Greatest Martial Artists in the World

[wushu chik]

I still say ME!

~Wen~

[apeters28]

Kung Fu guy quit being so stupid...Jet Li says he never trained to fight...he trained to be a wushu champion which he is awesome at...and if does study a style i apolgize. I didn't mean movie stars had to be excludedd, i was more looking for people who were more underground or more discrete. Also I never put down Bruce Lee, or claimed that just because you were in a movie meant that you weren't a real martial artists. Try reading the message before you decide to snap next time...

[lordabu]

Black

hmm we all seem to have forgotten the guys with the names. By this i mean the original monks and masters of each art.

Forget all these random names you guys are spitting out, those people who own arms of martial arts orginizations.

The best guys will always be those who haev dedicated their lives towards Martial arts, those are living a life of their own.

What about the monks in the chinese retreats? The indian yogis, masters of kalariyapit etc..

These hidden people are the best martial artists, they are the only true martial artists.

Lordabu

[MonkeySlap Too]

John C "Iron" Kim
Sin Kwang The'

[Mr. Nemo]

QeySus: I was just listing the current champs in the two major MMA promotions. If I had to name the greatest martial artists of all time, it might look something like:

Lee Su-Wen
Dong Hai-Chuan
Liu Yun-Chiao
Yang Lu-Chan
Royce Gracie
Kazushi Sakuraba
Igor Vovchanchyn
Randy Couture

[red_fists]

Quicky Question.:

Why do so many People list YL.F,
He was not the creator of Tai Chi.

Actually neither was the Chen Village,
It was Jiang Fa that internalised the moves and taught BOTH the Chen Village and YLC.

Some say that YLC got more than the Chen Village hence his style is softer than Chen TCC.

Also YLC was one of many teachers at the Court, the courts always looked for new styles to make their fighter more unpredicable.

Ok, back to your scheduled programming.

[qeySuS]

hhe k, i like your list too.

Although i feel that Sakuraba has had sooo many controversial and "could have gone either way" matches, like when he fought Royce (i had them pretty even but he did win), the Guy Mezger fight (draw that got changed into a win), Newton fight which was a greaaaat fight, man that was a ground war and both guys were doing great and i was expecting either one to win. Same with Tiger (i was impressed with Tigers escapes).

Only guys i remember him winning decisively (sp?) are the Gracies, and well that's not a small accomplishment but they have kinda lost their legend status (well to be honest they lost that BECAUSE of him but nontheless . He's always great fun to watch though.

And i dont watch UFC so i cant comment on Couture, the others i dont know (chinese names that is).

[King T]

I agree, some of the greatest and dedicated trainers are not known. I was in folken province( sorry pronounced in Cantonese), China and watched some of the greatest display of training and dedication, those people had to the art. The Shoalin monks would literately train in their sleep to eating dinner( Ma bu stance while eating). And they trained "beating" on each other to get used to the pain of fighting. There are " sleepers" out there. Besides what is known, is whom decides to be known.

[KungFuGuy!]

Heh, you call me stupid and then go on to make about 20 spelling mistakes. Good call.
Wushu may not be made for war or street fighting in mind, but nonetheless it's combat effective. Plus, wushu isn't the only thing jet has studied. You are still displaying that "martial artists is all about street fighting" mind set. Get off it, there's more to martial arts than fighting. Performing is one of the many aspects of martial arts, so if he chooses to specialize on that aspect, that makes him a lesser martial artist? Give me a break. You need to gain some perspective.
Why are you so self centered? I wasn't even talking to you about Bruce Lee, I made that clear in my posts.

[apeters28]

Whatever Jet can and can't do is completely fine because he is great at what he does. However, i was looking for traditional martial artists who train because of wanting to be a pure martial artist not because they want to be in movies. I think you need to gain some perspective because it was supposed to be an innocent question before you decided you wanted to shoot your mouth about something that wasn't supposed to cause conflict. Get a life!

[Colin]

Duh!
Jet Li is an ACTOR......
Bruce Lee was an ACTOR.
Van Damme is an Actor.
Dolf Lungren is an ACTOR (but he also fought and won)
hello!!!!!!!!!!
Actors act.
Next you'll be saying Mr Miyagi is a martial artist!

Real martial artists worth a mention would be:

Sun Lu Tang.

Gichin Funakoshi.

To put a label like "The greatest Martial artist" on anyone from BJJ is laughable! These guys are good at what they do, but really what do they do?
A handful of ground techniques and thats it!
Yes they are good at them, but theres a lot more to the complete package.

Surely to be a great martial artist, the person should have risen above the necessity to beat up another person for money and glory.

They should have achieved a state of peace and harmony within themselves.

They should hav given something positive to society, and helped those less fortunate then themselves.

And yes they should be able to kick ass.

please feel free to disagree with me, even though deep down inside, behind where your fragile ego lies, you know i'm speaking the truth!

kindest regards
Colin..........

[Highlander]

Why doesn't anyone ever mention Myomoto Masushi. I probably spelled that wrong, but I mean the guy that wrote the Book of Five Rings. He fought real life and death fights with a wooden sword against a blade and won them all. His writing is still considered a must read about combat.

Oh yea, and Conar McCloud - several fights a year for over 400 years without loosing his head. (I mean the real one, not the one you see in movies and on T.V.)

[Nichiren]

I will probably break the rules by choosing someone who is dead since long ago. I choose Miyamoto Musashi who lived in the feodal Japan. He won in over 60 sword duels and lived to tell the story. He also wrote the book Go Rin No Sho, The book of five rings.

D.a.m.n it Highlander! You and me must be connected or something. You beat me by seconds on that one... Amazing.

[KungFuGuy!]

Right apeters, I don't agree with you so I must have no life. Another good call
Even if I didn't have a life, I'd choose that over being an imature, ignorant little POS like yourself
So now in addition to being a great street fighter, you have to be traditional too? I guess that eliminates the gracies, bruce lee, and just about everyone else alive. Think about what you're saying, you look even more like an @ss now.

Colin, so what if they're actors? They were still trained in martial arts, and continue to train. Bruce Lee had 19 years of wing chun and developed his own martial art, but he's just an actor? So I guess none of you are actualy martial artists since you have a job on the side. Nope, Colin says you're all students, business men, computer programers, etc. Colin doesn't care if you've been taking northern mantis for 30 years, you're not a martial artist because you have a job that makes you money.

Come on guys, lighten up. There seems to be an extreme predjudice against martial artists who use their training to make money. They're doing what they love to do and make money for it, just be happy of their success and life will be a little easer. It sounds to me that all this spite is based on jealousy.

[apeters28]

Alright Kung Fu Guy i really don't feel like making enemies on a forum nobody will get anywhere. I do think you misunderstood what I meant in my post and I agree with about everything you've said so far. All I was doing was really trying to find biographys on people I may not have heard of. So good look with your kung fu training and thanks for you input.

Andrew