I never understood the obsession with Bruce Lee as a fighter (not considering his acting/stunt scenes here which deserve to be judged on their own merit), it seems any half decent Judoka or amateur boxer would have probably beaten him in a fight.
That's consistent with your comment getting down votes.
Snowflakes.
On the other hand, if you watch the movie until the end, it’s obvious that the movie has an unreliable narrator. We all know how the Tate/Labianca murders actually turned out. Not at all like the movie…
It kind of does though? I was a bartender at a very, very popular college bar. Often I was the only employee working Monday/Tuesday. I was a very scrawny, nerdy child-looking 20-year old.
I had to learn how to kick out championship D1 football stars, even pro NFL (actual) stars, if they happened to become belligerent those nights. We had all types of customers, including ones who specifically came in with intention to fight.
There was always some specific way to interact with them to make them leave of their own volition. Often with the biggest guys, it was to be aggressive and psychically “larger” than them. The smaller “fighty” dudes were usually the toughest, as they often felt they needed to prove themselves and I had to use a different tactic.
But what you describe “talking tough” was by far the most successful with the “much bigger guys”.
There is also another story where Gene supposedly choked out Steven Segal (who claimed his training would prevent it).
I have no idea if either is true, but personally if I was required to place a bet on a contest between a well trained and experienced grappler/shoot wrestler that outweighed his opponent (Kung Fu practitioner) by 75lbs…my money is on the grappler all day long.
I think people also like the idea that there can be these systems in place for hundreds of years, and an individual can come along and intelligence and hard work, can turn the systems upside down or develop something better.
That's what the Gracie family did with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Except they actually proved it worked by dominating the early years of UFC before they even introduced weight classes.
My interest over the years of Bruce Lee was much more from this perspective. Many stories talk about how hard he trained, and other aspects of essentially an underdog story. Combined with his communication[0], he comes across very thoughtful, and very grounded in many ways. Putting anyone on a “legend” status pedestal is always fraught with issues, but definitely a figure that inspired a lot of people.
certainly unreliable reports of him doing well in informal rooftop bouts amongst the various Wing Chun students in Hong Kong
there are also stories of him getting his ass kicked by William Chung and Wong Shun Leung (others of Yp Man's students) and being a petty little bitch and getting kicked out of Yp Man's school
Who knows. It's all apocrypha at this point
There are still people alive who witnessed these events first hand. I don't think first-hand accounts should be labeled apocrypha. But... maybe it means you doubt them? Fair enough.
Is apocrypha a reasonable word to use for that?