderful contribution to the martial arts. If you're interested in talking about him, we've got a movies forum and a reading forum here.

But, as for discussing him as a fighter, well, there isn't much to talk about.

THE FIGHTER?

This much is certain: Bruce Lee trained in several martial arts before crafting his own personal expression, Jeet Kune Do. He was in sevceral street fights and is respected by the day's biggest names. No one will deny the guy could clearly handle himself by all accounts. That said, no footage exists of him doing anything but light sparring and drills.

He has no competition record to speak of, with the possible exception of a local boxing tournament in Hong Kong when he was 17 which is still in dispute.

But there were several excellent fighters of the 1960's, martial arts' "blood & guts" era, who trained with Bruce. One might think their observations could prove useful.

Joe Lewis was a champion karateka and kickboxer in the 1960's who recently published a book about his training with Lee over an 18 month period. In the interview linked, he proudly boasts that he is "the only student of Bruce's from this era who competitively fought after working with him. Neither (Chuck) Norris or (Mike) Stone or any of the others fought in individual competition after working with Bruce."

The two had western boxing as a common interest, and watched many films to develop fighting principles which they practiced in a drill format. Lewis describes this as beneficial to his ring career, remarking that Lee was the fastest man who ever stood in front of him. He says that Bruce was discarding Wing Chun trapping and was headed to becoming a "neo muay Thai stylist". Interestingly, he also thinks the story about Bruce competing in boxing as a youth is apocryphal -- as Lee never mentioned it in all their training together. More importantly, he mentions that Bruce never sparred with him or any of the other name fighters from the 1960's (Norris, etc.).

It's all quite interesting, but since there's no competition or even sparring to discuss, none of it casts any light on Lee as a fighter.

Does this make him "just" a performer, and not a martial artist? Of course not.

If you pick up any of the books books culled from his notes ("Tao of Jeet Kune Do" and "Jeet Kune Do: Bruce Lee's Commentaries on the Martial Way"), you'll see lots of realistic techniques. It isn't necessarily the same stuff he used in his movies-- it's a fascinating blend, mostly derived from Wing Chun, western boxing, and fencing concepts. For example, he lists several strikes with the lead hand. Lee favored the same "jolt" that Jack Dempsey used and described in his book "Championship Streetfighting". A description of the move is actually reprinted verbatim in both books --vertical fists, "falling step", etc. Defensive and offensive concepts from fencing are peppered in throughout the Tao of JKD, alongside Eastern philosophy and his original, kung-fu based arsenal and more, even some grappling.

As far as grappling goes, national judo champion Gene LeBell mentions that Lee spoke to its efficacy, but didn't think anyone would enjoy it on film. Dan Inosanto was quoted by Burton Richardson as saying that Lee didn't actually incorporate grappling sparring into Jeet Kune Do (yet). I also saw a PE wrestling class on his transcript at the University of Washington. He had clearly accepted that learning to grapple was a part of being a complete fighter, but again there's not much to go on about how good he was against a trained opponent.

Lee's mantra of efficiency (take what's useful, reject what's useless, and add what's uniquely your own) would lead him to craft a kung fu style that rejects any burden of tradition and was focused on the most expedient solution to any encounter. If this reminds you of the mixed martial arts, you're not alone.

THE MMA PIONEER?

The president of the UFC has been frequently quoted as calling Bruce Lee the "grandfather of MMA". Some go even further. It was remarked on a message board that "If Bruce had lived, we would have seen mma in this country by the mid 80s at the latest. Eventually he would have stumbled onto vale tudo and run with it."

Now, we'll never know for sure, as his life was cut short before the UFC began but I respectfully disagree. He actually disagreed with sportative competition in the martial arts,as we'll see in part two.

TH

[The Lodger]

Lee is taking his head off unless it's boxing rules.

[hugh grant]

Bruce with boxing training would beat Pacman. He had pacman type attributes with the speed, but Bruce hit harder and was stronger. Pac hasnt faced boxers with his own types attributes in speed and power. Pacman is not elusive enough and against Bruce he would need to be elusive to be successful and not eating Bruces power. Bruce Lee would knock Pacman out in boxing with a bit of specialist training.

[Animal Squabbs]

that is bull**** he used to have challenge fights with other martial artists
world class martial artists like Dan Inosanto and Gene La Belle ,Hayward Nishioka were training with him.They all have spoken about his amazing fighting abilities!!

According to Jesse Glover his first student -
"The power that Lee was capable of instantly generating was absolutely frightening to his fellow martial artists, especially his sparring partners, and his speed was equally intimidating. We timed him with an electric timer once, and Bruce's quickest movements were around five hundredths of a second, his slowest were around eight hundredths. This was punching from a relaxed position with his hands down at his sides from a distance between 18-24 inches. Not only was he amazingly quick, but he could read you too. He could pick up on small subtle things that you were getting ready to do and then he'd just shut you down".

According to the stories of him and Labelles sparring. Labelle caught him in an armbar and submitted him. Lee was all impressed and asked for Labelle to spar again and Labelle did it again and then Labelle taught him the armbar, and Lee showed him differant things.

[Animal Squabbs]

Bruce Lee = Jackie Chan, Chow Yun Fat, Jet Li.

an actor that knows traditional martial arts. He is only a legend cause he was the first and no one on the us had seen anything like him. The traditional martial artist were not succesful at all in the early ufcs and are not involved at all in current MMA. No one train jeet kune do for MMA, they trian Boxing, Kickboxing, Wrestling, and Jiu Jitsu and a little judo.

[hugh grant]

Bruce Lee = Jackie Chan, Chow Yun Fat, Jet Li.

an actor that knows traditional martial arts. He is only a legend cause he was the first and no one on the us had seen anything like him. .

There is really no need to try to explain why u think he is a legend. He had talent.....amazing talent, and people know it. You and i cant hide that fact. Trying to hide his talent is as pointless as trying to hide a fully grown elephant behind a skinny lamppost.
That is why he is legendary. Simply because of his talent. The way people reacted to him, like he was God or something. The most legendary of the legendaries.

[TomRiddle]

Obviously the only reason this whole thread was created is because of the similarity's in body type and the fact that they are both asian. You can't say much about the matchup because Bruce Lee never boxed and Manny most likely never street fought. You got 2 guys out of their styles facing each other. I know I know, Bruce Lee had no style, he's water, he can fight any style, yeah yeah yeah, get the **** outta here. As for the lats, Manny's arms are at a different angle than Bruce as he's not showing them. But no doubt, Bruce looks like a cobra. For a guy that weighed prolly 120lbs, they are quite big.

Lee was doing the "Front Lat Pose" which exposes his wide lats, while Pac does the "Hulk" pose (in bodybuilding it generally shows your shoulder muscles).

[lowblow]

In FREE style, Bruce Lee, or Chuck Norris would beat anyone in boxing within their weight range

[MindBat]

The Lee legend lives on...

The mere fact that Bruce was a perfectionist with his 5 movies (meaning most realistic), and obssessed with conditioning, and that, to this very day, he is still considered by a majority of the world to be the best martial artist of all time, should be enough evidence of his prowess.

You really want to know if Bruce was what many say he was?

Ask his current living students/instructors from his original schools. Ask some current MMA fighters, though you'll get differing opinions.

Rightly so, the lack of any of his "real fighting" footage is cause for skepticism. But, who's to say there aren't any somewhere?

He probably chose not to compete against anyone because of his fear of actually maiming and killing someone.

He could be more closely compared to today's Rickson Gracie. Considered to be the very best expression of MMA fighting.

No direspect to Manny, but Bruce was an uncanny fighter with super human strength, in his own right.