what if bruce lee was a boxer instead of a martial artist?

[BitPlayer]

Bruce Lee was much more a flm star, he was never really a serious fighter.

[littlepug]

Its strange to think he never lived to see how much more famous he was to become.

[Flump]

Its strange to think he never lived to see how much more famous he was to become.

Indeed. And a shame for us, I reckon there would be some seriously entertaining films with him given that he would have had the clout to get serious budgets from the studios and probably, as it was the 70's, some artistic freedom.

[Caractacus]

The thing that I remember about Bruce Lee back in the days (1970's)
when we saw him on the big screen like at the Drive-In (on a 70 FOOT SCREEN),
was that he rarely rarely ever got punched directly in the head but when he did he seemed to over-react to it a bit,
so possibly the judges in a boxing match could give his opponent extra points due to his re-actions.

[ron4972]

Isn't it the case that Bruce Lee never had a single sanctioned fight in a karate tournament? And even if he did, he certainly never won any regional or national or international titles in karate competition. Therefore, it's questionable how Lee would have fared if he had ever tried something like winning a formal national title, or gone to the Olympic Trials in karate. Never mind boxing.

Bruce Lee was a performance artist more than anything else. An actor who knew karate pretty well, and who knew how to look bedazzling in movies. Nothing more. He wasn't a world class competitive athlete.

[Caractacus]

Bruce Lee was much more a flm star, he was never really a serious fighter.

what ? you two must be a millenials or something.
Bruce Lee was one of the most serious dudes ever !

[Caractacus]

The thing that I remember about Bruce Lee back in the days (1970's)
when we saw him on the big screen like at the Drive-In (on a 70 FOOT SCREEN),
was that he rarely rarely ever got punched directly in the head but when he did he seemed to over-react to it a bit,
so possibly the judges in a boxing match could give his opponent extra points due to his re-actions.

Like what happens at 3:12 into this clip (See What I mean ?-except it was far more dramatic on the Big Screen in 1973 of course)

[Caractacus]

Let me in here. Bruce Lee was a movie star not a fighter.
.

Thank you expug.

Over the years I'v asked many Bruce Lee fans either face to face or over the Internet "Who did Bruce Lee ever beat?" and I have never got a reasonable answer.

The only documented 'fight' I've heard Lee getting into was when Gene Labelle smacked him silly backstage during the filming of I think The Green Hornet.

Sounds like an Urban Myth to me
Because here is some footage of Bruce Lee opening up a can of "whup-Ass" on Gene Labell on multiple occasions.
(BTW Bruce Lee was so fast you can't even remember seeing him doing that move that starts the video clip !)

[HomicideHenry]

LeBell did indeed beat up on Lee.

Lee was, for many years, focusing on striking and had little respect for grappling and he asked LeBell to come train with him at his house.

LeBell, long before MMA was a popular concept, was doing cross-training since he was a kid. In addition to judo, he was proficient in boxing and submission wrestling.

Lee, despite his speed and athleticism, simply was thrown around like a rag doll by the 220+ pound LeBell and because LeBell had experience in striking he knew how to counter strikes: which made him successful against Milo Savage most famously.

From that time on you start seeing Lee incorporating grappling moves and throws into his films, but it's clear that he never quite had the techniques down (as Bas Rutten and others have pointed out multiple times in videos).

The famous legend of Lee defeating Wong Jack Man is also under tremendous scrutiny. The two men were, at the time, nothing more than Wing Chun practitioners. The ONLY person who was there who said Lee flat out won was his wife.

Everybody else said that it was essentially a draw. Lee couldn't mount any kind of attack on Wong Jack Man that was significantly better than what Wong Jack Man was doing. Apparently that was enough for the old Asian masters to allow Lee to continue teaching.

What's clear is that from that time on Lee knew that using just one style wasn't enough, so he began mixing it up. For me, the radical change in styles is evidence enough for me that Lee didn't kick Wong Jack Man's ass like his wife made it out to be.

[Caractacus]

Bruce Lee weighed around 147 lbs,so LaBell outweighed him by 73 lbs !
but still,
Man,I refuse to believe it.
I gotta admit thoi,even tho I was a huge Bruce Lee fan from about 1973 to 1982
then my interest sort of left when I got more into Boxing.
I never heard that story anywhere back then,
so name some names that can collaberate it please.
Steve McQueen,James Coburn ?
who was there to witness it ?

[APerno]

Boxing is the Western World's marital art of unarmed combat.

Boxing, (minus the religious commitment usually associated with Eastern marital arts) holds all the attributes of the martial arts and places on its participants the same demands.

Learned skills that have to be mastered through repetition and personal training that demands a self discipline that amounts to a philosophical commitment; it tales a decade to create a real boxer just as it takes a decade for a man to master karate.

Assuming Bruce Lee was truly a great martial arts fighter, I am not really sure how we evaluate that, I have never seen or heard of the man actually fighting, but assuming he was, than there should be no problem with Bruce Lee becoming a great boxer.

In Bruce Lee we can see all that's needs to be there, is, and assuming some PAL association gets their hands on him when he is 12, and he is fighting in the Golden Gloves by the time he's 15, Yea Bruce Lee could have ended up a great LW.

Probably would have come out of the amateurs a featherweight and peaked at LW.

[dr_devious]

Lee had amazing speed and athleticism but could he take a punch? If not he'd be a washout as a boxer

[ron4972]

Lee had amazing speed and athleticism ...

But how could we know? After all, Lee never competed in tournaments. A fighter's athleticism can't be measured unless it's tested in actual athletic events.

[Sequitorian]

He would have outdone himself ... by being not only the world's worst actor ... he would also be the world's worst boxer ...

... and that's some accomplishment! ...

... (what a punk) ...

...

[gilgamesh]

We'll show them.....CHINESE BOXING!

[Caractacus]

Do you realize that this month (July 20) will mark the 45th anniversary of the death of Bruce Lee ?
I think a big part of the newby dissers of him are confusing him with the multiple Bruce Lee imatators
of him over the last 45 years.it has taken somewhat of a toll on the legend with their idiocy thinking
if they can look and make faces like him,they are him.

[Caractacus]

actually I remember this question being brought up years and years ago (back in 1975) when FIGHTERS magazine
did an in-depth article on the subject and interviewing some boxing experts of the time.
(unfortunately I can't remember which experts they asked because I didnt have enough money to purchase
the magazine at the newstand and the propieter told me to either purchase it it but it back on the rack)
but here is a link to prove what I just said anyways.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/RARE-6-75-FIGH ... 3006963223

[BroughtonRulesRefuge]

Bruce had 3 amateur boxing matches becoming Hong Kong Schoolboy champion. He had many wing Chun fights and also fought many challenges in America. He beat black belts and was a tutor to Chuck Norris, Joe Lewis, Mike Stone and Louis Delgado.

Yip man rated Bruce as around the fifth best in wing Chun when he left for the states aged 18. He travelled back to Hong Kong on a number of occasions and each time was better and would spar with those rated above him. The last time he went back to spar he sparred the best in the kwoon and from the look on Yip mans face he knew he had gotten the better of the guy. He surpassed the wing Chun guys cos JKD is far superior.
[/quote]


- Dawud telling like it is. Bruce had a few fights on the street and gyms, guaranteed, and with all the guys he taught including Norris and Lewis, I've never heard of anyone "getting the best" of him though certainly against a Joe Lewis in a real fight, he'd be severely size disadvantaged.

Lebell not anyone to be trifled with, but never the great athlete Lee was, and nobody holds it against him that he would likely have been a journeyman boxer and why should he be? He taught and learned from Lee and has had nothing but good things to say about him.

Anyone can see Lee was one of the greatest athletes ever, so the raging debate in the day was if he could beat Ali. Given Ali's sorry history of getting mauled in non boxing encounters, I'd give Lee a great chance, but no matter, Lee clearly superbly talented with the fighting intelligence needed to be a prized contender from 135-147. The only debate would be if he could be one of the greats, but he wasn't one to sit around fighting mugs for peanuts coming up the chain. He followed his own muse and mad his own rules, and the tragedy that befell him and later his son is one for the ages, R.I.P. It was Lee initially responsible for the huge surge in martial arts that netted the UFC 4 billion bucks recently.

What's Boxing's net value, A billion with 90% of the fighters making peanuts?

[Caractacus]

yeah, I do remember a interview with Bruce Lee where he said he fighted the British schoolboys back in Hong Kong.
Maybe he was talking about Boxing Matches.

[Caractacus]

here is a clip of some rare moments when someone lands a punch right on the chin of Bruce Lee
(especially that "haymmaker" at 2:52 of the clip.

[HomicideHenry]

You can't go against physics. "Mighty Mouse" in the UFC may be the best MMA fighter in the world p4p but there's no way that a 135-140 pound man is beating a Brock Lesnar or anything remotely close to that. Maybe a 265 pounder who doesn't know how to fight at all, but not someone with some ability and IQ.

[gilgamesh]

You can't go against physics. "Mighty Mouse" in the UFC may be the best MMA fighter in the world p4p but there's no way that a 135-140 pound man is beating a Brock Lesnar or anything remotely close to that. Maybe a 265 pounder who doesn't know how to fight at all, but not someone with some ability and IQ.

I doubt very seriously they'd have ever matched Lee against somebody so much bigger than him. Not in a legally sanctioned bout anyway. Maybe some weird exhibition bout like the Inoki vs Ali thing or something, but not a true, sanctioned contest.

[HomicideHenry]

I don't believe Lee could have ever beaten the likes of Chuck Norris, let alone a more sizeable fighter. Even at that, Chuck was 180 pounds. He'd be 40-50 pounds heavier than Lee. And he was every bit as fast as Bruce in his prime despite weight disparity.

I'm more fearful of the man who was continuously in world class competition than a glorified street fighter who taught celebrities out of his home. Iron sharpens iron. Battle prepares.

Lee never competed in his life. It reminds me of the unlicensed bareknuckle circuit with guys like Lenny McLean who claimed he never lost "on the cobbles" in a thousand fights. Even if it was true, he got embarrassed by preliminary pros. Even Cliff Fields, best of the bunch, got ate up by a damaged goods ex-European champion.

Lee had THE MIND for fighting and knew what it'd take to win. He had great powers of observation. But there's no way he'd of beaten guys like Bob Walls, Joe Lewis, etc in a straight up fight. In a no rules situation those guys are even more deadly. It wouldn't have benefited Bruce as much as people think.

[gilgamesh]

Bruce will definitely always be a case of "What if" and discussion amongst people, but yeah I'm sure that there were certainly a fair number of guys that could've beaten him simply because they were too big and strong for him to overcome.

If he had taken it upon himself to be a Lightweight or Welterweight boxer in the 70's he'd have arguably the greatest Lightweight of all time to contend with in Roberto Duran, and I think that would've been more than he could handle as well.

I have a lot of respect for Bruce, and I think he was the real deal in a lot of ways, but I certainly think it'd be a bit naive to truly think he could beat just ANYBODY in a fight.

I don't doubt he could've taken his fair share of dudes that were bigger than him, but not if they were close to him in terms of skill.

[HomicideHenry]

He'd of been a promoter and matchmaker's dream, that's for sure. Cus picture it, Lee decides to give professional boxing a try.

He doesn't even bother with the amateur scene: his natural speed and foot work would have probably been "too much" for a bunch of novices (ie, following the logic with the young Cassius Clay who was so quick he could make alot of mistakes and still come out ahead).

He's naturally 130, and decides to cut weight and compete at Featherweight , to give him a greater chance of success. The Featherweight champions from 1964-1973 when Lee was peak popularity, was the following Individuals:

Sugar Ramos
Vicente Saldivar
John Famechon
Howard Winstone
Jose Legra
Eder Jofre
Kuniaki Shibata
Clemente Sanchez

Etc etc etc... So if Lightweight was problematic with Roberto Duran... Featherweight is even more difficult of a climb to the top, but, most of these little guys had 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 bouts and I'll say Lee was such a fast learner and easily adaptable that it'd probably be 25-35 matches before he reached genuine contender status and had a legitimate shot at winning anything.

So.... In 35 matches (tops) or 25 matches (at least) could we earnestly navigate Lee to the world Featherweight title undefeated? It'd be an interesting excercise.