When you think about iconic figures in the history of martial arts, one of the first people who is going to come to mind is of course, the legendary fighter and genuine Hollywood superstar Bruce Lee.

Bruce Lee is a guy who everyone in the martial arts world now will claim to be influenced by. His fighting style is easily recognizable and he brought martial arts, specifically the sprawling Chinese variations of kung fu, to a mainstream audience.

To get even more specific, Lee was the innovator of his own new style of martial arts called Jeet Kune Do, which was a hybrid of a variety of different styles including Wing Chun and boxing, using a traditional kung fu belt system.

What’s interesting about this is that Lee has himself denied the fact that Jeet Kune Do was a new style that he had created. His vision, in his own words, was this:

“I hope to free my followers from clinging to styles, patterns or molds.”

And:

“The extraordinary part of it lies in its simplicity. Every movement in Jeet Kune Do is being so of itself. There is nothing artificial about it.”

In many ways, this sounds rather similar to MMA. It’s a style without a style. An ability to fight without restricting yourself to one specific set of moves or actions, but being effective in both offense and defence nonetheless.

But the question that has lingered in the minds of many fans of professional fighting and indeed the fighters themselves, is how Bruce Lee would have fared in an MMA environment such as UFC.

Having unfortunately passed away in the early 1970s at the age of just 32, Lee was gone long before MMA as a sport and global phenomenon came to fruition and so we never got to see what his potential may have been in the cage.

What it’s important to remember, is that Lee was not technically a professional fighter. He was unquestionably a talented martial artist, but for the most part he was a movie star. With films like Fist of Fury, The Big Boss and Enter the Dragon, Lee was the most important part of early martial arts cinema, but his only official fight was a boxing match in 1958.

There is talk of another controversial fight behind closed doors with Wong Jack Man, but the only one in the books is this fight with Gary Elms when he was just 18 years old. So would Lee have been a force to be reckoned with in MMA?

If you ask those in the know, the answer seems to be yes. Firstly, the current president of UFC, Dana White has referred to Lee as the ‘Father of MMA,’ and from a philosophy perspective, in terms of the rejection of one true style, it’s hard to argue with him on that.

There’s also Conor McGregor, one of the best and most celebrated fighters in the world at the moment, who has claimed that he has no doubts Lee would have been a world champion in MMA if he was around today.

So aside from the influential style, there are a few traits inherent in Lee’s approach to martial arts that would have benefited him greatly in an MMA environment. Let’s consider his capacity for restraint.

Getting into the ring with the intention to hurt or humiliate your opponent is not always an effective way to achieve success. Your mind gets clouded by ego and condescension and there is a lack of respect for the opponent's ability.

Ultimately, this will cause you to underestimate a fighter of great ability and limit your chances of victory. This was never Lee’s approach. He restrained himself from violence for the sake of hurting and a testosterone rush.

He was an offensive fighter only when he had to be and this is evident through his famous ‘one-inch punch’. A strike which isn’t used these days in MMA, but the psychology of which is not to scare or severely hurt your opponent, but to gain the upper hand physically.

The real key to MMA victory is based around that. It’s based around control and power, and not fear and aggression. Then there is Lee’s attitude towards his body. There are very few fighters with as dynamic a body as Lee and all of that came through hard work.

Though not a big man, he trained hard to be strong and fast, which are two characteristics essential for MMA fighters, but he also worked very hard on his endurance and his flexibility, which are often ignored, even by the best fighters out there.

Lee liked to compare the body to that of water. He said that we should be able to move like water and adapt like water. Focusing purely on brute strength when training will not achieve that.

This is one thing that would have put Lee a cut above the vast majority of other fighters in the game. He could have lasted 5 rounds and then some and been able for a greater variety of techniques without sacrificing a significant amount of strength.

Despite all of this, perhaps Lee’s greatest asset was his mind. He was aware of the importance of things like emotion, reason and imagination and how strengthening your understanding and control over these things could help you immensely when dealing with an opponent.

Lee made a point of doing daily mental exercises to strengthen his mind and this would have guaranteed him the focus and mental discipline needed to excel in MMA.

Considering he was still in his early thirties at the time of his death, the sky was the limit for Lee as a fighter. There is no doubt that there is an abundance of excellent fighters in the world of MMA today, but I think it’s safe to assume that Bruce Lee would have been more than capable of hanging with the best of them.