Ali. Its simple. He speed and size ensured that he punched bags and opponents with more bag swinging, head spinning force and more regularity than Lee could generate without having to load up like Lee would to generate the same power.
I dont care how at rest he was, Ali's longer reach dictated that his shots travel greater distances due to basic physical mechanics.
Im not talking about running in wioth shots to cover the extra distance its about natural range.
Imagine this scenario.
Both Ali and Lee face each other 2 and a half feet from each other.
Their feet are stuck to the floor and they are rooted to the spot.
Who do you now favor to be able to reach their opponent's head/face...? Y'know what I mean...?
Your friend is talking about economy of movement.
But that wouldnt give Lee superhuman powers.
With all due respect to your buddy, Tai Kwon Do guys shouldnt be taken in matters of punching power, over common boxing knowledge. You put a boxer in a phonebooth with a Tai Kwon Do guy and keep it to punches, the boxer'll be the one walking out concious.
Tai Kwon Do does look great to see performed and I'm fairly certain a black-belt could kick my ass, but there's a reason why it isn't really incorporated into modern MMA styles.
But as a boxer, you'd back off, allowing the shorter guy to run on to you, taking his nutsack hating ass out with low hooks and uppercuts...
Enabling you walk around for the rest of the day with a real warm sense of smugness.
__________________
"Van Zan is the Pinocchio of feces." - Lestov16
Last edited by Sadako of Girth on Feb 27th, 2009 at 08:24 PM
Did you see that video of Lee knocking around that 75lb bag?
Distance traveled by Lee's punch at rest is much great then Ali's. That's pretty simple. You can measure for yourself, if you doubt. Bring your arms up, step away from an object, similar to what you'd do in a boxing match, bring your arms up in a guarded position, and measure the actual distance between your starting punch position (tip of the fist) and the object you're hitting...you may want to record to see the distance treaveled because your fist may travel slightly left or right from starting position, actually increasing the distance traveled (It's not Euclidean geometry in this scenario because it is the distance the tip of the knuckle travels, not the linear distance between the tip of the knuckle and the target. This is significant because it measures actual distance required to travel due to the differences in how the punches are thrown.
Then do the same with your arms down at your side. You will have to record a video to actually measure where your knuckle goes as you am draw your hand back slightly and move in two seperate arcs of motion due to a pivot at the shoulder and a pivot at the elbow. Not only is the linear distance for the "at rest" punch greater than the boxing guarded position, but the difference between the actual distances traveled by the knuckle is greated at the side, too...adding to the point I made about actual distance traveled. It's even an even greater feat than you realize.
The boxer, obviously. He is taller, and has a longer reach. But what is reality?
Let's make another one, just like yours except in Lee's favor, this time.
Imagine they both stand right in front of each other, right out of each other's pnching range. They can only use their feet. Who is more likely to get the first strike in on the other oppoenats head/face?
Now, here's reality. Lee kicks...a lot. He would never just plant his feet.
Lee was quite genius. I didn't think much of Jeet Kun Do until I started studying it, more and more. No doubt that he is quite a formidable fighter. I certainly wouldn't want to take a hit to the face from him when he was in his prime. Same goes for Ali. Now, I'm still of the opinion that Ali has the greater punching power, I was just adding the opinion of someone more qualified to judge punching power.
Personally, I don't give much credence to Tai Kwon Do. I think it's mostly lame and an antiquated fighting style. However, from what my coworker says, a fifth degree american black belt wouldn't even make orange in Korea. He said it is much more strenuous and the difference in fighting ability is night and day.
This, I agree with. The punches and kicks from a brown belt, that I sparred with, were weak sauce. True, that he was fast and it looked pretty...but it was worthless, imo.
__________________
Last edited by dadudemon on Feb 27th, 2009 at 09:09 PM
Ok. In the reversed scenario. Ali still because of the powerful, longer range of legs might have Lee coming up short if from like 3 and a half feet away, at closer range, Lee would be able to get one in, but he will have had to take Ali's Kick first..
If you meant Ali sized Lee and Lee sized Ali, then Lee crucifies Ali.
Yeah I know, Lee'd not be glued in reality it was merely a model for proving ranges.
By the time Lee is in kicking range, being that much smaller than Ali, he will be in Ali's punching range.
Jeet kun Do is formlessness. But incorporated into it are boxing strikes.
But no small guy no matter how hard he punches, could punch as hard as Ali at Ali's size.
And Bruce Lee's smaller frame/physicality would not be built to withstand Sledgehammer blows that would be all over him.
Im glad we are on the same page. But statement conflict has got me all confused:
You say you deferred to someone who knew more about punching power than yourself, yet you assessed brown belt level practitioners on his form as using worthless technique...
If you judged his shit to be less impacting than usual punch standards, then 'he might not have the answers' would have been my first suspicion.
__________________
"Van Zan is the Pinocchio of feces." - Lestov16
Last edited by Sadako of Girth on Feb 27th, 2009 at 10:19 PM
I know, I know. As long as you've got balls, I be bustin' 'em.
Proof? If you show me some numbers on this, I'll believe you and stop doubting that reach could be given to Ali. (Because Lee's kicking ability is quite legendary.) From what I would guess, Lee's kicking range should be longer than Ali's punching reach.
I disagree. There are many, these days, at his size and similar weight that can punch much harder than Ali can. There are probably those Lee's size and weight that can punch just as hard as he can. To some martial artist out there, they might call me a complete idiot for even saying such a thing.
We are...for the most part. We disagree on range and punching power for Bruce Lee, apparently.
I'm quite the diverse "martial artist" myself. However, I am no where near a Korean level black belt, much less a second degree. If you had the chance to ask a question like this to a second degree black belt from a nice Korean Marital arts school, would you not do it?
I'm not sure what you're talking about. My point was dual purposed.
1. To show how useless American Tai Kwon Do in a fight is.
2. To show how shitty American Tai Kwon Do users are.
This brown belt was actually a state tournament winner. They fight to make hits and not knock out. They just want to score points to win, so they don't really practice.
The brown belt and this black belt are two different people. And, no, I haven't had "punching power" training, per se. Since this guy is really big into martial arts and MMA, I figured he could give me a better assessment on the Ali - Lee conversation we were having.
You don't know this person, so he cannot be presented as expert opinion into this discussion. I don't expect you to do that. I quite clearly, before mentioning his opinion on the subject, indicated that I couldn't see Lee having more punching power than Ali. I added his comments as an aside. If you'd like, I could do a video interview and have him present his credents for us. I just called him and left a voicemail. We'll see if he can get back to us.
No that wont be neccessary, I believe you, but the point I was making was that basically its not effective.
As for the guard thing Ali was well know for a very low guard/keeping his hands down..and therefore travels the "From rested position" too. Only with longer reach/ therefore range.
a 74kg bag...? Wow.
See what Ali would does to ones full of sand.
Also look at what Foreman used to do to heavy sand bags..
Bruce wont be able to punch like that. And Ali to took it and beat Foreman.
1. I disagree, Ali is noticeably a harder striker.
2. ?
When did I say it was a fighting style?
3. 'Tis true, in any of his real fights, his only grapple was a poorly executed front-headlock.
4. You are arguing semantics, both convey the same point, that boxing sucks in MMA, which is not true.
5. No, it was even stated on this UFC TV thing I was watching of a guy preparing for the fight(can't remember who honestly), and he was saying that you need a good BOXING coach as well as kickboxing to really make your upper body strikes effective.
6. Yeah, the top MMA fighters are in a whole other ball-park.
Well most TKD stuff you see these days is all about throwing a few cool kicks. But the true masters, as you've pointed out can take care of themselves in a close-up H2H just fine.
I'd just like to point out that most rankings given out by dojo's in western societies don't mean anything at all. Many just go there treating it as exercise, play around for a few years and get a blackbelt.
Long ago, in oriental countries, there were no computers, internet, consoles aka technological entertainment. All the kids used to do were play sports and many of them trained in martial arts. They were poor and didn't really have anything else to do in their spare time and would train alot of the time. The training was also much harder than modern dojo's. There were no "lightly does it" methods. For example they would punch till their knuckles bled every day to harden them, use a open handed jab on boxing bags etc. You did whatever your master said and that was it, there was no complaining. Those young people would also sometimes fight on the streets and actually had REAL fighting experience.
Now, contrast it to today, most of the training is piss poor. Any slacker can get a blackbelt after a few years. They don't train nearly as much, nor will they ever have the will to subject themselves to the strenuous and painful training I talked about.
But the main thing is that the level of the Masters/Sifu/Sensei's have degraded alot and will continue to do so for the reasons I've pointed out above. Also, I would think people are more civilised these days, they actually don't have any real fighting experience outside of their sparing training. In a real fight, if you don't have experience, everything will go out the window. The adrenaline takes over and they just throw random punches that are anything but martial arts.
I guess an exception would be Muay Thai, but I wouldn't say because it is more effective but because they actually have real fights even during competition, unlike something like TKD where the are just allowed to do a few kicks (boriest thing to watch BTW).
So overall I would say the status of oriental MA at this point in time is a joke. But I do believe there are still a few real masters out there.
The Ali fan side of me agrees and, in fact, I have stated twice now that I think Ali is the stronger striker. However, I don't think it's that much of a difference between the two. It isn't like the striking power difference between the average welterweight versus the average super heavyweight.
Now, the physics side of me screams the Bruce Lee was the stronger puncher. Just thinking about what Lee did with his punches...it makes me think that he was a much more powerful striker than Ali. If we were to do a force analysis of Bruce Lee's "power" punches, I'm quite sure the math would be in Lee's favor, relative to Ali.
However, in a real world fight, I have to give it to Ali. I just can't deal with the idea of tiny little Bruce being a stronger puncher. Ali was one of my childhood heroes. My TWD coworker thinks it's retarded that people even debate it (because he favors Lee's striking power, by a landslide). But, for me, you have someone who is bigger in all dimensions, that was one of the greatest boxers ever.
Glad you asked:
You heavily implied it here. An MMA master, hmm? Now, you could say, jiu jitu master, mui thai master, but there's no such thing as a MMA master because MMA is a rule set, not really a discipline. Now, many styles can be used in MMA, but MMA is not a style. Capisce?
On a second thought, I think the way you're wanting to treat it, wouldn't it really be called a hybrid style? (the combination of two or more techniques being used as one technique...)
And you directly said it here. You see, boxing would be a style used in MMA; it is not a powerful MMA style because it is actually a martial art style. Do you understand what I'm illustrating?
Had you not said the first thing, I would not have even cared about what you said here. Anyway, you DID say "it" was a style right here, even if you didn't want it to mean that.
However, I knew what you meant and was just being a smartass.
In fact, there are MMA "schools" that teach "MMA", but even in those environments, they are actually several styles taught in an MMA school.
k
No, my friend, you missed the original point and it was never semantics.
The original point is...
A plain jane boxer gets his ass kicked in MMA matches. In fact, I would submit to you that when "boxing" is used in MMA matches such as K-1 or UFC, it isn't really boxing. Rather, it is kick boxing. Throw a straight-up trained boxer who is better than average into a street fight against a fighter is is above average in the MMA world, and guess who wins? There, you will find my point.
You're going off on a tangent, again. I don't not deny that boxing can be used in MMA fights. However, I do say that someone who only trained as a boxer would get his ass handed to him in an MMA tournie. That's it.
I was also watching a video on a little known UFC fighter named Randy Couture and he said that "fights are won on the ground". Go figure.
Each fighter has his or her strengths and weaknesses. For a while there, the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu fighters were the top dogs. Now, there has been a trend of more rounded fighters winning matches. I don't know what the future holds for MMA trends...but I would think the most well rounded will continue to be the best.
Yet successful MMA fighters employ boxing strikes. Go figure...
Actually Lee wasnt as heavy as a welter, even if he did throw shots hard for a little guy, he still gets all kinds of shit in his grill from Ali that he wouldnt be able to cope with.
And Ali would be able to deal with constant kicking? The leg sweeps and what not?
__________________
All the ways you wish you could be, that's me. I look like you wanna look, I **** like you wanna ****, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not.
At any time Lee crouches low enough to maximise his leg reach while attempting to sweep, he'll be stationary, in the non rules situ, Ali could just steam forward and punt Lee's head Baxter style...
And I dont think Sweeps for a little man like that are gonna work with a olympian athlete of Ali's dimensions/weight Ali.
And the kicks wouldn't be constant. As Lee wouldnt be able to compose himself to kick while being a battered would be soon dispatched. Kicks sacrifice balance and rapid attack. Itd be unwise to put all his eggs in one basket against Ali as he is coming in. For when he misses, he'll be totally f***ed.
But if he connects, CRACK, broke knee, or dislocated, or whatever.
__________________
All the ways you wish you could be, that's me. I look like you wanna look, I **** like you wanna ****, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not.
Ali probably has more wallop in his fist than Lee has in a kick, and remember this is a fight, Ali isn't going to be just be hanging motionless so Lee can take his time to windup and deliver his strongest kick right to a vulnerable area.
Most logical outcome, Ali uses his time and again tested dancing about while punching to KO the much smaller man, who doesn't have an actual fight record and for all technical purposes, an untested chin.
KMC Community Forums
Feb 27th, 2009 07:56 PM
They fight to make hits and not knock out. They just want to score points to win, so they don't really practice.
If we were to do a force analysis of Bruce Lee's "power" punches, I'm quite sure the math would be in Lee's favor, relative to Ali.
