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Thread: Bruce Lee vs. Gary Elms

  1. #1

    Bruce Lee vs. Gary Elms

    Anyone familiar with Bruce Lee's background has heard that he won an amateur high school Boxing tournament in Hong Kong. I've read that the Boxer that he won the championship against was Gary Elms, a 3-time champion of the event. There are a lot of Bruce Lee haters out there who doubt his fighting record and many say that they don't believe that Gary Elms exists. He's not on Boxrec. There's no official Boxing record for him reported anywhere but he wasn't a professional Boxer so I wouldn't expect there to be. I did read that there was an eye witness to the event who reported on it named Rolf Clausnitzer. In any interview Clausnitzer states that Gary Elms was a classmate of his at King George V School in Kowloon, Hong Kong. I notice that he posted on Kung Fu Magazine Forum a few years ago. Is anyone here still in contact with Rolf? I'd like to know if he or anyone else has verifiable evidence of the existence of Gary Elms. If we could get a picture of him that would be great.
    Last edited by MysticNinjaJay; 07-25-2014 at 11:00 AM.

  2. #2
    Does anyone know anything about this topic? I'm still searching for evidence of the existence of Gary Elms.

  3. #3
    People like to blow everything that bruce lee did up into a huge event...

    A bunch of high school kids in HK doing amateur boxing, and Bruce Lee MIGHT have won
    Big woopty doooooo!!!
    It isn't exactly like winning the golden gloves in NY, Chicago or Detroit

    BUt I supposed when you don't have much, you cling to what you got
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    Quote Originally Posted by taai gihk yahn View Post
    well, like LKFMDC - he's a genuine Kung Fu Hero™
    Quote Originally Posted by Taixuquan99 View Post
    As much as I get annoyed when it gets derailed by the array of strange angry people that hover around him like moths, his good posts are some of my favorites.
    Quote Originally Posted by Kellen Bassette View Post
    I think he goes into a cave to meditate and recharge his chi...and bite the heads off of bats, of course....

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by lkfmdc View Post
    People like to blow everything that bruce lee did up into a huge event...

    A bunch of high school kids in HK doing amateur boxing, and Bruce Lee MIGHT have won
    Big woopty doooooo!!!
    It isn't exactly like winning the golden gloves in NY, Chicago or Detroit

    BUt I supposed when you don't have much, you cling to what you got
    I agree that it isn't some major accomplishment but Bruce Lee critics won't even allow him that! They try to discredit anything involving Bruce Lee and real fighting.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by MysticNinjaJay View Post
    I agree that it isn't some major accomplishment but Bruce Lee critics won't even allow him that! They try to discredit anything involving Bruce Lee and real fighting.
    In large part that is because of all the outright lies the Lee camp has told and the scarcity of real events......

    Some might even suspect beating a "white kid" was more propaganda... wasn't good enough to beat some Chinese kids in HK

    And let us not forget that some dude who MIGHT have done SOME karate, maybe a few lessons at the YMCA? suddenly became some sort of Karate master....
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    Quote Originally Posted by taai gihk yahn View Post
    well, like LKFMDC - he's a genuine Kung Fu Hero™
    Quote Originally Posted by Taixuquan99 View Post
    As much as I get annoyed when it gets derailed by the array of strange angry people that hover around him like moths, his good posts are some of my favorites.
    Quote Originally Posted by Kellen Bassette View Post
    I think he goes into a cave to meditate and recharge his chi...and bite the heads off of bats, of course....

  6. #6
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    There are lesser known individuals with actual fight records.
    It's silly to attribute Bruce Lee as some great world champion fighter.
    He never was that.

    He was into martial arts, wrote about it and mostly, his focus was on being a movie star.

    It's not about not giving Bruce Lee credit as a fighter. It's more about the Bruce Lee fans needing to come to terms with the fact that he never really was one on a professional circuit making his bread and butter through fighting.

    Appreciate the man for who and what he was, and if that isn't enough for you, move on? His movies were great and they inspired a whole generation to start looking at Chinese martial arts. His books got people that were already into Asian martial arts a different perspective.

    Reality is important.
    Kung Fu is good for you.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by MysticNinjaJay View Post
    I agree that it isn't some major accomplishment but Bruce Lee critics won't even allow him that! They try to discredit anything involving Bruce Lee and real fighting.
    There are those critics who won't give BL credit for anything...and then there's the BL worshippers who view him as godlike. Back in the 70s, some people even compared BL to Jesus Christ, believing him a prophet, who also died at age 32(!).

    In recent years it's been happening in the Ip Man movies, portraying Ip Man as having beaten a "world heavyweight boxing champion," and able to easily take out 10 black belt karate men at one time. I know the movies are for entertainment, but the idea that Ip Man faced a "world champion boxer" in a supposedly semi-biographical movie is especially ludicrous, even in a fictional sense. A "foreign boxer" would have been enough.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by lkfmdc View Post
    In large part that is because of all the outright lies the Lee camp has told and the scarcity of real events......
    What outright lies are you referring to?

    Some might even suspect beating a "white kid" was more propaganda... wasn't good enough to beat some Chinese kids in HK
    Are you talking about Gary Elms? Why would his race matter?

    And let us not forget that some dude who MIGHT have done SOME karate, maybe a few lessons at the YMCA? suddenly became some sort of Karate master....
    Jesse Glover has a lot of detail about this in his book. I don't think he recalled the man's name but apparently he was a legitimate Japanese Karate Black belt who harassed Bruce Lee in to fighting him then got put in his place.

    Quote Originally Posted by David Jamieson View Post
    There are lesser known individuals with actual fight records.
    It's silly to attribute Bruce Lee as some great world champion fighter.
    He never was that.

    He was into martial arts, wrote about it and mostly, his focus was on being a movie star.

    It's not about not giving Bruce Lee credit as a fighter. It's more about the Bruce Lee fans needing to come to terms with the fact that he never really was one on a professional circuit making his bread and butter through fighting.

    Appreciate the man for who and what he was, and if that isn't enough for you, move on? His movies were great and they inspired a whole generation to start looking at Chinese martial arts. His books got people that were already into Asian martial arts a different perspective.

    Reality is important.
    I agree that he should be respected more for what he focused on: teaching, philosophy and acting. Bruce Lee fans, myself included, defend him as at least a decent fighter by the standards of the day because we feel that we are defending the credibility of a great contributor to the Martial Arts, indeed its greatest icon. I don't feel Bruce Lee was on the level of modern professional fighters like world champion Boxers and Mixed Martial Artists. I have heard interesting stories of him sparring with Karate champions and getting the better of them.

    Example:



    Then you have to consider that while he wasn't a professional fighter he did get in to fights. That Karate master in Seattle and Wong Jack Man in Oakland being two well-known examples but also Gary Elms and the other people he beat in the Boxing tournament. The Boxing tournament is significant to me because it is the only documentation of him in full-contact competition. But many Bruce Lee critics/haters don't want to give him credit for it. I want to see if we can verify or falsify the claim.

    Here's some more information on the fight.....

    From a 1982 edition of Black Belt Magazine:




    http://www.wingchun.com/ROLF.htm

    DP: So, how was their match together? As an eyewitness, what can you say about the fight?


    RC: His bout with Bruce turned out to be the most amazing and bizarre boxing match I have ever seen and expect to see. I honestly believe that Gary did not land even one single scoring punch throughout the entire 3 x 1 minute rounds, with Bruce deflecting and taking all of Gary's punches on his arms. Gary was knocked down several times, but he was not knocked out (contrary to what has been reported in various articles and books!) and, even more surprisingly, he did not appear to be hurt or distressed. Each time he was floored, he would immediately jump back up. That's why the referee did not stop the fight. Notwithstanding Gary's extraordinary toughness, I was amazed to see him survive the bout in such good shape. It was not until later when I caught up with Frank that some sort of explanation emerged.

    DP: Do you recall what your brother Frank told you about this?

    RC: Apparently, when Frank and his friends went to congratulate Bruce after the bout, Bruce was shaking his head and looking far from pleased with himself. His reply to Frank's obvious question was something along the lines of, "**** it, I couldn't knock the guy out". His rationalisation was that the large (16oz?) gloves neutralised the intended, penetrating effect of tilting the wrist on impact, a practice common to many Wing Chun practitioners (I gather he abandoned this practice in later years). He reckoned that this force was not penetrating the padding and, in any case, Gary was already being propelled backwards from the pushing impact of the glove. He swore that he would continue training until he could achieve the penetration he wanted. He also had his sights set on Peter Burton, a stylish and hard punching boxer from St George's School (which was exclusively for the children of British Armed Forces personnel in Hong Kong), a much bigger and heavier competitor who had TKO'd his opponent in the second round. By the way, Frank and I met Peter (who turned out to be half German as well) at a party a few weeks later and we talked about Bruce, but it's unlikely that such a bout would ever have been approved because of the weight and size differences and, in any case, Bruce left for the USA a few months later to begin a new chapter in his amazing life.

    Quote Originally Posted by Jimbo View Post
    There are those critics who won't give BL credit for anything...and then there's the BL worshippers who view him as godlike. Back in the 70s, some people even compared BL to Jesus Christ, believing him a prophet, who also died at age 32(!).

    In recent years it's been happening in the Ip Man movies, portraying Ip Man as having beaten a "world heavyweight boxing champion," and able to easily take out 10 black belt karate men at one time. I know the movies are for entertainment, but the idea that Ip Man faced a "world champion boxer" in a supposedly semi-biographical movie is especially ludicrous, even in a fictional sense. A "foreign boxer" would have been enough.
    His they really created quite a mythology with the Ip Man movies. Have you seen the movie Young Bruce Lee? The movie is about Bruce Lee as a teenager before he came to America. He was in a gang (really a group of friends goofing off) and he ended up getting in a fight with a British boy from a local school(based on Gary Elms). Bruce Lee ofcourse wins the Boxing match and then they have a rematch at a disclosed location with no rules. I found the movie to be entertaining but it also adds to the mythology of Bruce Lee with its fictional events.
    Last edited by MysticNinjaJay; 02-09-2015 at 03:23 PM.

  9. #9
    If you're kind; you say that his friends and family of course have fond memory of their friend, who died too young and was lost forever to them

    If you are little more cynical, you can suggest that many of them wouldn't have made the money, achieved the fame or become who they were if it wasn't for the cult of Bruce Lee
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    Quote Originally Posted by taai gihk yahn View Post
    well, like LKFMDC - he's a genuine Kung Fu Hero™
    Quote Originally Posted by Taixuquan99 View Post
    As much as I get annoyed when it gets derailed by the array of strange angry people that hover around him like moths, his good posts are some of my favorites.
    Quote Originally Posted by Kellen Bassette View Post
    I think he goes into a cave to meditate and recharge his chi...and bite the heads off of bats, of course....

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by lkfmdc View Post
    If you're kind; you say that his friends and family of course have fond memory of their friend, who died too young and was lost forever to them

    If you are little more cynical, you can suggest that many of them wouldn't have made the money, achieved the fame or become who they were if it wasn't for the cult of Bruce Lee
    Certainly Bruce Lee's friends and family have profited from the image of Bruce Lee and have motive to defend that image but I think the credibility of their claim should be based on evidence and logic. When Jim Kelly says that Bruce Lee was the Michael Jordan of sparring and untouchable I do have to express some skepticism for the claim because no one is untouchable but maybe he was at least impressive in sparring.

    What evidence though do you have that the Bruce Lee camp have outright lied about Bruce Lee?

    Why would you think the story of Bruce Lee beating a Boxing champion is less credible because the boy was White?

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by MysticNinjaJay View Post
    Certainly Bruce Lee's friends and family have profited from the image of Bruce Lee and have motive to defend that image but I think the credibility of their claim should be based on evidence and logic. When Jim Kelly says that Bruce Lee was the Michael Jordan of sparring and untouchable I do have to express some skepticism for the claim because no one is untouchable but maybe he was at least impressive in sparring.

    What evidence though do you have that the Bruce Lee camp have outright lied about Bruce Lee?

    Why would you think the story of Bruce Lee beating a Boxing champion is less credible because the boy was White?
    I'd like to know the answers as well.

    Personally, it has no bearing on what any of us can do in terms of fighting. I personally Bruce Lee's principles and philosophy intriguing because I studied with a few people under him, his stuff has worked for me plenty of times, namely: closest weapon to nearest target, always think of hitting, and forward pressure. His 5 ways of attack are also a genius example of what every martial art has to some degree.

    I quite frankly could give a rat's ass what most of you think about him or what he did or did not accomplish. Dave, I have great deal of respect for what you have done in your career, but I wonder what experience, if any, that you have had with the JKD community no matter how small.

  12. #12
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    Cool, it must be time for my annual posting in a Bruce Lee thread.
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  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Fa Xing View Post

    I wonder what experience, if any, that you have had with the JKD community
    yeah, I mean, 40 years in this ****, in a big city like New York and traveling around the country and the world, I must have never seen JKD...
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    Quote Originally Posted by taai gihk yahn View Post
    well, like LKFMDC - he's a genuine Kung Fu Hero™
    Quote Originally Posted by Taixuquan99 View Post
    As much as I get annoyed when it gets derailed by the array of strange angry people that hover around him like moths, his good posts are some of my favorites.
    Quote Originally Posted by Kellen Bassette View Post
    I think he goes into a cave to meditate and recharge his chi...and bite the heads off of bats, of course....

  14. #14
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    i dont care much for bruce lee as a martial artist but i can sympathize with him as a human being. trying to make it in the 60s hollywood is tough for a colored feller.

    its sad that in trying to break stereotypes bruce lee created a new one.

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    Quote Originally Posted by lkfmdc View Post
    yeah, I mean, 40 years in this ****, in a big city like New York and traveling around the country and the world, I must have never seen JKD...
    Kind of the reply I expected , I shouldn't have bothered.

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