Bruce Lee Changed The World

I was just watching this show right now on History Channel, it’s confirmed that Bruce Lee was la verga. It’s hard to imagine anyone else with as much impact on pop culture as Bruce Lee. One person that did come to mind though was Arnold Schwarzenegger. That fool was a beast of his time as well. Arnold brought body building to the mainstream and many look up to him to this day.

But still, the focus is on Bruce Lee. The man was a savage, he had advanced knowledge of protein drinks, physical training, and efficiency. His Jeet Kun Do fighting style was the ultimate adaptation of old school fighting style to real world fighting, something MMA is to this day inspired by. Bruce Lee crossed racial boundaries to where he got people from other cultures and races looking up to him. That is quite an accomplishment. Any martial aritst coming after him needs to pay their respects to the pioneer. It was cool to see Jackie Chan give him props since he was a stunt double in one of his movies. Even he says that there can only be one Bruce and that it’s futile to try to reproduce him, the best you you can do is go on your own path and carve your own niche.

There was a time where I heard that Jet Li could take on Bruce Lee if he were alive at the time. After seeing Bruce Lee movies and being refreshed on Bruce Lee footage, I highly doubt that. No disrepect to Jet Li because that dude is a savage in his own right, but I find it hard to bet cleanly on anyone trying to dethrone the legend. Even seeing some of the footage right now that’s slowed to one fourth of the speed, it’s hard to see his blows coming. La verga de the one inch punch and Jeet Kun Do, Bruce knew what it took to win a street fight. The closest element to his practice is MMA today, like his daughter said, I think he would be a very active participant in the sport today.

One segment of the show that I found lacking was the videogame portion of it. RZA made a good point that it’s hard to find a martial arts game without the Bruce Lee influenced character, I guess the producers weren’t too familiar with the business so I’ll go ahead and list the characters that pay homage to the legend, Marshall Law in Tekken, Jan Lee in Dead or Alive, and Liu Kang in Mortal Kombat:

Of course this isn’t the definitive list, there’s still Fei Long from Street Fighter…. only goes to show the deep inpact to the world Bruce Lee had.