Well, Bruce was certainly not an advocate of traditional martial arts. Most of us don't believe legends and such and regard them as allegory or metaphor to a larger lesson to be had, as they usually are that. Fighters come and go. We've all seen the kung fu and tai chi guy get tangled in the face game, yes. repeatedly thanks to some here. lol
The fact stands that Bruce didn't compete on an even amateur level in any type of full contact fighting.
Many fighters don't suck at all after hanging it up, but to everything there is a season. And most fighters have something to hang up when they are done. Movies are not real life and scenes are repeated over and over and over again. Camera angles are used and trust me, at no time was anyone on a martial arts movie set ever in danger of getting knocked out or into an actual fight while working on a film.
Making it to the top is not relevant to one being a fighter. One is that, or is not that. Pretty cut and dried. Bruce did make cool films with kung fu in them. That, he was indeed good at. I really enjoyed the Big Boss (Fists of Fury) and Enter the Dragon. Really good films in the MA genre and they still stand up today for people interested in the genre.
Bruce was an actor who used martial arts as part of his repertoire. Let him have that and there isn't any need to inflate his career into something it wasn't.