Greatest Martial Artist Ever

Bigger Stronger Leaner
41

Bruce Lee did a lot for martial arts by popularizing it, that’s true, and by kind of promoting cross training. I’ll give you that.

But it’s overblown myths in my eyes. He was supposedly great at unarmed combat, but never fought in the ring.

He was supposedly a “Warrior” but never fought in a war. All we have are these “legends from the Orient” about his fighting prowess in the streets, which is no different than shit I hear around here about streetfighters I know.

I’ll take McCann, or any Vietnam vet who was at Khe San, or any WWII vet who fought on Iwo Jima, over a guy like Bruce Lee any day. Fuck, I’ll take a guy like Roberto Duran or Floyd Mayweather Sr. or Bernard Hopkins over him … those boxers that were particularly adept at fighting in the streets.

I really hate talking about this. His myth is such a joke.

42

[quote]ZEB wrote:

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:

For pure warrior/soldier, I’d also pick McCann. But again, in an unarmed one on one fight, I think Lee would come out on top. [/quote]

What’s interesting is that other than some anecdotal stories of Lee’s great fighting prowess we really have nothing to base this on. He was never involved in military hand to hand operations. He never held a championship belt. He was never tested by the best of his day. This cannot be said for others of his day such as Joe Lewis, Chuck Norris, Benny Urquidez (who I feel would have handed Lee his head). And the many others who fought and became champions. Lee chose to become a movie star and in so doing spread martial arts through out the world, as you’ve already stated. But as far as a fighting champion I’m not buying any of the Lee folklore.[/quote]

I totally agree with this.

You’re a sport fighter, you prove it in the ring or in competition. You’re a soldier, or a true warrior, you go to fuckin war.

You’re a streetfighter, that’s great, but I’ve seen - first hand - how stories about fights get blown out of proportion.

Just yesterday, I had a friend of mine tell me, for the millionth time, about the time that I kicked a guy in the face with steel toed boots.

Allegedly I stopped signed someone some years back when he was on top of one my friends during a fight. Somehow this turned into me booting some kid in face with steel toe boots, even though I’ve never owned a pair.

But alas, this is how rumors get started. And if you become an actor, EVERYBODY has a story to tell about you from “back in the day.”

43

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Bruce Lee did a lot for martial arts by popularizing it, that’s true, and by kind of promoting cross training. I’ll give you that.[/quote]

All he really did was basically take old Taoist and Buddhist sayings and bring it to the masses. He never said much that wasnt said before but because he had a media outlet to get his sayings out there he got credit as some kind of philosopher.

His Style of JKD basically is what military men have understood since combat started. You cant have one style in a battle. You have to adapt and only use what is effective because everything else gets you killed.

I guarantee if you went to a battlefield before gunpowder you didnt see spinning jump kicks or other flashy moves we see in movies. It was one two kill. Thats all the time you had before the other guy killed you. Even Bruce Lees movie style fights would be ineffective in actual combat.

Like its been said the problem with him is we dont know what he did because its all stories and movies.

44

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
But it’s overblown myths in my eyes. He was supposedly great at unarmed combat, but never fought in the ring.
[/quote]

Well, technically that’s not true. Lee was the 1958 Hong Kong Inter-School amateur boxing champion (he defeated 3 time British boxing champ Gary Elms to win the title).

True, he was not truly a “warrior” (in the sense of being a soldier).

McCann is a legit warrior in the battlefield sense. Though, he was in Vietnam in the early 80’s, not war time. Bit of a difference between being in Iwo Jima during WW11 and being in Vietnam in the 80’s. Not that I’m trying to downplay his service.

There really can be no comparison made between a veteran like McCann and Lee from a battlefield experience standpoint, nor have I ever tried to suggest there should be. Guys like Duran, Mayweather Sr, or Hopkins would all be legit great martial artists. I don’t think that Lee would have beaten any of the greats of boxing (especially in the ring), but again, I don’t think McCann would fair any better (honestly probably not as well IMO).

45

[quote]punchedbear wrote:
All he really did was basically take old Taoist and Buddhist sayings and bring it to the masses. He never said much that wasnt said before but because he had a media outlet to get his sayings out there he got credit as some kind of philosopher.
[/quote]

Well, technically he did receive a BA in Philosophy from the University of Washington, so he actually was a philosopher (though admittedly not a revolutionary one by any means). He did however have a knack for thinking outside the box and getting his students to also think about things in an abstract way.

True. Yet, at the time, there were many, many martial arts practitioners out there (including boxers) who didn’t appreciate that concept. Nationalism and loyalty to a certain system was the norm at that time.

Absolutely. But Lee was also acutely aware of what looked good on screen and what didn’t. Real martial arts are not pretty, they don’t make the audience go “oooooohhhhhhhh” when they see them performed (at least not the general public). So, one has to throw in more flashy types of techniques.

But, you also have to keep in mind that at the time when Lee made his films the norm in martial arts movies was much, much less realistic than what Lee portrayed. We are talking about stuff like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Iron Monkey, or The Matrix types of ridiculous wire stunts, people performing superhuman feats of speed or strength, and all manner of other exaggerated reality stuff.

[quote]
Like its been said the problem with him is we dont know what he did because its all stories and movies. [/quote]

Most of it yes. There is some film of him sparring, demonstrating, and training, and there are corroborated/documented accounts of some of his fights. But I’ll agree that much of it is undocumented.

46

Just wanted to mention that this book is pretty cool.

It’s pretty childishly written, and the info presented I think is sometimes questionable, but it was a fun, short read.

47

Just wanted to mention that this book is pretty cool.

It’s pretty childishly written, and the info presented I think is sometimes questionable, but it was a fun, short read.

48

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:

[quote]punchedbear wrote:
All he really did was basically take old Taoist and Buddhist sayings and bring it to the masses. He never said much that wasnt said before but because he had a media outlet to get his sayings out there he got credit as some kind of philosopher.
[/quote]

Well, technically he did receive a BA in Philosophy from the University of Washington, so he actually was a philosopher (though admittedly not a revolutionary one by any means). He did however have a knack for thinking outside the box and getting his students to also think about things in an abstract way.

True. Yet, at the time, there were many, many martial arts practitioners out there (including boxers) who didn’t appreciate that concept. Nationalism and loyalty to a certain system was the norm at that time.

Absolutely. But Lee was also acutely aware of what looked good on screen and what didn’t. Real martial arts are not pretty, they don’t make the audience go “oooooohhhhhhhh” when they see them performed (at least not the general public). So, one has to throw in more flashy types of techniques.

But, you also have to keep in mind that at the time when Lee made his films the norm in martial arts movies was much, much less realistic than what Lee portrayed. We are talking about stuff like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Iron Monkey, or The Matrix types of ridiculous wire stunts, people performing superhuman feats of speed or strength, and all manner of other exaggerated reality stuff.

[quote]
Like its been said the problem with him is we dont know what he did because its all stories and movies. [/quote]

Most of it yes. There is some film of him sparring, demonstrating, and training, and there are corroborated/documented accounts of some of his fights. But I’ll agree that much of it is undocumented.[/quote]

One story that floated around, and still does in some circles was the time that Gene LeBell took on Bruce Lee on the set of the Green Hornet. According to the story LeBell had Lee curled up in a ball on the floor and was pummeling him within a matter of a couple of minutes.

Of course this may or may not be true. But I would trust it as more than any of the stories where Lee was the victor in a street confrontation. The reason being that I believe Lee made up many of those confrontations to glorify his fighting ability so that he could capitalize on this as a movie star. Whereas there really was no point to spreading a LeBell story other than the fact that it was probably true.

So, if this is true does this make Judo Gene LeBell one of the greatest martial artists who ever lived?

49

[quote]ZEB wrote:

So, if this is true does this make Judo Gene LeBell one of the greatest martial artists who ever lived?[/quote]

It depends.

Has he been in a movie?

50

[quote]ZEB wrote:

One story that floated around, and still does in some circles was the time that Gene LeBell took on Bruce Lee on the set of the Green Hornet. According to the story LeBell had Lee curled up in a ball on the floor and was pummeling him within a matter of a couple of minutes.

Of course this may or may not be true. But I would trust it as more than any of the stories where Lee was the victor in a street confrontation. The reason being that I believe Lee made up many of those confrontations to glorify his fighting ability so that he could capitalize on this as a movie star. Whereas there really was no point to spreading a LeBell story other than the fact that it was probably true.

So, if this is true does this make Judo Gene LeBell one of the greatest martial artists who ever lived?[/quote]

The story I heard was that Lee always had to be the cock of the walk. So on the Green Hornet set he was telling everyone how he would fuck up LeBell, and eventually the two had words (maybe about stunt work). LeBell headed off the fight by picking Lee up over his head, LeBell being a heavyweight and Lee being 135, and carrying him around. Lee was screaming “Put me down, I’ll kick your ass!”. Gene replied “I can’t put you down, you’ll kick my ass.” This continued until everyone, including Lee was laughing. Gene was a professional, and I doubt that he would have roughed up the star. After the altercation, I have no doubt LeBell would have been able to handle Lee.

Regards,

Robert A

51

I would say Gene Labelle is indeed one of the greats.

course that’s cause I love Judo.
and we are talking of Martial artists- sadly not of badasses.

Speaking of Judo has no one mentioned

Mashiko Kimura

probably one of the greatest ‘modern’ Judoka’s ever.
His gift to us- "My Judo’ chronicles his life and training.

He started in the 5th grade and by his 20’s was arguably the best Judo player in all of Japan.
Highly skilled and ruthless also a reader of Mushashi
and later studied karate a few types and Boxing.

Post war he became a pro Judo player- and a Pro wrestler out of necessity
which led to his Famous bout with Helio Gracie where He broke Helios arm via the lock now named Kimura.
He competed in what you could call some of the very early vale tudo in Brazil in the mid 50’s

He also brought Judo- the finest Judo with him when he taught all over the world.

Kimura is kind of a footnote to the Gracie Family.

the Gracie Vale Tudo rules - and the mystique of Gracies them selves was born.

Helio is a story unto himself - a smaller guy- 6th dan in Judo invents and bastardizes his own system
need to give him props.

just saying yo.

52

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]ZEB wrote:

So, if this is true does this make Judo Gene LeBell one of the greatest martial artists who ever lived?[/quote]

It depends.

Has he been in a movie?[/quote]

OK, that’s funny.

Just so everyone gets who ZEB is referencing.

This guy:

When everyone from Bob Wall, Bill Wallace, Bruce Lee, and Chuck Norris to modern day MMA fighters such as Karo Parisyan and Bas Rutten say the guy is a beast I tend to believe it. LeBell grew up boxing and grappling and is a legend in both the martial arts and stunt communities.

The Foreward he wrote to his Encylopedia of Finishing Holds may be my favorite quote on teaching the martial arts.

“When a teacher dies, a world of knowledge is lost forever. That’s why I have no secrets. So when I die, cast my ashes to the four winds for as long as my students live and teach, I will live”

He also likes to fuck around. A man after my own heart.

Regards,

Robert A

On Lee

Cross Face to neck crank

53

Ancient MMA right here.

54

I had forgotten about Gene LeBell. I read one of his books once (have no idea how I came across it). The man has a penchant for buffoonery that few can match. I remember one of the techniques he showed was something like “Hair Grab attack from Headlock”.

(Assailant has Gene in a headlock)
(Gene grabs hair and pulls hard)
(Gene gets handful of wig)
(Assailant decks Gene in the face)
(Assailant goes to kick Gene on the ground)
(Gene grabs leg and goes for Single Leg Takedown)
(Gene gets handful of prosthetic leg)
(Assailant decks Gene in the face)

55

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
His myth is such a joke.

[/quote]

What myth? all I see are people that actually sparred with him saying how good he was. Movies that show how fast he was. Based off the information they had they formed an opinion that he was the best ever, and to be honest if all my favorite guys thought he was the best that would make me a believer. But far as a myth something with no factual basis, it’s just not the case with Bruce Lee.

Matching elite fighters against each other is pretty much based on match-ups. Every fighter has a case where he will lose and a case where he will win. What makes a fighter truly great is his character, which is why so many admired Bruce Lee. He had the opportunity to train with everything from 7’1 basketball players to the greatest Boxer of all time and he took it. He did not train different methods he studied them, studied their application. Studied the body and how it works. AND he trained night and day. These are not myths this is what he actually did.

56

[quote]ZEB wrote:

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:

[quote]punchedbear wrote:
All he really did was basically take old Taoist and Buddhist sayings and bring it to the masses. He never said much that wasnt said before but because he had a media outlet to get his sayings out there he got credit as some kind of philosopher.
[/quote]

Well, technically he did receive a BA in Philosophy from the University of Washington, so he actually was a philosopher (though admittedly not a revolutionary one by any means). He did however have a knack for thinking outside the box and getting his students to also think about things in an abstract way.

True. Yet, at the time, there were many, many martial arts practitioners out there (including boxers) who didn’t appreciate that concept. Nationalism and loyalty to a certain system was the norm at that time.

Absolutely. But Lee was also acutely aware of what looked good on screen and what didn’t. Real martial arts are not pretty, they don’t make the audience go “oooooohhhhhhhh” when they see them performed (at least not the general public). So, one has to throw in more flashy types of techniques.

But, you also have to keep in mind that at the time when Lee made his films the norm in martial arts movies was much, much less realistic than what Lee portrayed. We are talking about stuff like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Iron Monkey, or The Matrix types of ridiculous wire stunts, people performing superhuman feats of speed or strength, and all manner of other exaggerated reality stuff.

[quote]
Like its been said the problem with him is we dont know what he did because its all stories and movies. [/quote]

Most of it yes. There is some film of him sparring, demonstrating, and training, and there are corroborated/documented accounts of some of his fights. But I’ll agree that much of it is undocumented.[/quote]

One story that floated around, and still does in some circles was the time that Gene LeBell took on Bruce Lee on the set of the Green Hornet. According to the story LeBell had Lee curled up in a ball on the floor and was pummeling him within a matter of a couple of minutes.

Of course this may or may not be true. But I would trust it as more than any of the stories where Lee was the victor in a street confrontation. The reason being that I believe Lee made up many of those confrontations to glorify his fighting ability so that he could capitalize on this as a movie star. Whereas there really was no point to spreading a LeBell story other than the fact that it was probably true.

So, if this is true does this make Judo Gene LeBell one of the greatest martial artists who ever lived?[/quote]

Well, actually I would consider LeBell as one of the greats of the 20th century (at least as far as grappling arts).

What actually happened on the set of the Green Hornet is that the stunt Coordinator Benny Robbins told LeBell to go put a move on Bruce (both to see if he would actually do it and how Bruce would react), so Gene picked Bruce up fireman’s carry style and proceeded to run up and down the length of the set with him on his shoulder. Bruce was not a happy camper and kept yelling, “put me down or I’ll kill you!” So, LeBell ran down the length of the set again.

Bruce again said, “put me down!” To which Gene replied, “I can’t put you down or you’ll kill me.” Finally, Gene sat down and started talking to Robbins and the other crew members with Lee still on his shoulder and Lee eventually crawled off. They all had a good laugh and then continued filming.

After that they became friends and would train together and teach each other things from time to time.

This only goes to show that LeBell was a better grappler than Lee (which I don’t think anyone, including Lee had he still been alive, would argue with). Heck, if you want to go that route then you would definitely have to put Joe Lewis ahead of Ali on the list since Lewis picked Ali up several times with a fireman’s carry and pinned him.

57

[quote]kmcnyc wrote:
I would say Gene Labelle is indeed one of the greats.

course that’s cause I love Judo.
and we are talking of Martial artists- sadly not of badasses.

Speaking of Judo has no one mentioned

Mashiko Kimura

probably one of the greatest ‘modern’ Judoka’s ever.
His gift to us- "My Judo’ chronicles his life and training.

He started in the 5th grade and by his 20’s was arguably the best Judo player in all of Japan.
Highly skilled and ruthless also a reader of Mushashi
and later studied karate a few types and Boxing.

Post war he became a pro Judo player- and a Pro wrestler out of necessity
which led to his Famous bout with Helio Gracie where He broke Helios arm via the lock now named Kimura.
He competed in what you could call some of the very early vale tudo in Brazil in the mid 50’s

He also brought Judo- the finest Judo with him when he taught all over the world.

Kimura is kind of a footnote to the Gracie Family.

the Gracie Vale Tudo rules - and the mystique of Gracies them selves was born.

Helio is a story unto himself - a smaller guy- 6th dan in Judo invents and bastardizes his own system
need to give him props.

just saying yo.[/quote]

Good additions.

Since you mentioned pro wrestling, I’d also like to add:

Frank Gotch
Ad Santel
Karl Gotch/Charles Istaz
Lou Thesz

58

[quote]rundymc wrote:

Ancient MMA right here.[/quote]

Thanks for posting that video. Certainly one of the coolist things I’ve seen in this part of T Nation in a long time.

59

[quote]Airtruth wrote:

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
His myth is such a joke.

[/quote]

What myth? all I see are people that actually sparred with him saying how good he was. Movies that show how fast he was. Based off the information they had they formed an opinion that he was the best ever, and to be honest if all my favorite guys thought he was the best that would make me a believer. But far as a myth something with no factual basis, it’s just not the case with Bruce Lee.

Matching elite fighters against each other is pretty much based on match-ups. Every fighter has a case where he will lose and a case where he will win. What makes a fighter truly great is his character, which is why so many admired Bruce Lee. He had the opportunity to train with everything from 7’1 basketball players to the greatest Boxer of all time and he took it. He did not train different methods he studied them, studied their application. Studied the body and how it works. AND he trained night and day. These are not myths this is what he actually did. [/quote]

And none of that (even if it were all true) makes him one of the greatest marial artists in history.

60

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:

[quote]ZEB wrote:

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:

[quote]punchedbear wrote:
All he really did was basically take old Taoist and Buddhist sayings and bring it to the masses. He never said much that wasnt said before but because he had a media outlet to get his sayings out there he got credit as some kind of philosopher.
[/quote]

Well, technically he did receive a BA in Philosophy from the University of Washington, so he actually was a philosopher (though admittedly not a revolutionary one by any means). He did however have a knack for thinking outside the box and getting his students to also think about things in an abstract way.

True. Yet, at the time, there were many, many martial arts practitioners out there (including boxers) who didn’t appreciate that concept. Nationalism and loyalty to a certain system was the norm at that time.

Absolutely. But Lee was also acutely aware of what looked good on screen and what didn’t. Real martial arts are not pretty, they don’t make the audience go “oooooohhhhhhhh” when they see them performed (at least not the general public). So, one has to throw in more flashy types of techniques.

But, you also have to keep in mind that at the time when Lee made his films the norm in martial arts movies was much, much less realistic than what Lee portrayed. We are talking about stuff like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Iron Monkey, or The Matrix types of ridiculous wire stunts, people performing superhuman feats of speed or strength, and all manner of other exaggerated reality stuff.

[quote]
Like its been said the problem with him is we dont know what he did because its all stories and movies. [/quote]

Most of it yes. There is some film of him sparring, demonstrating, and training, and there are corroborated/documented accounts of some of his fights. But I’ll agree that much of it is undocumented.[/quote]

One story that floated around, and still does in some circles was the time that Gene LeBell took on Bruce Lee on the set of the Green Hornet. According to the story LeBell had Lee curled up in a ball on the floor and was pummeling him within a matter of a couple of minutes.

Of course this may or may not be true. But I would trust it as more than any of the stories where Lee was the victor in a street confrontation. The reason being that I believe Lee made up many of those confrontations to glorify his fighting ability so that he could capitalize on this as a movie star. Whereas there really was no point to spreading a LeBell story other than the fact that it was probably true.

So, if this is true does this make Judo Gene LeBell one of the greatest martial artists who ever lived?[/quote]

Well, actually I would consider LeBell as one of the greats of the 20th century (at least as far as grappling arts).

What actually happened on the set of the Green Hornet is that the stunt Coordinator Benny Robbins told LeBell to go put a move on Bruce (both to see if he would actually do it and how Bruce would react), so Gene picked Bruce up fireman’s carry style and proceeded to run up and down the length of the set with him on his shoulder. Bruce was not a happy camper and kept yelling, “put me down or I’ll kill you!” So, LeBell ran down the length of the set again.

Bruce again said, “put me down!” To which Gene replied, “I can’t put you down or you’ll kill me.” Finally, Gene sat down and started talking to Robbins and the other crew members with Lee still on his shoulder and Lee eventually crawled off. They all had a good laugh and then continued filming.

After that they became friends and would train together and teach each other things from time to time.

This only goes to show that LeBell was a better grappler than Lee (which I don’t think anyone, including Lee had he still been alive, would argue with). Heck, if you want to go that route then you would definitely have to put Joe Lewis ahead of Ali on the list since Lewis picked Ali up several times with a fireman’s carry and pinned him. [/quote]

I’ve read the account which you are referring to. But I’ve read other accounts that claim LeBell put Lee on his back rather quickly after they squared off. But once again who knows if it happened? I’ve also read accounts that He choked Steven Seagal till he was out cold. But of course most who know martial arts know that Steven Seagal is a fraud.