More than a quarter century before the UFC, the late martial artist and film star Bruce Lee described in great detail what ultimately would become the sport of mixed martial arts.

The UFC was founded in 1993, partly in an effort to determine which fighting style is best. But as Lee had pointed out years before, it is a mixture of styles, not simply one, that is the most effective fighting form.

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"The best fighter is not a boxer, karate or judo man," Lee once said. "The best fighter is someone who can adapt to any style. He kicks too good for a boxer, throws too good for a karate man, and punches too good for a judo man."





Nearly 40 years after his untimely death at 32 in 1973, Lee's fighting philosophies are on display in cages around the world. Fighters who were born many years after his death idolize him nonetheless and credit him with shaping them as athletes.





UFC president Dana White calls Lee the father of modern MMA. While there are others who deserve to be in that conversation, there is no question Lee's impact upon the sport is still being felt.

The UFC will host its first card on Chinese soil on Nov. 10 at UFC on Fuel 6 in Macao, a gaming mecca near Hong Kong where Lee grew up.

To honor Lee, White had an image of the martial arts icon included on the official promotional poster for the event.

"It's pretty amazing when you look back at 'Enter the Dragon,' " said Lee's daughter, Shannon. "There he is in the opening sequence in the shorts and the fingerless gloves, ending it in an arm bar. It's almost as if he knew what was coming. But that all sprung from his belief about what it meant to be a complete fighter. He really believed fully that in order to be a complete fighter, you had to have many different things in your arsenal and be able to defend against and attack in whatever situation may present itself."

[Related: MMA has plenty of room for growth in China]

White said that though racism toward Chinese people was rampant in the U.S. during Lee's lifetime, Lee was such a special athlete that people of disparate cultures came to idolize him regardless.

"If you weren't white, there was some serious racism in this country [during Lee’s lifetime],” White said. “It was happening in Hollywood, too. It was hard to get parts. But not only did he break through and bring martial arts to another level on a worldwide basis, he made it the thing to do. Everybody wanted to do it, all races. It broke through because of what he was doing. Look at the way Asians were portrayed back then. They were portrayed as kind of goofy, and weak.

"And then here comes this Asian guy that every person of every color in every country around the world worshipped as the baddest dude in the world. He changed people's way of thinking about Chinese people. Do you know how powerful that is? At a time of serious racism and the way Chinese people were looked at, he became a worldwide hero. And it wasn't just to white kids in suburbia. White kids in the south were hanging pictures of this Chinese guy on the walls in their bedrooms. That is amazing."

Lee became a hero to White and to generations of fighters who followed him. Fighters routinely quote him and one, Alex Caceres, adopted the nickname of "Bruce Leeroy" in homage to his idol. White first dubbed Caceres "Bruce Leeroy" during the filming of the reality series, "The Ultimate Fighter," and Caceres quickly took it as his own.

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