Quote:
Originally Posted by Chinaboxer
"In 1958, Bruce was “asked” to leave La Salle College (presumably for behavioral reasons), and was then enrolled at St. Francis Xavier, where his
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1) You are repeating the same tired old unsubstantiated claims. Even if all of this is true, and I am willing to accept it at face value, it means very little. This Gary Elms guy was not a boxer of any particular accomplishment. You cannot justify calling a guy a great fighter/legendary martial artist based on a questionable claim of having been successful in intramural competition against a nobody. Bruce Lee never beat any accomplished amatuer or professional boxer. He could have entered boxing competitions in the US if he chose to and he did not.
2) About the only "full contact Karate man" Bruce Worked with was Joe Lewis and this is what Joe has to say about him. Also, in the Mike Miles interview Joe says directly that Bruce Lee never produced a good competitive fighter and implies that Bruce Lee learned a lot more from him that he did from Bruce.
http://www.fightingmaster.com/legend.../interview.htm http://www.mikemiles.com/lewis.html
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Q8- The late Bruce Lee, who is a legend in most parts of the world, invited you to fight against him in the movie " The way of dragon". You did not accept that request and Chuck Norris played the role. Why did you not accept that request and do you have a special memory of Bruce?
Joe Lewis: Bruce Lee told me that he wanted to prove to the world that the Chinese martial artists were superior to all the other races, the Koreans, the Japanese, and in particular, the Caucasians. At that time, no one knew that "Enter the Dragon" was going to become a major $300,000,000 mega film. My advisors told me not to do martial arts films period. Bruce Lee was a five-foot, seven inch, 138 pound, non-combat type martial artist. I was strictly into combat and competition. I was almost six feet tall, 200 pounds. I didn't understand the point of why he wanted to ask me to allow him to beat me up in the film to prove this personal point of his. Of course, I wanted to do movies, but at that time and based on what my advisors told me, it just didn't seem like a good idea to fulfill someone else's ego trip. In retrospect, by telling him no or just avoiding getting involved with his films, you might say it was a major mistake in my life. Of course, I have special memories about Bruce. He was very intelligent and very creative, two things which I enjoy. He thought in principle. He had a high abstract intelligence. That's a thing I admire most in people. He also enjoyed physical development and fitness, two things which I like. I won art contests as a kid, and he was also a fabulous artist and enjoyed philosophy, two things on which we were both extremely hooked.
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While Joe goes out of his way not to bust on one of the most popular martial arts actors of our time, reading between the lines it is pretty damn obvious he didn't think much of his fighting skills. He says basically, I (Joe) was interested only in fighting and he (Bruce) was basically into philosophy.
This is exactly my point. You are more than welcome to claim Bruce Lee was a great action start and martial arts "philosopher" what ever that means. He didn't fight. He was not a fighter. Get over it.