Bruce Lee studied Muhammad Ali’s footwork obsessively and said publicly he’d be most afraid to fight him. Here’s what he actually took from that study and why the comparison matters beyond the fantasy fight.
The claim that Bruce Lee invented MMA is too strong. The claim that modern mixed martial arts developed entirely independently of him is too weak (as examined in our guide to modern fighters who credit Bruce Lee). The actual relationship is specific enough to trace through individual fighters, coaches, and events, and it’s more interesting…
Brandon Lee was eight years old when his father died (the sudden loss explored in The Mystery of Bruce Lee). He grew up in Los Angeles with his mother Linda, his younger sister Shannon, and the peculiar inheritance of being Bruce Lee’s son: recognized everywhere, assessed constantly, given access that required performance to justify. He…
The year was 1966. A television producer named William Dozier had just cast Bruce Lee as Kato in The Green Hornet, and someone at ABC decided to advertise the show in Hong Kong as The Kato Show. Not The Green Hornet. The Kato Show. Because in Hong Kong, audiences weren’t coming for the title character….
Bruce Lee argued for cross-disciplinary martial arts training in 1967. The first UFC was in 1993. The twenty-six year gap between when he said it and when competition confirmed it at scale tells you something about how far ahead he was.