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Bruce Lee and the Hong Kong fights that helped shape modern MMA
- Relive the time thousands travelled from Hong Kong to Macau to watch a ‘death duel’
- First martial arts ‘super fight’ gave rise to Bruce Lee’s interest in free-form combat
Reading Time:10 minutes
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A long-forgotten series of fights captured the Hong Kong public’s imagination during the nascent days of mixed martial arts. On reflection, and upon investigation, these fights each marked seminal moments in the sport’s development, as MMA evolved from the fringes of society to the global phenomenon that it is today.
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Here we remember three bouts that helped shift combat sports towards the birth of modern MMA.
The first was a money-raising charity extravaganza. Hyped as a “death duel” but actually nothing of the sort, it reignited interest in martial arts that had sat dormant, by both fate and by design, for decades, and it inspired a generation of young martial artists that included Bruce Lee.
We look at the only time the “Little Dragon” fought, officially. It was a bout that turned Lee’s head, when it came to the restrictions laid out by rules and regulations.
And then we look at a clash that brought Hong Kong to a standstill, with rumours of millions of dollars gambled. It gave promoters and fighters a taste of what could be achieved.
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