Bruce Lee

[truewrestler]

I'm just going by what WJM said according to that article:

In pre-Revolutionary China, fights to the finish were often allowed by law, but Wong knew that in modern-day America, a crippling or killing blow, while winning a victory, might also win him a jail sentence.

That, says Wong, is why he failed to deliver a devastating right-hand blow on any of the three occasions he had Lee’s head locked under his left arm. Instead, he says, he released his opponent each time, only to have an even more enraged Bruce Lee press on with his furious attack.

I take it that he thinks he could have killed Bruce with a strike while holding him in the 3rd Grade Headlock. Edit: Just the fact that he "boasted" that he had someone in the headlock was very strange.

Also....

"He would never say he lost until you killed him," says Wong. And despite his concern with the legal consequences, Wong says that killing Lee is something he began to consider. "I remember thinking, ‘If he injures me, if he really hurts me, I’ll have to kill him."

So he couldn't beat him with out killing him? I don't get it

[red5angel]

If he injures me, if he really hurts me, I’ll have to kill him."

He WAS trying to end the fight in other ways, the problem according to WJM was that BL wouldn't give it up. WJM was beating him pretty soundly but BL was enraged, which matches his personality even according to BL himself, and would not let up. He even began the match by trying to strike at WJM's eyes. Now if it was me, I would probably feel the same way except that at that point, if you don't want to stop trying to hurt you, I may just try to kill you anyway and leave your body for someone else to find.

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

i don't give a flying fu ck but one thing i'm seeing here is that those words were written by a journalist not the dude in question. a journalist that might not have even spoken the same language primarally.

[truewrestler]

the problem according to WJM was that BL wouldn't give it up

Was knocking him out too much of a chore for him? Did he think Bruce should have tapped out to the 3rd grade headlock? Does he not know how to choke someone out?

Good point GunnedDownAtrocity

[truewrestler]

Maybe MMA has just raised my standards

I'm done with the line of discussion tiring

[red5angel]

Maybe MMA has just raised my standards

get over yourself and MMA, it's one way of fighting but not hardly the best.

[truewrestler]

[red5angel]

I thought you were done

I didn't realise I was getting into a discussion with someone who isn't about to open his mind a little. It's disappointing truewrestler because you have some great insight into grappling at times. Unfortunately you also have blinders on and that limits the usefulness of your comments because now they only can come from one context, disallowing other oppurtunities. To people like you, in may different arts and disciplines there is only one real answer and I am sad to say this just isn't true and is proven in a thousand different wasy everyday.

[truewrestler]

please explain...

I'm completely open to anything that works -- unfortunately the 3rd grade headlock just isn't one of those things

[truewrestler]

(unless you are Carlos Newton )

[red5angel]

you're ready to dismiss any possibility unless it basically includes some sort of mma, or so you are coming off. I would like to think you're smarter then that, no offense intended, but I am sure that there are quite a few TMA people that understand a basic headlock can be got rid of in a lot of different ways.
As it pertains to the argument, I told you I agreed a basic headlock is next to useless against anyone who knows any better, but there are several possibilities, either BL didn't know how to deal without, unlikely but possible which might explain his desire to train in more sportive type events, so he can learn to handle that sort of thing. Another possibility is that BL may have been to high strung at that point to react rationally to even the simplest of moves. A third is that something is lost in the written description of what was going on.
Your disdain for his decision to have to kill BL if BL didn't stop in trying to hurt him, pointing out a choke hold would do nicely also belies your mma tendancies. Maybe there was a different mentality about things back then? Maybe again the translation from oral to written record got confused, maybe WJM was flustered enough to not be thinking about holds or chokes? It doesn't mean he didn't know them or couldn't use them, and as you imply pretty heavily in our posts, it doesn't mean that because he doesn't study MMA he couldn't pull something like that off. Maybe he wasn't interested in that.
Who really knows what happened? I base my opinions on the research I have done. BL is a big part of the martial arts mythos, something that interested me for a time so I looked into all of it the best I could. I came to my own conclusions. those conclusions did not include me disallowing any eventuality because someone didn't have modern training

Let me tell you something about what I have learned in the last few years especially, it doesn't matter what you have bene learning, what it comes down to is who has the bigger heart and who has the highest skill level. Sure there are a few bad schools out there teaching crappy martial arts but for the most part the majority of it can and does work. Some may not work for one venue, while others may or may not work so well on the street. It's a ridiculous thing to argue whether your art or style is better then anothers and shows signs of immaturity and ignorance in my opinion. Only the young and the very stupid even bother to get into an argument like that.
There are some guys on this site who know their stuff, some of them are MMA some of them are TMA. One thing almost all of them have in common is that they understand it isn't really the art at all.

[truewrestler]

you think so? well in that case Bruce could bite his testicles.

seriously though, you are exactly right... I'm sure WJM could have delivered a "killer blow" from many different or any standing headlock positions.

http://www.bullshido.com/dl_goto.asp?id=33

[truewrestler]

End of the work day... I'll respond to you later red5angel

just want to mention again that I am all for anything that works

[red5angel]

sigh, I don't know if I am prepared to have this conversation anymore today anyway. It could be that I am seeing something that is not there, who knows.

[PHILBERT]

Originally posted by truewrestler
Was knocking him out too much of a chore for him? Did he think Bruce should have tapped out to the 3rd grade headlock? Does he not know how to choke someone out?

Good point GunnedDownAtrocity

The match didn't exactly have a referee, so you should assume that if Bruce indeed were to tap out from the headlock or choke, WJM then lets go to keep from injuring Bruce, do you think Bruce would just stop? Or do you think he'd get up and start fighting again even though he tapped?