Bruce Lee vs. Jackie Chan

Lee trained at ChaCha... The stories of his street fights are myths; they were playground fights. His quickness is also a myth: Jackie Chan for instance is much faster.

Lee did try to set up his own martial arts school, albeit very unsucessfully: no street fighter or self-respecting professional uses Jeet Kun Do.

Lee was a jack of all trades, granted... He went to college to study philosophy (though he was not particularly gifted). He was a very driven individual and a master of self-promotion... His rippled look in films, for instance, was achieved with diuretics (which made him prone to diarrhea; and his friends report he did smell!).

Lee's sporting credentials are as a dancer, not as a fighter. He quite frequently cowered from challenges and martial arts competitions.

Lee did indeed meet Jackie Chan onset some of his films, and he was said to have been blown away by Chan's agility and power.

People, stop acting like dumba&&es and talking about things you know nothing of...

Yoplait wrote:

Courtney wrote:

Bruce Lee was a recognized top-class chacha dancer. He never was a recognized (or honoured) top-class fighter.

That's it; end of discussion.

Was he gay?

I don't know, but did you know he had an undescended testicle? Seems his steroids abuse was a way of overcompensating for his diminished manhood...

Enough w/ this debate.

What if God fought Superman?

I personnaly witnessed Bruce and Jackie doint some light sparring on set of Enter.. where I was working as a lights technical assistant (basically, fetching coffees for the Art Director). As fighters, they seemed fairly evenly matched though Jackie clearly had the edge in terms of speed and athleticism. There is no way of telling which way a real fight would have gone as Bruce never did go beyond light sparring (the stories of the daily challenges issued to him are pure fabrication, I'm afraid). One thing is for sure: Bruce did speak in very elogious terms -and with clear admiration- of Jackie's skills not only as a stuntman, but also as a fighter (Jackie helped Bruce refine his stance, and kicking technique).

I have since worked with Jackie onset of Rush hOur 2 and the Tuxedo; he is a mild mannered man with an incredible sense of humour, and -despite the years- he remains a skilled fighter. When asked about Bruce he has only praise for the man (an attitude typical of Jackie), but he does not rate him higher than other Hong Kong actors as a fighter.

"Linda Lee, his wife, even tells of a wacko who jumped into their own backyard one evening to challenge him; Bruce was so pissed that he kicked the man straight through the fence. Safe to say he was lucky to survive.

"

You can say that again... The man -one Peter Ford- was a 57 year-old neighbour of Lee's and he ended up in hospital with 3 broken ribs, and scratch marks on his left thigh (?), according to David Miller in the Tao of Bruce Lee... Peter Ford later reported his sole offence had been "to be looking for my dog!".

In many ways, Miller writes, this 'fight' is fairly typical of the challenges Lee claimed he was issued on an almost daily basis: most were playground fights, or fights against much weaker opponents (not martial artists) that had been instigated by Lee humself, in a state of inebriation.

Lovelace wrote:

I didn't know Lee was a ChaCha dancer... Is this bullshit? Isn't it a bit... gay?

Little known fact about Lee, but back at his peak, he was probably one of the only fighters in existence to suffer from penis envy.

'Course Van Damne took over recently...

this whole thread is a load of crock but sufficient merit for lets run

Why don't you take your two IQ points, rub them together, and see if you can start a fire...

Let's suppose someone purported to be an expert on running, and made movies about running. He gave demonstrations at a few all-comers meets, and there were even some legends about races run in alleys against some fast guys. But, this person never ran against anyone near the calibur of Alan Webb. How would this person compare to any world class distance runner? The answer is obvious.

They're all dorksdorksdorks.

math dude wrote:

Let's suppose someone purported to be an expert on running, and made movies about running. He gave demonstrations at a few all-comers meets, and there were even some legends about races run in alleys against some fast guys. But, this person never ran against anyone near the calibur of Alan Webb. How would this person compare to any world class distance runner? The answer is obvious.

You're pretty thick if you don't see the difference between running and martial arts. The latter divides into two categories; in the ring and on the street. Running does not. And Lee's streetfights are not only rumors; they have plenty of witnesses.

Now let's look at another situation:

The worlds fastest runner makes movies about running, and never runs in competitions. For some reason, there is no doubt that this runner would be labeled a fake no matter who he ran against in the park. And that's the thing about movies; once you make one, you're a fake at whatever you do. Because movies "aren't real". Pretty stupid, if you ask me.

Dave

Actually, YOU are pretty thick if you do not see that running can divide into the exact same categories.

Not like fighting, it doesn't. If you beat everybody on the track, you'll probably gonna be running fast in the park also. But by comparison, a sportsfighter has relatively little guarantee that he'll walk out from a bar fight on his own two legs. I've lost count of how many cocky tai-kwon-doe veterans I've seen having their asses handed to them in and outside the bar I worked over the years. High kicks looks good on screen and in tournaments, but usually ain't worth a damn on the street. Running and fighting simply cannot be compared that way.

Dave

To be honest, I never liked to compare Bruce with Jackie, they are different one from each other and with a very similar level, besides I have always respected him a lot as martial artist and philosopher. According to martial arts skills, If you ask me ,I prefer Jackie ,just because of his huge technique in different martial arts and in his deep knowledge of gung fu, in my opinion Bruce had not so many different resources to fight and just concentrated in wing chun and gung fu in general, Jackie is a great master of gung fu ,but knows all martial arts.All that joined to the fact that he received the most difficult and hardest training of all, during more than ten years ,practicing every day from 5 in the morning until 10 in the night! Needless to say that he is training martial arts during more than 40 years!

But anyways, Jackie and Bruce are both the best, both different and both necessary for martial arts and action movies

I think the more subtle truism here is that one does not become the best at anything without competing against the best, and working one's way to the top. This holds true in martial arts and in running. From all I have read, Bruce Lee did not compete against the best. Chuck Norris and others did. It is not easy to work your way to the top in anything, and that includes martial arts.

Chan wins hands down!

I don't know squat about fighting, but almost everyone here seems to agree that Chan would win, which I find a bit surprising considering the way kids at school talk about Bruce Lee... I hope the guy who said he was a chacha dancer was only bullshiting! (My mates reckon that's so gay, that's definitely not Bruce Lee!)

Put it this way: I'd rather be on the receiving end of one of Lee's punches than one of Jackie's. The man has real power and, as a fighter, he is more tidy than Lee ever was.

yeah, I wholly agree with bradkow words

Bradkow wrote:

Put it this way: I'd rather be on the receiving end of one of Lee's punches than one of Jackie's. The man has real power and, as a fighter, he is more tidy than Lee ever was.