Did Bruce Lee Say Something About The Best Fighter Is Not a Boxer, Karate, or Judo Man?

 

 Did Bruce Lee Say something about the best fighter is not a Boxer, Karate, or Judo Man?

Introduction

I've seen the image above (without my annotations) circulating on social media. I decided to investigate.

The quote is supposedly "The best fighter is not a Boxer, Karate or Judo man. The best fighter is someone who can adapt on any style. He kicks too good for a Boxer, throws too good for a Karate man, and punches too good for a Judo man."

You can easily find it at generally unsubstantiated "quote" sites like so-called "quotable quotes" from Bruce Lee on Goodreads. I won't link it here because I don't need to reinforce its algorithmic value.

The Sources

I checked the Bruce Lee Library and other sources and found nothing at all like this quote. In fact, Bruce Lee barely used the term "best fighter" at all, as far as I could determine. Only in the book Bruce Lee: The Tao of Gung Fu did I find something attributed to Bruce that used this term:

"The virtue of not striving. The best soldiers are not warlike; the best fighters do not lose their temper."

There is also no result in the extensive Black Belt archive.

The Search

Finding the origin of this quote was easy. If you search for it, the first result is likely going to be a 2012 Yahoo Sports story about Bruce Lee's supposed role in "inventing" mixed martial arts. There is nothing prior to this 2012 story.

(The Archive.org version is here and it's easier to see that Kevin Iole wrote the story. The latest version doesn't list him as an another, but there is an "also by Kevin Iole" inline that reveals his authorship.)

The article says:

"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."

The attribution is "Lee once said." Unfortunately, there is no evidence that Lee ever said that.

Conclusion

There is no evidence Bruce Lee ever said "the best fighter is not a boxer, karate or judo man." People seem to like to repeat this saying because it resonates with their personal beliefs, and it seems consistent with Bruce Lee's assumed philosophy, at least in his Jeet Kune Do days. It would be better, however, to not post this quote, or to simply attribute it to former Yahoo Sports writer Kevin Iole.