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

[Caractacus]

Junto Nakatani
height 5 ft 8"-
reach-68.5 inches
and another Southpaw !

[gilgamesh]

So does every win that every Black boxer ever got also boost the legacy of Denzel Washington?

And don't even get me started on all the Mexican Boxers. The success those other guys had absolutely PROVES that Danny Trejo could've and would've won titles if he had pursued them.

Whenever I saw Sergio Martinez spark out Paul Williams in their rematch. I was shaking in my boots at the thought of what Antonio Banderas could've done to a man in a fist fight. I mean plus he played a total badass in Play it to the Bone so you know he must've been one for sure.

[Caractacus]

Flyweight Champion -Pancho Villa-height 5 ft 1" (1.5 m)

[Ambling Alp II]

Not sure why this video is been shown, but he was a great fighter.

[Caractacus]

your not sure why this video is being shown ?
Do you think Pancho Villa could have takin Bruce Lee in a Boxing match-if Bruce Lee
had decided to become a professional boxer instead of continuing his acting career in Hollywood ?

[robbydecker]

I think he'd be okay in pure boxing but definitely considerably better in kickboxing or mma.

[pound per pound]

ok guys. imagine if bruce lee had trained to be a boxer instead of getting into martial arts. with his devotion to training, speed and power, i say that he would have been an all time great.

my guess is that at age twenty, he would have started out as at 122# and by age 30 topped out at 135-140. consider the era and the boxers from that time.

born in 1940, he would have started out in 1959-60. his height was about 5-7 and his reach was around 69". kick it around a little bit and let me know pro or con what you think?

oldwarrior

Bruce Lee was famous for his lightning-fast kicks, but those wouldn’t help him much in boxing, where you can only strike with your gloved hands .On the surface, he might have made a decent lightweight boxer. He had exceptionally fast hands and long arms that would give him good reach. However, he was never a particularly durable fighter and dealt with several health issues throughout his life.

Footage of his bag work shows that while his kicks were explosive, his punches lacked real power. He was never tested in full-contact kickboxing, boxing or karate matches ( was he? ), so it’s hard to say how he would have fared. His stamia and chin are ? marks. In my opinion, he wouldn’t have ranked among the top ten boxers in his weight class. That said, none of this changes the fact that Lee was incredibly quick and had an electrifying screen presence in his movies.

[Caractacus]

Check out those punch combinations at 1:05 and 2:30 of this clip !

[Caractacus]

check out those 'punch combos" at 3:40-,4:00 and 4:45
(have you ever seen any boxer do that ?)
just Imagine if John Wayne had "Super-Sonic" "Round-house" punching ability

[Caractacus]

check out that unique punch at about 0:43 (it strikes out from a weird angle)sort of like a back fist but turns to a regular fist at last second
followed UP by a 'Rapid fire 3 or 4 punch combo)

[Joson]

Guys...keep in mind that Lee was never a competitive athlete. Not in any sport, not even martial arts. The dude was a karate black belt, actor, and film producer.

[APerno]

Bruce Lee could never have been a professional prize fighter. His severe myopia would have left him completely blind to punches in the ring.

Director Roman Polanski's initial suspicion of Bruce Lee was quickly dispelled when the prescription of the sunglasses found at the Sharon Tate murder scene proved far too weak to match Lee's severe myopia.

[Caractacus]

[robbydecker]

Bruce Lee could never have been a professional prize fighter. His severe myopia would have left him completely blind to punches in the ring.

Director Roman Polanski's initial suspicion of Bruce Lee was quickly dispelled when the prescription of the sunglasses found at the Sharon Tate murder scene proved far too weak to match Lee's severe myopia.

Severe Myopia(Severe Nearsightedness), yes, I agree, and it's important that this is pointed out.
I developed the same thing, and therefore got glasses a month before I turned 13, and yeah, I hated wearing glasses, especially at that time, being very small for my age, so I made sure to get contact lenses exactly a year later, and I loved that they gave me such nice clear vision which really helped me in baseball, but obviously Boxing was completely out of the question/equation by then.

Being born in 1970 myself, I don't remember corrective Lasic eye surgery becoming a common thing until the late 1990's and earlier 2000's era, so I was already late 20's when I really started hearing about it but also the possible risk factors were always a thing to seriously consider and be very leery about so I ultimately concluded that it was simply not worth the risk, and therefore I just stuck with wearing contact lenses until my later 30's.

By 40 I couldn't even tolerate wearing contact lenses anymore because of excessive chronic dry eyes syndrome.
Contact lenses have always been great for baseball players, football players, soccer, hockey, and tennis, but not doable for boxing.
Taekwondo they seemed to be doable but still quite risky for even that specific modified fighting sports endeavor.
I still maintain my stance that Bruce would've been overall Okay level and So So level success in Boxing, and that's if he wasn't horribly nearsighted, or had been born many years later and had successful lasic eye surgery.
Kickboxing I think he'd be quite good/above average, and mma probably similar.

[goose 5]

Sherdog had a great interview with Billy Robinson in which he makes some disparaging comments about Lee's credibility. It's a great read-maybe a link can be found and posted ?

[Caractacus]

Billy Robinson ?
Never even heard of him.
and what is his 'Claim to Fame" exactly ?

[Caractacus]

Bruce Lee could never have been a professional prize fighter. His severe myopia would have left him completely blind to punches in the ring.

Director Roman Polanski's initial suspicion of Bruce Lee was quickly dispelled when the prescription of the sunglasses found at the Sharon Tate murder scene proved far too weak to match Lee's severe myopia.

Oh Yeah, what was his eyeglass perscription exactly ?
because I wanna look into this on a 'deeper" level.
(although I'm not an optomertrist of course )
I've been really near-sighted since I was 13
(went all 5 years of HS without any glasses and was not being able to see anything the teacher wrote on the chalk-board)
but I can still see anything just a few feet in front of me,
(and re-act to it accordingly)

[APerno]

Bruce Lee could never have been a professional prize fighter. His severe myopia would have left him completely blind to punches in the ring.

Director Roman Polanski's initial suspicion of Bruce Lee was quickly dispelled when the prescription of the sunglasses found at the Sharon Tate murder scene proved far too weak to match Lee's severe myopia.

Oh Yeah, what was his eyeglass perscription exactly ?
because I wanna look into this on a 'deeper" level.
(although I'm not an optomertrist of course )
I've been really near-sighted since I was 13
(went all 5 years of HS without any glasses and was not being able to see anything the teacher wrote on the chalk-board)
but I can still see anything just a few feet in front of me,
(and re-act to it accordingly)

I doubt very much I, or anyone else, except maybe his family would know those numbers.

I do know Bruce Lee was classified as 4-F in 1963 after failing his pre-induction physical for the U.S. Army. His myopia was the contributing factor to his 4F draft classification rejection.

We know it wasn't his overall health.

[Expug]

People make a big deal about hand speed in boxing. Sure, it’s important, but that alone ain’t enough.
For example, a guy can throw a ten punch combination , blazing fast, but if he stands right in front of his opponent, and his opponent has good timing, as well as keeps his hands up blocking the flurry, if the guy steps straight back after throwing that flurry, he can get nailed. Footwork and angles , as well as a lot of other things go into making a pro.

[goose 5]

Billy Robinson was a great catch wrestler. He also wrestled pro and trained Ric Flair and Sergeant Slaughter, among others.

[Controversial]

Who knows but Bruce Lee was primarily an actor, showman and entertainer, acting out scripted and edited fights scenes. Fights he wasn’t getting hit in, all fake. All performative. Plus of course he was the star of the films so was never going to lose. Looking ripped and being able to do high kicks etc looks impressive but as we all know it often means nothing in a fight.

[BroughtonRulesRefuge]

- Much ado over a one off physical specimen who could succeed in many sports.

I've been near sighted since 6th grade which made my life a pain in the keister because I was constantly having to take off my glasses to read the damn test I was taking. Fact is save for clearly seeing distant objects, I don't need glasses.

I played sports like padless tackle football at a high level without them where I caught long passes for TDs. Same deal as street football we played with teensy kiddie football as well as 2 below/flag football. In fact age 43 with my last football game was in Highschool age 18, now with some two bit punk kids who dominated my new job were riding me about my age, they started a rec flag football team.

Whereas before, my HS Qback always chose me 1st and we always won. This time old man me was chosen last as the punks chose their friends 1st. Last time that happened I was 4 yrs old. On the team we had a pro running back from the Kansas City Chiefs and defensive back from U of Houston with both still their early 20s.

This was purely a scrimmage in advance of our first game to sort the talent. I completely wiped em out. Defensively I knocked down a 19 yr old 250lb tackle who was a bit stupid for trying to go out for long passes. He couldn't make a decent cut because I was riding his fat ass and ran him over. Later my Mgr took a snap to pass a lateral to him as I was rushing him as the Qback. Bingo!!! I was on him faster than stink on shyte and slapped his fat fanny as he trying to make the cut for his run. He promptly started making wussy squeaking noises as he went down. He got up. "You just knocked me down."

"Yeah, two below," as I swept the air to show him how it's done.

I was thrown 2 passes, both long that I caught for TDs. The Chief's halfback was not my defensive assignment as he caught a pass across the field from me and was going in for an easy TD. Wait, don't tell me I didn't cut the angle to catch him. When it dawned on him what I was doing, he hopped up like the RoadRunner Cartoon for the sprint for the TD.

I pulled in and was catching him and could've lept out for a good fanny spanking, but that would've tumbled both of us with him coming up fighting. Everyone on the field could see me catching him, so that was a start of a new era at work as I proved myself as Top Dog.

In my 50s I was training on my heavybag with cotton socks wrapped around my hands as I knocked it all over creation that had the whole block of neighborhood dogs howling. After they got used to my daily routine, one day I had just started my rapid fire routine when a neighbor had a friend waiting for him in his garage office, his friend came running out looking shocked. He was a Korean Veteran thinking a machine gun was going off.

Ali stated in his training, when he could go 5 straight rounds on the HeavyBag, that meant he was in shape for the ring. I had a standing offer to fight the two biggest weinies in boxing, "Poppy" Hopkins and Daddy's Sissyboy Mayweather.

One day I went 27 rds at a super high pace like it was nothing but some sore hands.

I could go on, but fact is Bruce Lee whoops everyone on this forum, so time for the usual suspects to fess up and take your medicine...

[Caractacus]

Billy Robinson was a great catch wrestler. He also wrestled pro and trained Ric Flair and Sergeant Slaughter, among others.

what was he doing back in 1973 ?

[goose 5]

Robinson wrestled in the AWA in 1973 and, like I mentioned, he trained guys for Verne Gagne. You'd find his thoughts on how Archie Moore would do against a martial artist very interesting.

[Caractacus]

LW Champion Joe Brown was about the same height ( 5 ft 07")and weight and general physique as Bruce Lee had been.