ESPN - Could Bruce Lee win a real (MMA/Street) fight today (in same weight class)?

[Svnla]

Could Bruce Lee win a real fight?

Bruce Lee has been called the father of MMA. Yet questions persist about whether he could win a real fight. Here's what Lee's training partners -- and his two known fights -- tell us about his sparring skills.

www.espn.com

I think no current pro fighter (in same weight class) could do a stand up hands to hands fight with Lee, unless he would bum rush then tackle Lee and do a submission and that would not a given.

What do you think?

BTW, he would be about 80 this year. He died at 32 years old in 1973.

 

[zinfamous]

this question basically predates the internet's "will the plane take off?" and "0.99999999... = 1"

My answer is always: yes, probably, but it's not like we will ever know, or could ever have known. Also, Lee notoriously refused to fight in organized competition because it was never "pure combat." It didn't fit his philosophy. So, he would never agree to it to begin with. Some say because he was "fake." But it isn't that; organized fighting rejects his philosophy, which pretty much defined him.

He was a huge proponent of going for the balls and whatever it takes to win a fight as fast as possible. Hindering the fighter's options in a competition meant that it wasn't a fight.

The stories of him being challenged to real life combat on set, particularly when he was still in Hong Kong, are somewhere between real and dubious. He was definitely skilled at building his legend, so it's kinda hard to honestly separate what was real and what was pure myth with Bruce Lee.

 

[UsandThem]

I think the better question would be replacing Bruce Lee as the subject, and wondering how bad-ass Steven Seagal would have been in his prime?

 

[OccamsToothbrush]

Bruce Lee was tiny, around 5'7" and 130. There's a reason combat sports like boxing and MMA are broken up into weight classes, a good big man beats a good small man. Even if Bruce was the best ever at his size, and there's no reason to believe that other than optics, he'd be over matched against a highly skilled heavyweight. Believing in Bruce's omnipotence is like believing John Wayne would have been the deadliest gunfighter ever.

 

[Svnla]

Bruce Lee was tiny, around 5'7" and 130. There's a reason combat sports like boxing and MMA are broken up into weight classes, a good big man beats a good small man. Even if Bruce was the best ever at his size, and there's no reason to believe that other than optics, he'd be over matched against a highly skilled heavyweight. Believing in Bruce's omnipotence is like believing John Wayne would have been the deadliest gunfighter ever.

BL was a bit taller and heavier (5'8" and 150 lbs or so) but your point about weight is well taken. I edit the tittle and first post to add "same weight class".