Bruce Lee - Godfather of MMA

By E. Spencer Kyte
Love of Sports Correspondent

If Dana White is the mouthpiece and Chuck Liddell is the face, then Bruce Lee is the Godfather of Mixed Martial Arts.

Long before the Ultimate Fighting Championship showed millions of pay-per-view buyers and SpikeTV junkies that one fighting system wasn’t enough, Bruce Lee was teaching anyone who wanted to learn that knowing more than one form of martial arts was the best recipe for success.

Lee originally learned and trained in Wu-style Tai Chi Chuan under his father before moving on to Wing Chun Gung Fu until he was 18.

Similarly to the Gracie family, who modified Japanese Jiu-Jitsu into their own version (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, or BJJ), Lee started teaching Jun Fan Gung Fu once he arrived in the United States. The name literally translates as Bruce’s Gung Fu.

Jeet Kune Do came next, as an art to extend beyond the often restrictive barriers of all other martial arts. Whereas all other forms have a style and pattern and structure, Lee developed Jeet Kune Do to be a “style with no style.” What it consisted of was no traditional forms or Katas for practitioners to learn, but rather to emphasize adapting the situation as it presented itself and doing whatever was necessary to defend oneself, no matter where that action came from.

Sound like anything you see inside the Octagon once a month on pay-per-view?

It’s clear to see the lineage between today’s incarnation of Mixed Martial Arts and the methodologies and practices employed by Lee.

Oh, it wasn’t just training where Lee was ahead of the curve, either. He was a big advocate of proper nutrition, diet and vitamin supplements long before they were all the rage.

On top of that, he kicked the crap out of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar too!

And it’s for all these reasons we give some major MMA love to Bruce Lee today – The Godfather.