Frank Shamrock coments on Bruce Lee

[Jai]

I just started watching the EliteXC fights on tonight. In the opening 5 minutes Frank Shamrock made this statement.

"Bruce Lee saw, back in 1975, over 30 years ago, the coming of Mixed Martial Arts. Bruce Lee is the godfather of MMA."

Your thoughts on this? Looking back and having read Bruce Lee's Tao of JKD I would actually have to agree with Frank on this one.

 

[Nolerama]

If you sit and think about it, then yeah, there's some truth in what Frank Shamrock is saying. JKD mixed a variety of MAs. So does MMA.

But then again, there's TV truth.

I'm watching the same thing. Frank Shamrock looks like an overtanned mannequin. His explanations of MMA terminology is kind of ironic, especially when talking about knees to the head. He got disqualified against Renzo Gracie for that same thing. They even showed that fight in particular.

"Fighting and making money and bringing home the bacon. Now THAT's sexy!"
-Frank Shamrock

 

[Jai]

Yeah that was um lame?

"Now I'll explain the do's and dont's"

Yeah he's a good one to explain how to get tossed in a fight.

 

[Jai]

And the more Frank talks, the more I wish he'd get back into MMA so someone would break his jaw and shut him up.

 

[MA-Caver]

And the more Frank talks, the more I wish he'd get back into MMA so someone would break his jaw and shut him up.

Mebbe Ole Frank is channeling Dux??

 

[Jai]

It's getting worse as the night goes on. The fights haven't even been that good. Barely watchable so far.

 

[FearlessFreep]

Who the heck said: "'Capitulate' is not in [his] vocabulary" ?

 

[Blindside]

"Bruce Lee saw, back in 1975, over 30 years ago, the coming of Mixed Martial Arts. Bruce Lee is the godfather of MMA."

Your thoughts on this? Looking back and having read Bruce Lee's Tao of JKD I would actually have to agree with Frank on this one.

Historically many many lineage founders mixed arts, Bruce Lee just got famous because of movies, he wasn't a pioneer at it.

I'd say he is more of a pioneer for MMA because he showed up in a speedo and those leather JKD gloves about 20 years ahead of everyone else.

Lamont

 

[Makalakumu]

IMO, Bruce Lee intended JKD to become MMA. There are all sorts of "organizations" that "codify" JKD based on what Bruce was doing 35 years ago. He never would have wanted that. A cursory look at the Tao of JKD makes this obvious.

IMHO, MMA is JKD. It's martial arts applied to a certain rule set. One finds what works best for them and then goes for it.

That is the essence of what Bruce Lee intended...

 

[Andy Moynihan]

I just started watching the EliteXC fights on tonight. In the opening 5 minutes Frank Shamrock made this statement.

"Bruce Lee saw, back in 1975, over 30 years ago, the coming of Mixed Martial Arts. Bruce Lee is the godfather of MMA."

Wow, looks like ol' Bruce was holding out on some of the abilities he'd developed, bein' as he "saw, back in 1975" what would happen when he died in '73.......:erg:

 

[Jai]

Wow, looks like ol' Bruce was holding out on some of the abilities he'd developed, bein' as he "saw, back in 1975" what would happen when he died in '73.......:erg:

omg Andy I didn't even notice that. Good observation.

 

[allenjp]

The thing about JKD is that while it was never intended to conform to any set "style" there were certainly unique concepts behind it. One of them is implied in its name: Jeet Kune Do means "the way of the intercepting fist". This is based on the theory that it is best to intercept an opponents attack with your own attack on their "weapon" (wether that be their arm, leg, or whatever). He was said to have learned this concept from european fencing. Also, a lot of the stand up punching techniques are pretty obviously derived from wing chun, where as you rarely see those kind of techniques being used by mma fighters in the ring. I also haven't seen any JKD practitioners training real ground techniques too heavily, they do train grappling, but not a lot of ground fighting. That is half of the game in mma.

 

[sgtmac_46]

Several guys caught the MMA trend ahead of their time.....Bruce Lee, Gene Labell.....Jim Arvanitis.........oh, and the ancient Greeks.

 

[sgtmac_46]

The thing about JKD is that while it was never intended to conform to any set "style" there were certainly unique concepts behind it. One of them is implied in its name: Jeet Kune Do means "the way of the intercepting fist". This is based on the theory that it is best to intercept an opponents attack with your own attack on their "weapon" (wether that be their arm, leg, or whatever). He was said to have learned this concept from european fencing. Also, a lot of the stand up punching techniques are pretty obviously derived from wing chun, where as you rarely see those kind of techniques being used by mma fighters in the ring. I also haven't seen any JKD practitioners training real ground techniques too heavily, they do train grappling, but not a lot of ground fighting. That is half of the game in mma.

At the time of his death, Bruce Lee was incorporating more and more grappling in to his game, ala the influence of Gene Labell and others.......had he not died I have little doubt he'd have hooked up with the Gracies in the mid to late 70's........but that didn't happen.

 

[thetruth]

I'm not sure Bruce Lee intended JKD to become MMA. Granted JKD is a blend of arts as is MMA but MMA is a sport and I doubt Bruce ever intended JKD to become a sport. MMA is as real as it gets in a sporting arena but is a world apart from street defense. Just my 2 cents.

Cheers
Sam:asian:

 

[tshadowchaser]

Bruce was trying to develop a fighting art that had no boundaries in what was studied under it. The “IF it works use it” concept was what he wanted people to recognize and use.

 

[sgtmac_46]

I'm not sure Bruce Lee intended JKD to become MMA. Granted JKD is a blend of arts as is MMA but MMA is a sport and I doubt Bruce ever intended JKD to become a sport. MMA is as real as it gets in a sporting arena but is a world apart from street defense. Just my 2 cents.

Cheers
Sam:asian:

The original intent for the UFC was the same as Bruce Lee's.......if we remember WAAAYYYYY back in the pre-historic era of the sport that many current fans probably aren't even aware of!

Well, that and to showcase Grace Jui-Jitsu......but same concept. But it's clear that Bruce Lee was a couple of decades or so ahead of his time. One can look at the Dog Brothers to see some other trends in that direction that have a DIRECT linkage to Bruce Lee, via the Inosanto academy and it's students who went on to form the Dog Brothers.

 

[thetruth]

The original intent for the UFC was the same as Bruce Lee's.......if we remember WAAAYYYYY back in the pre-historic era of the sport that many current fans probably aren't even aware of!

Well, that and to showcase Grace Jui-Jitsu......but same concept. But it's clear that Bruce Lee was a couple of decades or so ahead of his time. One can look at the Dog Brothers to see some other trends in that direction that have a DIRECT linkage to Bruce Lee, via the Inosanto academy and it's students who went on to form the Dog Brothers.

No the original intent was to have one art fighting another and for the Gracie's to educate the world on the need for ground skills (as you mentioned). The fighters realised that they had to develop skills in all ranges of fighting if they were to be successful and hence mma has developed to where it is today. Bruce Lee's concept of JKD may have been similar to where mma is today but mma developed out of necessity not out of foresight as JKD did and as I said mma is a sport, JKD isn't and was never intended to be this


Cheers
Sam:asian:

 

[Laoshi77]

Regardless of whether you like Frank he's correct. Many other MMA fighters cite Lee as a pioneer: Ortiz, Couture, A.Silva, Florian, Jon 'Bones' Jones, Ben Saunders the list is endless.

Larry Hartsell once remarked that Lee had intended to create a form of fighting competition and market it as something similar to what the UFC is doing now.

The time Hartsell made these remarks I believe was late-eighties before the popularity of MMA even became remotely prominent so it's not like there is any claim of 'jumping on the bandwagon'.

Maybe Gracie read the same article?


Namaste.

 

[punisher73]

Regardless of whether you like Frank he's correct. Many other MMA fighters cite Lee as a pioneer: Ortiz, Couture, A.Silva, Florian, Jon 'Bones' Jones, Ben Saunders the list is endless.

Larry Hartsell once remarked that Lee had intended to create a form of fighting competition and market it as something similar to what the UFC is doing now.

The time Hartsell made these remarks I believe was late-eighties before the popularity of MMA even became remotely prominent so it's not like there is any claim of 'jumping on the bandwagon'.

Maybe Gracie read the same article?


Namaste.

Gracies had been doing Vale Tudo long before the UFC. That was where Rorion got the idea. Yes, the early UFC's were also handpicked to highlight Gracie JJ.

As far as BL doing anything new, he was just the biggest and most famous mouthpiece. BL spent alot of time with Ed Parker (who was also a Judo BB and familiar with Danzan Ryu JJ and in the beginning had more ground techniques in his style) and exchanged ideas with him and introduced him to alot of other people. Parker spent a short time with Emperado in Hawaii where they had already created Kajukenbo which was a mixture of different styles and recognized the need to have all ranges of fighting from stand up to groundfighting. It seems highly unlikely that BL came up with his idea in a vacuum when he spent so much time with people already doing it.

Most of BL's Tao of JKD was notes taken from other sources and never cited (it was published as a money maker after his death from his private notes, he probably didn't mean for it to be published). BL was great at taking what other people did and making it own, but I don't really see him as the "founder" or source for MMA or "alive training" as some groups like to throw out there.

I always wondered where he would have ended up had he gotten older and more mature.