• KuroiKaze@lemmy.world
    254·
    25 days ago

    I really feel an as a lifelong martial artist and MMA practitioner that Bruce Lee’s fans have made him so insanely uncool that I don’t ever want to hear about him ever again. I am so tired of being told that all of the best fighters in the world would absolutely lose to him one-on-one and he had all these magic powers despite never fighting professionally on camera. He’s an actor first and foremost and he knew he wouldn’t do super well in professional fighting and hence never entered that arena.

    • phdepressed@sh.itjust.works
      241·
      24 days ago

      I mean the dude basically developed protein shakes and Jeet-kun do which is considered the precursor to modern MMA and jkd students have historically done well in professional fighting. He won a boxing tournament in Hong Kong before his US emigration. Obviously we don’t know how he’d fare in further professional fighting, but I think it is a reach to say he didn’t do it because he wouldn’t do well. He simply wanted to be an actor not a professional fighter.

      Yeah, he’s overhyped but he was still a cool dude.

    • otacon239@lemmy.world
      18·
      24 days ago

      I don’t think Bruce Lee being cool is dependent on whether or not he was a “real” martial artist. He can just be cool as an actor.

      I don’t think the comic is implying anything beyond this.