Re: Bruce Lee Boxing Connection Article

nice article, but honestly, i am really tired of reading opinions from boxing exerts about lee or other martial artists.

the statement of dan inosanto wasnīt really that good, it was just a question of time ītil the boxing experts will say something to it. if inosanto thinks lee could have ranked in the top 3 of the welterweight or junior-lightweight devision itīs his opinion, but it was not intelligent to make it public.

i donīt want to write the writer of this article an e-mail, but i tell you guys here what i think about it:

maybe lee could have been a great boxer, but itīs just speculation. it is simply a question without answer. roger federer could have been a great table tennis or badminton player, but he is definately a great (for many the greatest ever) tennis player.

itīs true that joe lewis once stated "bruce was not a fighter, he was a teacher", but he was asked again what he meant with this statment. according to my knowledge, he said with "fighter" he meant "professionel fighter" (sport fighter, combative sportsman), but knew lee had all the tools to be a great no rules fighter (street fighter).
he himself stadet once "if lee wasnīt the greatest martial artist of all time, then certainly he is the leading candidate", this statment you will never hear from any boxing fan or lee detractor. and to call someone a great or the greatest martial artist in the believe he canīt fight makes no sense, because martial art is the art of real fighting, not of sport fighting (which is combativ sport, MMA, boxing, k-1 aso.).

the word "professinal fighter" sounds so great, but in fact it doesnīt mean more than "sport fighter" or "combative sportsman".

to be honest, i have my problems to call guys like ali or robinson real FIGHTERS, like the boxing fans always do. they are sport fighters which fights in very limited rules calls queensberry. THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH REAL FIGHTING!
martial arts is for the street, and there is no ref, no points, no judges, no ropes, no gloves and especially NO rules! in a street fight it isnīt important how big/small heavy/light you are, itīs important to hit first a vital target like eyes, throat, balls, knee and such things.
even a guy like the largest combative sportsman on the planet, 7ft2 (218cm) 352-367lb. (160-166kg) k-1 fighter choi hong-man would be fatal hurt by such kind of attacks (which arenīt allowed in boxing or any compativ sport).

MMA is much closer to real fighting as boxing, and i would call guys like fedor, couture, liddell and the rest of them more "fighters" than any professional boxer or k-1 fighter.

not forgot the opionions from sugar ray leonard and muhammad ali about lee, both have a lot of respect of lee as a martial artist. ali told it jhoon rhee, and leonard says: "my left jab comes from bruce, i wanted to do in boxing what he did in martial arts."


my conclusion: bruce lee would have been might be a great boxer, but this is just speculation. but if or if not, itīs not important. he is you can say recognized as the greatest martial artist of the 20th century, even by many as the greatest ever. the documentary "human weapon", produced by the history channel in 2007, calls him "...arguably the greatest martial artist of his time, or any other."
and HW is a very serious documentary about martial arts, to this day produced 15 or 16 episodes.

it is not important to speculate how good he could have been as a boxer, he was a great, maybe the greatest martial artist.
in my mind, he was the miyamoto musashi of unarmed martial arts.

take care