Michael
2005-02-12 23:53:37 UTC
Hello, all.
Before I begin, I want to discuss some incorrect statements that have
been made in the past about Bruce Lee in relation to Muhammad Ali: Bruce
Lee modeled his “karate” after Ali, Bruce supposedly said that he
wouldn’t be able to beat Ali in a boxing match, Bruce wasn’t that quick,
Bruce wasn’t powerful enough, and Bruce Lee didn’t know how to box.
If anyone has even spent half an hour studying Bruce Lee, they would
know that this isn’t true. Bruce did not only study Karate, but rather,
he studies all martial arts--if the “method” had any sort of fighting
involved in it, then Lee studied it. While it may be true that he did
study Ali’s method--which I’m sure he did, since Bruce Lee was a student
to the ways of martial arts--that does not mean that he admired Ali. In
fact, all it means is that he studied pretty much everyone’s fighting
skill regardless of how good or bad they were.
If one is a doctor, they don’t ignore other doctor’s procedures for
surgery. If they did ignore all other doctors, we wouldn’t know what
kills someone or what works--the same is true for any student. Going by
this way of thinking, which is common sense, instead of it being a “bad
thing” that Bruce was smart enough to study other fighters, it would be
looked upon a bad thing if Ali did not study Bruce--Bruce was just
another fighter with different methodologies and someone that Ali could
have learned something from. So, yes, I’m sure he did look at Ali’s
methods a couple of times and found out what was effective and not
effective. But, that does not imply that Bruce was a follower of Ali,
nor does it mean that he thought his method was an “end all solution” to
martial arts--which he most certainly did not.
Bruce never made any claims about Ali and him in a fight. If one looks
at “Bruce’s answer”, one can obviously see that it was not worded in his
same manner of speaking. With that, Bruce had spent sometime studying
boxing, and like everything he studied, he mastered it. While we have
no real way of proving this or not, I imagine that Lee could easily beat
any professional boxers that were in his weight division. As far as
heavyweights are concerned, it would not be a given like it would be for
boxers of his own weight, but I am more than confident that Lee could
hold his own against any heavyweight boxer in boxing and win the match.
Bruce was faster than the archival footage one sees. It is truly a
shame that we do not have better recordings of Lee’s training and
fighting, because this myth really is a widely accepted falsehood. One
thing to remember, friends: when watching one of his movies, he was told
to slow down his kicks and punches, because the cameras at the time
could not capture the speed of his moves--I believe this more than
speaks for itself. Now, if we watch one of his archival training videos
or one of his fights, it appears that Lee is taking part in the film,
Blazing Saddles: his punches and kicks are so fast that they do not
appear to be actually doing the move. Whereas, if we watch Ali’s
fights, we can more than see the speed of his punches, and we can
obviously see that he is no where as fast as Lee was. Granted, this
does not really prove anything one way or the other about the exact
speed of either fighter, but it’s an interesting piece to remember when
contrasting the two fighters.
Bruce had the power in punching and kicking to compete with anyone then
or now. While this becomes difficult to prove, I can assure everyone
that Bruce was the genuine article in terms of fighting. He could
literally use any method--that is to say, fighting style--against any
master of such a method, and come out ahead. This became so, because
when he tried to express himself, he would look at other methods to see
if they offered any pieces of his missing puzzle. Bruce was always on a
quest for knowledge, friends, and even though many believe his method to
be sheer perfection, Bruce certainly did not view it that way--he was a
professional student who was always expanding upon his own, unique method.
Bruce knew how to box. Bruce knew literally just about every forum of
fighting and he mastered all of them that he studied. This can
obviously be seen in his use of weapons. Bruce did not care for weapons
in his older age, but while he was a youngster, he was fascinated by
weapons--as all youngsters are. As a true student of martial arts,
Bruce had his father show him how to use a couple weapons, then Bruce
began to read books on these weapons. After a short time of drastic
studying, he decided that he had learned enough about them, then moved
onto other avenues of studying. He never spent a lot of time studying
weapons, so it becomes more than obvious his level of master that which
he studied: if he spent anytime on any forum, he didn’t leave that forum
until he mastered it.
Now that those falsehood have been better explained, I want to move onto
the subject at hand: whether or not Bruce Lee would have whipped
Muhammad Ali in a boxing match. I would definitely say yes, and I
believe that Lee would plow right over Ali. Regardless of how tall or
big Ali was, Bruce had two advantages: speed and power. Even though Ali
was “lighting fast” for heavyweights, he couldn’t match Lee in speed.
Regardless of how powerful Ali was in the boxing ring, he could not
match Lee in power.
I know that in writing this, I’m going to get a lot of extremely
negative statements from “the followers of Ali”, and that is fine. What
I am proposing with this debate is that we have a healthy, educated, and
well-informed discussion on the matter at hand. I will not stop reading
someone’s post and jump down their throat about it, and I expect
everyone reading this to extend the same respect. Besides for that, I
hope that we will conduct this discussion in a gentlemanly way: we will
respond in a clear, new, and on topic post, and we will not “embed our
responses” in one another’s posts. Meaning, when we respond to someone,
we will either keep or delete what they said, then began a new post
“under that person’s name”.
Yours truly,
Michael
Before I begin, I want to discuss some incorrect statements that have
been made in the past about Bruce Lee in relation to Muhammad Ali: Bruce
Lee modeled his “karate” after Ali, Bruce supposedly said that he
wouldn’t be able to beat Ali in a boxing match, Bruce wasn’t that quick,
Bruce wasn’t powerful enough, and Bruce Lee didn’t know how to box.
If anyone has even spent half an hour studying Bruce Lee, they would
know that this isn’t true. Bruce did not only study Karate, but rather,
he studies all martial arts--if the “method” had any sort of fighting
involved in it, then Lee studied it. While it may be true that he did
study Ali’s method--which I’m sure he did, since Bruce Lee was a student
to the ways of martial arts--that does not mean that he admired Ali. In
fact, all it means is that he studied pretty much everyone’s fighting
skill regardless of how good or bad they were.
If one is a doctor, they don’t ignore other doctor’s procedures for
surgery. If they did ignore all other doctors, we wouldn’t know what
kills someone or what works--the same is true for any student. Going by
this way of thinking, which is common sense, instead of it being a “bad
thing” that Bruce was smart enough to study other fighters, it would be
looked upon a bad thing if Ali did not study Bruce--Bruce was just
another fighter with different methodologies and someone that Ali could
have learned something from. So, yes, I’m sure he did look at Ali’s
methods a couple of times and found out what was effective and not
effective. But, that does not imply that Bruce was a follower of Ali,
nor does it mean that he thought his method was an “end all solution” to
martial arts--which he most certainly did not.
Bruce never made any claims about Ali and him in a fight. If one looks
at “Bruce’s answer”, one can obviously see that it was not worded in his
same manner of speaking. With that, Bruce had spent sometime studying
boxing, and like everything he studied, he mastered it. While we have
no real way of proving this or not, I imagine that Lee could easily beat
any professional boxers that were in his weight division. As far as
heavyweights are concerned, it would not be a given like it would be for
boxers of his own weight, but I am more than confident that Lee could
hold his own against any heavyweight boxer in boxing and win the match.
Bruce was faster than the archival footage one sees. It is truly a
shame that we do not have better recordings of Lee’s training and
fighting, because this myth really is a widely accepted falsehood. One
thing to remember, friends: when watching one of his movies, he was told
to slow down his kicks and punches, because the cameras at the time
could not capture the speed of his moves--I believe this more than
speaks for itself. Now, if we watch one of his archival training videos
or one of his fights, it appears that Lee is taking part in the film,
Blazing Saddles: his punches and kicks are so fast that they do not
appear to be actually doing the move. Whereas, if we watch Ali’s
fights, we can more than see the speed of his punches, and we can
obviously see that he is no where as fast as Lee was. Granted, this
does not really prove anything one way or the other about the exact
speed of either fighter, but it’s an interesting piece to remember when
contrasting the two fighters.
Bruce had the power in punching and kicking to compete with anyone then
or now. While this becomes difficult to prove, I can assure everyone
that Bruce was the genuine article in terms of fighting. He could
literally use any method--that is to say, fighting style--against any
master of such a method, and come out ahead. This became so, because
when he tried to express himself, he would look at other methods to see
if they offered any pieces of his missing puzzle. Bruce was always on a
quest for knowledge, friends, and even though many believe his method to
be sheer perfection, Bruce certainly did not view it that way--he was a
professional student who was always expanding upon his own, unique method.
Bruce knew how to box. Bruce knew literally just about every forum of
fighting and he mastered all of them that he studied. This can
obviously be seen in his use of weapons. Bruce did not care for weapons
in his older age, but while he was a youngster, he was fascinated by
weapons--as all youngsters are. As a true student of martial arts,
Bruce had his father show him how to use a couple weapons, then Bruce
began to read books on these weapons. After a short time of drastic
studying, he decided that he had learned enough about them, then moved
onto other avenues of studying. He never spent a lot of time studying
weapons, so it becomes more than obvious his level of master that which
he studied: if he spent anytime on any forum, he didn’t leave that forum
until he mastered it.
Now that those falsehood have been better explained, I want to move onto
the subject at hand: whether or not Bruce Lee would have whipped
Muhammad Ali in a boxing match. I would definitely say yes, and I
believe that Lee would plow right over Ali. Regardless of how tall or
big Ali was, Bruce had two advantages: speed and power. Even though Ali
was “lighting fast” for heavyweights, he couldn’t match Lee in speed.
Regardless of how powerful Ali was in the boxing ring, he could not
match Lee in power.
I know that in writing this, I’m going to get a lot of extremely
negative statements from “the followers of Ali”, and that is fine. What
I am proposing with this debate is that we have a healthy, educated, and
well-informed discussion on the matter at hand. I will not stop reading
someone’s post and jump down their throat about it, and I expect
everyone reading this to extend the same respect. Besides for that, I
hope that we will conduct this discussion in a gentlemanly way: we will
respond in a clear, new, and on topic post, and we will not “embed our
responses” in one another’s posts. Meaning, when we respond to someone,
we will either keep or delete what they said, then began a new post
“under that person’s name”.
Yours truly,
Michael