Quote Originally Posted by Knifefighter View Post
By all accounts, Lee was amazingly fast. Was he a great fighter? He probably was better than a lot of martial artists of his time, but more than likely, not as good as athletes like boxers and wrestlers (Judoka/wrestler Gene Lebell easily handled him when they mixed it up) who were regularly going full force and competing against other equally skilled and conditioned opponents.

Lots of karate guys were impressed with him, but you have to remember, they were all doing point fighting at that time and this was probably the first time they were exposed first-hand to someone whose idea of training was to work in a more "live" type of context and actually do some hard sparring.

Additionally, lots of people who trained with Lee "played his game". That is, a lot of his teaching involved working in Wing Chun's chi sao drills. Lee was a master at these types of drills and could easily outclass and awe his training partners, although it really wasn't any type of measure of real fighting ability. Much of what Lee was able to do to impress people didn't have a whole lot to do with fighting another skilled fighter.
And keep in mind, KF knows many people who trained with LEE or descend from Lee's teachings...