An Interesting Thought.

[Traab]

I was reading a fanfiction story when I came across this line,


Sasuke looked wistful for a moment. "That'd be nice. To be so strong that merely living through a battle with you is a badge of honour."

It actually was one heck of a nice thought. Can you imagine what it might be like to be that strong? To be that well known and respected for your power that people can become famous just for having avoided being beaten to death in a fight by you? The only person I can even think of that might qualify is bruce lee. I dont know if even he could be considered THAT strong, that just having fought him and lived is a badge of honor, but he is probably pretty damn close.

[Mando Knight]

The only person I can even think of that might qualify is bruce lee. I dont know if even he could be considered THAT strong, that just having fought him and lived is a badge of honor, but he is probably pretty damn close.

Theodore Roosevelt. "Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake there would have been a fight."

[arguskos]

The great generals, like Alexander the Great and Napoleon, probably qualify. Living through a war with those guys would be a damn feat. Hannibal probably qualifies as well.

However, an individual who is so famous and so skilled that merely fighting beside them and living would give you a badge of honor? Uh... yeah, I can't think of anyone real who'd be like that. Lots of fictional characters though (and a good number from classical myth, like Achilles and Odysseus).

[Spiryt]

The great generals, like Alexander the Great and Napoleon, probably qualify. Living through a war with those guys would be a damn feat. Hannibal probably qualifies as well.



Uh......

Thousands of people had lived trough Alexander and Napoleon.

Even in the bloodiest battles of Napoleon period, casualties of loosing side were mostly like, 50%.

In overall, I'm mostly fascinated by why Bruce Lee is so famous for being fighting machine, or whatever....

He has like 0 documented 'real' fights as in full contact ecounters, let alone something "real", to best of my knowledge.

Every other solid, 170 poundish high school wrestler could probably put a solid beating on him.

I will probably catch a lot of flames for this, but what the hell.

Other than that, it's rather broad topic... Living trough some completely non famous individual that has a knife and tries to kill me can be great feat.

Meanwhile, pretty much any actually skilled martial artist could easily dispatch me without harming me seriously at all.

And there would be nothing honorable about it.

[irenicObserver]

Bruce Lee is kind of those real life figures that has pretty extraordinary things surrounding him, like his ability to kick ass faster than the eye can see.

[Traab]

Every other solid, 170 poundish high school wrestler could probably put a solid beating on him.


Yeah.... no. He isnt like jackie chan, whose martial arts skills are basically advanced acrobatics and flash, he actually could kick ass in his day. Maybe his rep is overstated, but even so, admit it, to most people, if you could say, "Yeah, i got into an honest to god fight with bruce lee and we stalemated" they would be freaking impressed. Your average 170 pound wrestler would have his arm broken and be lying on the ground knocked the ^%$ out in 5 seconds or so. Or WISHING he was knocked out so he wouldnt be feeling that much pain for awhile. Thats why I said he is probably the closest to what I was talking about. He may not be QUITE that legendarily strong, but he is damn close and has the big name recognition that would make people take notice if you could legitimately claim to have fought him to a standstill.

[Tebryn]

In overall, I'm mostly fascinated by why Bruce Lee is so famous for being fighting machine, or whatever.... He has like 0 documented 'real' fights as in full contact ecounters, let alone something "real", to best of my knowledge. Every other solid, 170 poundish high school wrestler could probably put a solid beating on him. I will probably catch a lot of flames for this, but what the hell.

Your knowledge needs brushing up I'm afraid.


Lee was involved in competitive fights, some of which were arranged while others were not. Dan Inosanto stated, "There's no doubt in my mind that if Bruce Lee had gone into pro boxing, he could easily have ranked in the top three in the lightweight division or junior-welterweight division".[42]
Lee defeated three-time champion British boxer Gary Elms by way of knockout in the third round in the 1958 Hong Kong Inter-School amateur Boxing Championships by using Wing Chun traps and high/low-level straight punches.[43]
The following year, Lee became a member of the "Tigers of Junction Street," and was involved in numerous gang-related street fights. "In one of his last encounters, while removing his jacket the fellow he was squaring off against sucker punched him and blackened his eye. Bruce flew into a rage and went after him, knocking him out, breaking his opponent's arm. The police were called as a result".[44] The incident took place on a Hong Kong rooftop at 10 pm on Wednesday, 29 April 1959.[45]
In 1962, Lee knocked out Uechi, a Japanese black belt Karateka, in 11 seconds in a 1962 Full-Contact match in Seattle. It was refereed by Jesse Glover. The incident took place in Seattle at a YMCA handball court. Taki Kamura says the battle lasted 10 seconds in contrary to Hart's statement.[46] Ed Hart states "The karate man arrived in his gi (uniform), complete with black belt, while Bruce showed up in his street clothes and simply took off his shoes. The fight lasted exactly 11 seconds – I know because I was the time keeper – and Bruce had hit the guy something like 15 times and kicked him once. I thought he'd killed him".[47]
In Oakland, California in 1964 at Chinatown, Lee had a controversial private match with Wong Jack Man, a direct student of Ma Kin Fung known for his mastery of Xingyiquan, Northern Shaolin, and T'ai chi ch'uan. According to Lee, the Chinese community issued an ultimatum to him to stop teaching non-Chinese. When he refused to comply, he was challenged to a combat match with Wong. The arrangement was that if Lee lost, he would have to shut down his school; while if he won, then Lee would be free to teach Caucasians or anyone else.[44] Wong denied this, stating that he requested to fight Lee after Lee issued an open challenge during one of Lee's demonstrations at a Chinatown theatre, and that Wong himself did not discriminate against Caucasians or other non-Chinese.[48] Lee commented, "That paper had all the names of the sifu from Chinatown, but they don't scare me".[49]
Individuals known to have witnessed the match included Cadwell, James Lee (Bruce Lee's associate, no relation), and William Chen, a teacher of T'ai chi ch'uan. Wong and witness William Chen stated that the fight lasted an unusually long 20–25 minutes.[48] According to Bruce Lee, Linda Lee Cadwell, and James Yimm Lee, the fight lasted 3 minutes with a decisive victory for Bruce. "The fight ensued, it was a no-holds-barred fight, it took three minutes. Bruce got this guy down to the ground and said 'do you give up?' and the man said he gave up" – Linda Lee Cadwell.[44]
Wong Jack Man published his own account of the battle in the Chinese Pacific Weekly, a Chinese-language newspaper in San Francisco, which contained another challenge to Lee for a public rematch.[48] Lee had no reciprocation to Wong's article, nor were there any further public announcements by either, but Lee had continued to teach Caucasians.
Lee's eventual celebrity put him in the path of a number of men who sought to make a name for themselves by causing a confrontation with Lee. A challenger had invaded Lee's private home in Hong Kong by trespassing into the backyard to incite Lee in combat. Lee finished the challenger violently with a kick, infuriated over the home invasion. Describing the incident, Herb Jackson states,
One time one fellow got over that wall, got into his yard and challenged him and he says 'how good are you?' And Bruce was poppin mad. He [Bruce] says 'he gets the idea, this guy, to come and invade my home, my own private home, invade it and challenge me.' He said he got so mad that he gave the hardest kick he ever gave anyone in his life.[50]
Bob Wall, USPK karate champion and Lee's co-star in Enter the Dragon, recalled one encounter that transpired after a film extra kept taunting Lee. The extra yelled that Lee was "a movie star, not a martial artist," that he "wasn't much of a fighter". Lee answered his taunts by asking him to jump down from the wall he was sitting on. Wall described Lee's opponent as "a gang-banger type of guy from Hong Kong," a "damned good martial artist," and observed that he was fast, strong, and bigger than Bruce.[51]
This kid was good. He was strong and fast, and he was really trying to punch Bruce's brains in. But Bruce just methodically took him apart.[52] Bruce kept moving so well, this kid couldn't touch him...then all of a sudden, Bruce got him and rammed his butt with the wall and swept him up, proceeding to drop him and plant his knee into his opponent's chest, locked his arm out straight, and nailed him in the face repeatedly". – Bob Wall[53]

Not only that, the man made up his own fighting style. You don't do that without actual real knowledge of how to fight. You're not going to catch flame more because you're mis-informed, not saying something controversial.

[Spiryt]

Your knowledge needs brushing up I'm afraid.



Not only that, the man made up his own fighting style. You don't do that without actual real knowledge of how to fight. You're not going to catch flame more because you're mis-informed, not saying something controversial.

All this stuff from Wiki is, unfortunately, "individual known to witnessed";
" Interviews"; "Biography'' ; some boxing match against a guy who apparently didn't have pro fight like, ever, beating some local karatekas, or whatever.

Dude undoubtedly had sick skills, and I'm not denying this, I just stand by obvious opinion that his pretty much mythical reputation is ridiculous one.


Yeah.... no. He isnt like jackie chan, whose martial arts skills are basically advanced acrobatics and flash, he actually could kick ass in his day. Maybe his rep is overstated, but even so, admit it, to most people, if you could say, "Yeah, i got into an honest to god fight with bruce lee and we stalemated" they would be freaking impressed. Your average 170 pound wrestler would have his arm broken and be lying on the ground knocked the ^%$ out in 5 seconds or so. Or WISHING he was knocked out so he wouldnt be feeling that much pain for awhile. Thats why I said he is probably the closest to what I was talking about.

Well, what exact facts do you have to support it?

This may be true, but no one is able to prove it.

Even in all this "told to have" thing in Wiki, there's no mention of him beating anyone who was even told to be competent wrestler, grappler, or whatever.

Maybe to put it in other way - I guess it's somehow possible that Lee was not out of this planet or whatever, and could kick ass of bigger, skilled people in many ways.

There's quite simply nothing to prove that, or generally base it on.

We have different non staged martial art encounters on tape from very ancient "dark pre Internet" times, :smallbiggrin:to talk about some people's skills in some limited way.

A lot of people fought at very limited rules, not only in Brazil Vale Tudo stuff, or whatever.

Carlson Gracie vs Waldemar Santana (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GesmWClbdeQ&feature=related)


Wrestling, Judo, Boxing, whatever the hell else is even on Olympics from quite a time, so there's quite a lot of verifiable data.



There's simply nothing like that seemingly surviving with Lee.
Just a lot of talking that he beat someone up in the backyard.

This is not any kind of bashing, if someone might get the wrong idea.

He without doubt had extensive martial arts knowledge.

Just kind of sober look at it all.

[Traab]

I dont see his reputation as "mythical." He was fast, powerful, made his own damn style of martial arts thats still semi popular today. (I dont have the numbers offhand of how many jeet kun do practitioners there are) And you dont have all those things without being handy in a fight. Maybe he couldnt walk into the middle of jean claudes Kumite and destroy all the people there, but I really think you are underestimating him with all that silly stuff about high school wrestlers standing up to him.

The official and "real" fights he has been in may not be youtubed well enough to make you believe them, but he has been in several fights and acquitted himself well by all accounts. Its up to you if you dont want to believe them for whatever reason. *EDIT* Besides, this isnt about bruce lee, this is about the idea of being so strong that just surviving a battle against you is a badge of honor.

[Spiryt]

I dont see his reputation as "mythical." He was fast, powerful, made his own damn style of martial arts thats still semi popular today. (I dont have the numbers offhand of how many jeet kun do practitioners there are) And you dont have all those things without being handy in a fight. Maybe he couldnt walk into the middle of jean claudes Kumite and destroy all the people there, but I really think you are underestimating him with all that silly stuff about high school wrestlers standing up to him.


No, I just point out that due to the fact that he made a lot of movies, and generally was super popular, people talk about him like that, while completely forgetting about whole lot of people who were really completing at keeping all sort of martial arts alive and real.

He undoubtedly himself has a lot of praise to get, for increasing of popularity of certain, mostly Asian martial arts, but it's way overblown.

You comment about notion that wrestler could beat him being "silly" is unfortunately good example.

Wrestling is absolutely basic skills as far as human fighting goes, absolutely vital and effective.

Maybe any high school wrestler may be too much, but accomplished one - absolutely not, especially if he was bigger.

So there was absolutely nothing silly about this "stuff".

Again, we have no real data to tell if it would be really silly or not.

All in all, bottom line is I can think about really hundreds of people that would make it really hard to get away from them if they wanted to kill me from whatever weird reason.

Although Bruce Lee would still murder me too, so difference between "dead" and "dead" becomes pretty insignificant anyway. :smalltongue::smallwink:

[Vacant]

The great generals, like Alexander the Great and Napoleon, probably qualify. Living through a war with those guys would be a damn feat. Hannibal probably qualifies as well.

Which of these guys didn't invade Russia on the ground in Winter? All of them. Which of all the other guys did this? Genghis Khan. Just sayin'.


Every other solid, 170 poundish high school wrestler could probably put a solid beating on him.

I think this is the main problem with your claim; Lee's status as a pop-culture icon has doubtlessly hyper-inflated public perceptions of his abilities, but there is middle-ground between "not as good as, say, a college wrestler" and "beats up helicopters from the ground." His impressive speed was very well documented, there is some documentation of him having decent power behind his strikes, and there's very little doubt that he was very familiar with a wide variety of styles, which gives him another edge over high-school wrestlers who, generally, would not be well-versed in striking. I could see saying he might not hold up against and certainly wouldn't mop the floor with some of western boxing's more notable fighters or similar figures, but high-school wrestlers is just shifting the hyperbole the other way.

[Spiryt]

I think this is the main problem with your claim; Lee's status as a pop-culture icon has doubtlessly hyper-inflated public perceptions of his abilities, but there is middle-ground between "not as good as, say, a college wrestler" and "beats up helicopters from the ground." His impressive speed was very well documented, there is some documentation of him having decent power behind his strikes, and there's very little doubt that he was very familiar with a wide variety of styles, which gives him another edge over high-school wrestlers who, generally, would not be well-versed in striking. I could see saying he might not hold up against and certainly wouldn't mop the floor with some of western boxing's more notable fighters or similar figures, but high-school wrestlers is just shifting the hyperbole the other way.

That's why I said "could".

Because if from whatever hypothetical reason they fought on concrete, for example, wrestler would quite possibly slam him once, without need to do anything further.

Even without it, no matter how well can he strikes, it doesn't matter if wrestler had flipped him and rides his back.

He doesn't need to be able to strike at all, just to harm him by some sloppy strikes.

All in all, that's not the point indeed, but there's absolutely nothing outrageous about my claim.

Didn't even said that wrestler has to be in college, he can be grown man, who was wrestling all his youth.

[arguskos]

Which of these guys didn't invade Russia on the ground in Winter? All of them. Which of all the other guys did this? Genghis Khan. Just sayin'.
Yet another solid dude to include. :smallcool:

[Vacant]

Okay, but an infant could could win a fight against him, if, from whatever hypothetical reason, his fatal aneurysm had instead occurred while fighting the infant. While claiming that any given thing could happen is not, on a wholly literal level, outrageous, there is the implication behind those words that is. Sure, you didn't say "I would assume that a solid high school wrestler who is still in high school competing at the high school level would, in most situations, defeat Bruce Lee in a fight," but that is nonetheless an easy message to infer from the sentence, rather than "were Bruce Lee to fight someone who trained in wrestling in high school and may or may not still do so, at some age, in circumstances ideal for the latter, there is a non-zero chance of the latter winning the fight." Knowing that what you mean is generally closer to the second interpretation than the first, I don't disagree, but I also don't see it as a particularly efficacious argument against Bruce Lee's abilities.

EDIT: Thanks, arguskos. Just wanna be sure the one guy who did invade Russia in the Winter and pulled it off gets the credit due him.

[Wyntonian]

I love how this went from "Hey, wouldn't it be cool to be a badass?" to "robblerobble bruce lee rocks no he doesn't overhypedrobblerobbble"

[Spiryt]

Okay, but an infant could could win a fight against him, if, from whatever hypothetical reason, his fatal aneurysm had instead occurred while fighting the infant. While claiming that any given thing could happen is not, on a wholly literal level, outrageous, there is the implication behind those words that is. Sure, you didn't say "I would assume that a solid high school wrestler who is still in high school competing at the high school level would, in most situations, defeat Bruce Lee in a fight," but that is nonetheless an easy message to infer from the sentence, rather than "were Bruce Lee to fight someone who trained in wrestling in high school and may or may not still do so, at some age, in circumstances ideal for the latter, there is a non-zero chance of the latter winning the fight." Knowing that what you mean is generally closer to the second interpretation than the first, I don't disagree, but I also don't see it as a particularly efficacious argument against Bruce Lee's abilities.




Unfortunately, all this talking about "circumstances ideal" and "none zero chance" for the latter, and whatever else, still strike me as suggesting that it's something weird about solid wrestler beating said Bruce Lee.

It is not.

Unless someone can provide evidence that he actually was well versed wrestling or generally grappling and getting of his back etc.

The whole problem is that Bruce Lee was mostly known as an actor, and yet burden of proving anything lies on the side of people who actually competed at different stuff, often at minimal rules.

In short, there is no doubt, that he was skilled martial artist, just making him any kind of "most dangerous" person around in the 60's, 70's or whatever is huge misunderstanding.

[Tebryn]

All this stuff from Wiki is, unfortunately, "individual known to witnessed";
" Interviews"; "Biography'' ; some boxing match against a guy who apparently didn't have pro fight like, ever, beating some local karatekas, or whatever.

Dude undoubtedly had sick skills, and I'm not denying this, I just stand by obvious opinion that his pretty much mythical reputation is ridiculous one

Hold up. You said


He has like 0 documented 'real' fights as in full contact ecounters, let alone something "real", to best of my knowledge.

Every other solid, 170 poundish high school wrestler could probably put a solid beating on him.

This is...false. He had plenty of documented fights. Not only that, he wrote three books on fighting which are considered pretty accurate. The guy knew how to fight. He made his own martial arts which is still practiced to this day. Your "opinion" doesn't mesh up with the facts. Was he as awesome as people say? No, but the issue I had was you said he had 0 documented fights as far as you knew. That is incorrect.

Here is, a very poor, documented stuff. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcf-z8pUEAQ&feature=fvwrel) The man was in competitions all the time.

[Spiryt]

Hold up. You said

This is...false. He had plenty of documented fights. Not only that, he wrote three books on fighting which are considered pretty accurate. The guy knew how to fight. He made his own martial arts which is still practiced to this day. Your "opinion" doesn't mesh up with the facts. Was he as awesome as people say? No, but the issue I had was you said he had 0 documented fights as far as you knew. That is incorrect.

Here is, a very poor, documented stuff. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcf-z8pUEAQ&feature=fvwrel) The man was in competitions all the time.

I said, "AFAIK" and if someone can point me to some examples of documented fights under some kickboxing, full contact karate, Wing Chun or whatever he could have trained in, I will gladly change my opinion, - just as far as I've seen there is not much.

If there would be any tape, it would probably be all over Internet, and there's not much.

Video you had provided is some pretty neat push ups, and some presentation about people being pushed onto the chair or whatever by one inch punches and some other stuff.

This has nothing to do with actual fighting, competition or otherwise.
Certainly doesn't document any fight, if it's possible.

Is there any data on who/when etc. he had actually competed against on this tournament, for example?

Found something like that, for example, not much detail:

http://www.bruceleefoundation.com/index.cfm/page/Achievements/pid/10384

Mostly something about "special guests" etc.

In short, I'm not even trying to tell that he haven't even fought someone in karate, or something silly like that, just there's pretty much nothing concrete surviving from those times.

Thus, no real documented fights, at least more solidly documented, like who, how, what had happened.

To avoid too much theorizing, it would be cool to see him in the kickboxing ring, against, say some Thai boxers of the time, that were really starting to make it big.

Or boxing against Ronnie Harris, for very top shelf, if we have.

Never had happened though.

EDIT: Fixed some typos and going to sleep finally. Someone might as well try to rescue this poor thread. :smallwink:

[Vacant]

Unfortunately, all this talking about "circumstances ideal" and "none zero chance" for the latter, and whatever else, still strike me as suggesting that it's something weird about solid wrestler beating said Bruce Lee.

Well, there is something weird about the idea that a guy who wrestled in high school and was decent at it then, and even still is "solid," beating a fairly renowned martial artist. As I said, someone notable or who fights professionally, nothing weird. That said, I know plenty of people who were at least "solid" at high school wrestling I wouldn't give a prayer against Bruce Lee or, for that matter, a lot of other people.


Unless someone can provide evidence that he actually was well versed wrestling or generally grappling and getting of his back etc.
Well, I mean, the style of martial arts that he made up features grappling, both standing and on the ground.


The whole problem is that Bruce Lee was mostly known as an actor, and yet burden of proving anything lies on the side of people who actually competed at different stuff, often at minimal rules.
I am pretty sure people knew of him as a martial artist who was in movies more than as an actor, really.


In short, there is no doubt, that he was skilled martial artist, just making him any kind of "most dangerous" person around in the 60's, 70's or whatever is huge misunderstanding.
Sure, but going from "most dangerous" to "on par with an above-average high school athlete" is a very, very large jump. It's the difference between saying the Packers this year aren't the end-all, be-all of football teams and saying that any high-school team with a positive win-loss record could beat them and there would be nothing unusual about it.

[Traab]

Well this was a total failure of a topic. /sigh

[Xondoure]

Surviving a raid from Blackbeard would be damn impressive.

[Erts]

Might I suggest to appease both parties...
Surviving a fight with Fedor Emalianenko, Anderson Silva, or George St Pierre would be as impressive. However, I would also argue surviving against Bruce Lee in a fight is just as impressive. (More on this later in the post.)

I think that you have become jaded against Bruce Lee by the large amount of bullshido that you see from people who claimed to be inspired by him, preying on the ignorance of Americans that think "if Asian martial art, than mystical fighting techniques." This is a falsehood that is ever so slowly being overcome by the rise of modern MMA.

However, Bruce Lee was in fact a very talented martial artist- furthermore, he does offer some good advice.

"I fear not the man who has practiced ten thousand kicks once. But I fear the man who has practiced one kick ten thousand times."
"Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it."
Pretty good advice.

However, Traab, your statement is a ridiculous one.
In a real fight, only "just surviving" is never your choice if you lose. If you lose a fight, you either are dead or alive at the choice of the victor or usually by the grace of outside help. And most of the time even the former is not true- most death in fights are accident, as most people do not wish to kill.

Thus, you can never say "I still was able to survive"- because that was never your doing.

[H Birchgrove]

To answer OP:

Wil Wheaton.

In Magic The Gathering. :smalltongue:

[Traab]

Might I suggest to appease both parties...
Surviving a fight with Fedor Emalianenko, Anderson Silva, or George St Pierre would be as impressive. However, I would also argue surviving against Bruce Lee in a fight is just as impressive. (More on this later in the post.)

I think that you have become jaded against Bruce Lee by the large amount of bullshido that you see from people who claimed to be inspired by him, preying on the ignorance of Americans that think "if Asian martial art, than mystical fighting techniques." This is a falsehood that is ever so slowly being overcome by the rise of modern MMA.

However, Bruce Lee was in fact a very talented martial artist- furthermore, he does offer some good advice.

"I fear not the man who has practiced ten thousand kicks once. But I fear the man who has practiced one kick ten thousand times."
"Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it."
Pretty good advice.

However, Traab, your statement is a ridiculous one.
In a real fight, only "just surviving" is never your choice if you lose. If you lose a fight, you either are dead or alive at the choice of the victor or usually by the grace of outside help. And most of the time even the former is not true- most death in fights are accident, as most people do not wish to kill.

Thus, you can never say "I still was able to survive"- because that was never your doing.

Yeah, but keep in mind the context of the quote. Sasuke was talking about the Hanzo fight where the three sannin impressed him despite getting their butts kicked, and he gave them the nickname that made them famous. They LOST to a single man, but because he didnt kill them, they are treated as being exceptionally strong. Can you imagine being in that position? Being so powerful that people who put up a good fight against you are automatically considered strong themselves? Even after losing a three on one battle? You are considered so overwhelmingly powerful that a three on one battle that DOESNT end in their near instant deaths is a sign that those three are also exceptionally strong?

To put it another way, Imagine being so strong that you are considered to be the equivalent of internet meme Chuck Norris. Obviously there is no way in hell to BEAT internet norris, but just managing to face him in battle and NOT explode instantly means you must be one of the elite amongst us mere mortals, and thus worthy of respect. :smallbiggrin:

[Erts]

Yeah, but keep in mind the context of the quote. Sasuke was talking about the Hanzo fight where the three sannin impressed him despite getting their butts kicked, and he gave them the nickname that made them famous. They LOST to a single man, but because he didnt kill them, they are treated as being exceptionally strong. Can you imagine being in that position? Being so powerful that people who put up a good fight against you are automatically considered strong themselves? Even after losing a three on one battle? You are considered so overwhelmingly powerful that a three on one battle that DOESNT end in their near instant deaths is a sign that those three are also exceptionally strong?

To put it another way, Imagine being so strong that you are considered to be the equivalent of internet meme Chuck Norris. Obviously there is no way in hell to BEAT internet norris, but just managing to face him in battle and NOT explode instantly means you must be one of the elite amongst us mere mortals, and thus worthy of respect. :smallbiggrin:

Okay, you never explained the context of the quote, just that Sasuke said that. So we have no idea what you were referring to. Furthermore, that demondtrates my point even more; Hanzo chose not to kill the Sannin.

[Traab]

Okay, you never explained the context of the quote, just that Sasuke said that. So we have no idea what you were referring to. Furthermore, that demondtrates my point even more; Hanzo chose not to kill the Sannin.

Yes he did, and that further demonstrates MY point as well. Three people attacking one, they failed to beat him, but because he spared their lives and acknowledged them, they became famous across the elemental nations. Imagine being so powerful, that even failing to defeat you while having a three to one advantage, they can still be impressive enough to be world renown for their abilities.

[Spiryt]

However, Traab, your statement is a ridiculous one.
In a real fight, only "just surviving" is never your choice if you lose. If you lose a fight, you either are dead or alive at the choice of the victor or usually by the grace of outside help. And most of the time even the former is not true- most death in fights are accident, as most people do not wish to kill.



Pretty much.

I have no statistic, but pretty much 99% of actual "fights" doesn't end with anything very bad.

"Winner" either doesn't want to really push it, or brawlers had been broken up, or police is arriving.

Death causes in 'everyday' situations, without some dangerous tools, are pretty inevitably assaults, not fights.

A.k.a 4 dudes jump on some poor victim and stomp him to death.

And therefore:



Might I suggest to appease both parties...
Surviving a fight with Fedor Emalianenko, Anderson Silva, or George St Pierre would be as impressive.

All those guys are, to say at least, extremely grounded and cool headed because of years and years or hard work and training.

Not to mention that they're apparently very nice guys in person.

So I would seriously doubt that they would ever try to kill some poor fool, seeing that killing someone can take a lot of effort and time compared to disabling someone in less "final" way.

So if anything, surviving against way less 'skilled' guys with actual anger management problems could always be more impressive.

Or, say, young Mike Tyson. He was scary human being, and he actually most certainly could be driven absolutely bat feces crazy with a bit of bad luck.

[GolemsVoice]

I think most of the top people in any chosen field qualify. Losing a chess match against the world's best chess player, after a long and difficult match proves that you're good enough to give the world's best chess player something to think, even if he beats you. The lower your own skill is, the more impressive it is if you manage to hold your own against good people, I'd imagine.

[Traab]

Pretty much.

I have no statistic, but pretty much 99% of actual "fights" doesn't end with anything very bad.

"Winner" either doesn't want to really push it, or brawlers had been broken up, or police is arriving.

Death causes in 'everyday' situations, without some dangerous tools, are pretty inevitably assaults, not fights.

A.k.a 4 dudes jump on some poor victim and stomp him to death.

And therefore:


True, true, it isnt something that happens often in this day and age. That does make it harder to properly imagine being that strong (and deadly)And I also agree with the talk about how it can apply to other fields as well. Being able to put up a chess match against garry kasparov that impresses him would give your reputation a boost quickly in that arena as one example. Even losing, if you impress him, thats a major feather in your cap.

[Weezer]

True, true, it isnt something that happens often in this day and age. That does make it harder to properly imagine being that strong (and deadly)And I also agree with the talk about how it can apply to other fields as well. Being able to put up a chess match against garry kasparov that impresses him would give your reputation a boost quickly in that arena as one example. Even losing, if you impress him, thats a major feather in your cap.

The part I bolded is very similar to my first thought upon reading your quote. The quote exemplifies a cultural ideal that has slowly been dying of and that I hope goes away completely soon. Personally I view it as a complete failure of society when ones power and worth is determined by your skill at killing other people with pointy sticks. Violence should not be confused with virtue.

The kind of strength needed to kill people well is not the kind of strength I value, in fact I would deem it the most meaningless of strengths. So to answer your question, no I don't think it was a particularly 'nice' thought and while I can imagine being able to beat people up that well, I really don't think it would be a good thing.

[Mx.Silver]

I'm not sure about actual fights, potentially fatal duels have been illegal for some centuries now and with good reason, but I'm pretty sure there are a number of figures in competitive sports/games where it'd be considered a mark of pride to have not been completely crushed even if you lost.


Yeah, but keep in mind the context of the quote.
You mean the fanfic you don't name, link to or quote beyond three sentences? :smalltongue:

[Traab]

I'm not sure about actual fights, potentially fatal duels have been illegal for some centuries now and with good reason, but I'm pretty sure there are a number of figures in competitive sports/games where it'd be considered a mark of pride to have not been completely crushed even if you lost.


You mean the fanfic you don't name, link to or quote beyond three sentences? :smalltongue:

Yep! :smallbiggrin: