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Ali-vs-Lee

Monday, 01 April 2013 15:11

by Guru Scott McQuaid

Foreword

My first introduction to combat was when I was only six years old. I followed my older brother to our local boxing gym and it was there I learned the basic principals of punching. I soon turned my attention to the martial arts after seeing the Bruce Lee movie ‘Enter The Dragon’. I began training in karate but after two years I found myself back in the boxing gym working the bag.

I would not step in a dojo again until I was fourteen years old when I took up Ju-Jitsu; shortly after I started to train in Muay Thai boxing alongside the Japanese style. After two years of both these arts I resorted once again back to the western pugilistic square ring.

I was sixteen when I enrolled in a Wing Chun class and although I enjoyed the fast hand techniques I was not happy with the footwork so I left the class and by chance stumbled onto the art I have been practicing for the past two decades. The Indonesian style of Minangkabau Silek Harimau.

To me this art had everything I desired from a combat system and although I have since dabbled in various other silat styles, this art has always been my preferred art. This said, I still maintain a level of boxing fitness, training once a week in general circuit training. I have always considered myself as a fighter first and a silat practitioner second. I think there are many great martial art technicians within their specific style but very few actual fighters within their art.

The evolution of MMA (mixed martial arts) has helped bridge the art of boxing and martial arts and today's octagon gladiators showcase great skill in both these areas. Indeed MMA has now become its own official style of combat bound by the rules within a sport.

The ultimate question posed to me growing up was the matter of who would win in a fight, Bruce Lee versus Muhammad Ali. As a student of both these combat styles I cannot give a simple answer without asking more questions.

 

‘Too much time is given to the development of skill and too little to the development of the individual for participation’.

--Bruce Lee

In pubs across the world every now and then an argument arises of who would win in a fight between three time world heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali and a renown martial arts master and actor Bruce Lee.

These legends in their own respected combative styles are perceived as invincible and almost superhuman. In 1976, Hong Kong released a cartoon called ‘The Story Of The Chinese Gods’. This animated film featured Bruce Lee fighting off ancient Gods for the Shang Dynasty emperor. The cartoon is very graphic and it has Bruce Lee literally beating Gods to their deaths.

In 1978 DC comics released a comic book titled Superman-vs-Muhammad Ali  whereby the story evolved around a boxing match between Superman and Muhammad Ali which is broadcast on intergalactic television to thousands of other worlds. During the fight it soon becomes apparent that in battling with more or less equal strength, Ali is the superior fighter. Superman takes a serious pummeling, but somehow refuses to fall down; he stays on his feet all through the beating. Finally, Ali stops the fight, urging the referee to call for a technical knockout. Superman then falls face-first on the canvas, making the knockout more than technical. Both of these fighters created such an impact with their skills in combat that they were looked upon as being more than human.

Although these men shared the same time period in history, they never actually met. However, both were well aware of each other's fame.

A Bruce Lee student named Leo Fong said in an interview that Bruce watched Ali’s fights over and over on a 8mm film. Even Lee’s own brother Robert Lee once said in an interview that Bruce really respected Muhammad Ali and thought he was a great fighter.

Muhammad Ali mentioned Bruce Lee at his training camp gym in Malaysia in 1975 for his fight against Joe Bugner. He announced, "I will prove to the world that I am not only the greatest boxer of all time, I am the greatest martial artist." He then invited the kick-boxer Davis Miller to a round of sparring. Ali declared, "You must be a fool to get in the ring with me. When I'm through, you gonna think you been whupped by Bruce Lee."

Bruce Lee, as we know, was a visionary; he is generally regarded as the first ever MMA fighter as he took techniques from all fighting styles. It's easy to see that Bruce Lee definitely borrowed his footwork from Muhammad Ali and although his Jeet Kune Do system was deeply rooted in Wing Chun, Bruce would often resort to western style boxing punches, especially hooks.

The late American karate legend Joe Lewis studied in karate, boxing and kick boxing. He was a student of Bruce Lee and also had the opportunity to train under the late legendary boxing trainer Cus D’Amato. Cus had trained boxing champions such as Floyd Patterson and Mike Tyson. Lewis said that Cus D’Amato and Bruce Lee expressed some of the same ideas on tactics of ring strategy. The main point both Bruce and Cus shared about fighting was accepting the practice of developing head rhythm for defense of one’s cranial cavity, and body rhythm for defense of one's body, and not the use of one's hands for blocking, trapping, cuffing. This premise is the opposite of what the majority of martial arts styles advocates and teach. They each believed in what is called an aggressive defensive - if you have the time to block or trap, then you have time to hit.

So taking the above information into account, Bruce Lee certainly had the mindset of a ring fighter. As for Muhammad Ali he did square off with the kick-boxer Davis Miller at his training camp in Malaysia. Miller said "I bent to the right, tossed a jab toward his belt line, straightened, snapped a long, tentative front-kick to his head. I figured it was the first kick he'd ever had thrown at him, but he pulled away as easily as if he'd been dodging feet his entire life." In that brief encounter Ali allowed Miller to get a few hits in before knocking him senseless with two punches. Ali also fought a Japanese wrestler named Antonio Inoki in June 1976 in Tokyo. However, this exhibition match did not live up to the hype and over fifteen rounds Ali threw only six punches and made a total of $6 million for the appearance, which comes out to $1 million a punch. Inoki spent almost the entire fight on his back kicking at Ali’s legs and Ali danced around the ring taunting him.

Inoki kicked at Ali’s legs round after round and eventually this punishment started to take its toll on Ali’s leg’s that were not conditioned for this. In between rounds his corner men would be rubbing down Ali’s bruised legs. Eventually Inoki did manage to take Ali down a couple of times with a kick to the thigh and calf. But Ali soon scrambled to his feet. One of Bruce’s quick fire attacks that he would demonstrate was a kick to the leg and with his speed and conditioning Lee’s kick would notably be faster and harder than Inoki. This was one of the first MMA style matches with Boxer-vs-Wrestler and it was scored as a draw. The Budokan janitorial people took almost a full day to clean up the garbage that was hurled at the two combatants as the result of their lousy performance.

Bruce Lee’s real fights consist of brief challenges on movie sets from fellow martial artists. Five time karate champion and movie actor Chuck Norris said he never beat Bruce during any of their sparring sessions. Most of Lee’s fights lasted no longer than a few seconds in fact the longest recorded encounter would be Bruce’s famous fight with Wong Jak Man. This contest is said to have lasted just over two minutes.

Although Lee won the fight, he was not happy with the length of time it took for him to dispose of his opponent. So he started to research all forms of combat and eventually created his own martial style of fight concepts calling it Jeet Kune Do. The JKD system of fighting incorporated various martial arts styles, wrestling methods and boxing. In truth, it was a more primitive version of MMA. Bruce Lee did knock out a three time British boxing champion Gary Elms using the Wing Chun style of kung fu, without Elms being able to land a hit. However as good as Elms was he certainly was no Muhammad Ali.

A conventional punch from a fighter of Bruce’s statue and weight, that is a junior middleweight, measures around 325 pounds; but knowing that Lee’s one inch punch was believed to generate around 153 pounds we can assume Lee’s punch power would be around 400 pounds. Ali being a heavyweight and accounting for his height, his highest punch power is speculated to be around 675 pounds. Both men have had incredible speed but it's not just dishing out the punches, it's about taking them as well.

There is little documentation on Bruce Lee’s real life fights and nothing mentioned about him ever being hit to the face and taking serious punishment. So this leaves a big question mark regarding Bruce’s chin. With Ali we can see that during his 61 fight career he was never knocked out and only knocked down twice in his entire career. He only ever lost 5 fights and he fought some of the hardest punches ever to grace the boxing ring such as Sonny Liston, George Foreman and Ernie Shavers. So with all this background knowledge being established, let’s analyse this fantasy fight.

We take each man during their prime which in this case makes Bruce the older man as he peaked in his last year before his untimely death in 1973. This makes Ali the younger man but also makes him a lighter heavyweight in his prime as he got heavier in muscle and bulk as his age progressed.

Bruce Lee would try to take Ali out from a distance using his longest weapon - his kicks. This is not only his philosophy expressed in his JKD art but also the most logical reasoning, being the smaller fighter. This is his advantage and although in this contest Muhammad Ali would be allowed to kick, we can presume he would rely on his fists only.

Bruce’s kicking speed was extremely fast but Ali was also known for having the fastest hands at his weight in boxing. Even the fastest kicks are slow compared to punches, because they require more build-up and begin from a greater distance from their target. Punches can also be followed up with more of the same, whereas combination kicks are slower, more difficult to execute and usually lose power. The fact remains that the longer Bruce kept on the outside of Ali the greater advantage Ali would have.

Ali was never known for his knockout power, however he has got thirty-seven knockouts on his record. Ali’s strategy was about wearing down his opponents over a period of rounds and using his speed and high volume of punches to eventually catch his man’s chin. Ali’s stamina has never been questioned, the man fought fifteen rounds on many occasions, right up until his early forties. Bruce Lee’s fitness was off the charts - he trained from 7 am to 9 am, including stomach, flexibility, and running, and from 11 am to 12 pm he would weight train and cycle. A typical exercise for Lee would be to run a distance of two to six miles in 15 to 45 minutes, in which he would vary speed in 3 to 5 minute intervals. Lee would ride the equivalent of 10 miles in 45 minutes on a stationary bike.

So when it comes down to being fight fit both men were equally matched but despite Lee having real street fights he was never tested taking punishment over a period of rounds, something that was natural to Ali. As mentioned before Lee would inevitably keep the fight on the outside which would only work to Ali’s strengths. The best strategy for Lee would be to attack the lower part of Ali’s body and get him to the ground.

Generally whenever a boxer enters the MMA world they are taken out by chokes and ground work because using the floor is very foreign to them. So Lee has this advantage but examining the evidence left behind from Lee’s legacy, he was not much of a ground fighter. Although in his movie Game Of Death he showed the knowledge of chokes and arm locks used in today’s MMA arena, he was much more used to upright fighting. One of Lee’s specialties was kicking lower parts of his opponents leg. Ali’s legs would certainly not be conditioned for this kind of punishment. However, Bruce would have to lean in to do this as Ali kept his feet well underneath his arms. Added to the fact that Muhammad has the longer reach, this could leave Bruce open for a counter shot to the head from Ali.

Although Ali is famous for dancing around the ring, whenever he threw combinations he would plant his feet and had a tendency to pause at the end of his combinations, which would leave an opening for Bruce if he could dodge the attack of combinations and give him a brief window to counter.

Ali would be used to dodging punches that were much faster than Lee's kicks. So to bring his kicks to bear, Lee would need to keep Ali at a distance. Assuming that the two were fighting in a ring of limited size, Lee would probably not be able to keep out of the boxer's way long enough.

As mentioned before Ali was extremely fast for a heavyweight, but even he couldn't avoid dozens of punches from the one dimensional lumbering slugger George Foreman. Realizing this he made it part of his game plan to lean on the ropes and take the punishment and let Foreman punch himself out. This technique came to be known as the rope-a-dope. Similarly, no matter how fast Lee might be, he could not realistically be expected to dodge every punch from Ali.

Both men attacked in short spurts and both practiced the art of hitting and moving. This fight would definitely be played out like a chess match. Ali would no doubt want to be the constant show-man clowning around during the bout, showboating and this could be a major vice. Bruce could capitalize on this and attack him during this period. Most fighters could never catch Ali while he was acting out to the crowd but with Lee’s speed there’s certainly a high possibility of a direct hit.

If the fight followed MMA rules of three five minute rounds, then this could certainly work in Lee’s favor. However if they followed boxing rounds with the fight being around ten rounds with each round lasting three minutes, then this would favor Ali, and although he is the heavier man and would slow down, he is still notably the stronger fighter.

A predication for an Ali win would likely come by way of a knockout. This could happen either early or late in the fight. The reason for an early knockout is that Ali would not be tired and therefore faster and stronger, but equally a late knockout could occur as Bruce would also be tired taking punishment from heavy shots from the bigger man. For a Bruce victory, I see it by some way of a submission which would no doubt be either early in the fight or midway. Lee would have to cut Ali down with his kicks and then use some choke hold or limb lock which is a different kind of pain, one that Ali would have never experienced and with no knowledge to reverse the lock or body movement on the ground to release the lock he would have to tap out.

The debate of Ali-vs-Lee or boxer versus martial artist will no doubt continue for many years to come. But what can be said is that both Bruce and Muhammad were the best men in their fields of combat and that on any given day one punch or kick can turn a fight.

 

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