The transcript below is from the video “28 Bruce Lee Facts That Shocks The World” by BruceLeeRealFight.

BruceLeeRealFight:

Bruce Lee is well known for his time as an actor as well as director. However, he is most famous for his work as a martial artist. He had a trademark fighting style that involved his epic yelling, his super fast kick, his super fast punches, paving the way for many of the moves you will find in the mixed martial arts MMA scene today. While some Bruce Lee facts are commonly known by all his fans, you may be surprised by other interesting facts from his life. Here is a delicious list of 28 facts you may not know about the Kung Fu legend.

BruceLeeRealFight:

#1. Bruce Lee voiced most of the English voices in his films. All the English dialogue in the 1973 Enter the Dragon and 1972 Way of the Dragon were voiced by Bruce Lee, himself.

BruceLeeRealFight:

#2. Bruce Lee was a terrible driver. A lot of Bruce Lee’s American friends have said in interviews in the past that Bruce Lee wasn’t a good driver. He always asked one of his best friend Steve Golden to drive him around. This may have been due to the next fact.

BruceLeeRealFight:

#3. Bruce Lee had bad eyesight. Bruce was nearsighted and was wearing glasses all the time. He had even tried on contact lenses in the 60s. This is one of the main reasons why he was a terrible driver. Since he was nearsighted, he appreciated Wing Chun’s contact style of movement.

BruceLeeRealFight:

#4. Bruce Lee armpit had no sweat glands. Bruce Lee always unhappy with the sweaty armpits because he feels they gave him ugly looks on camera. He had surgically removed his sweat glands from his armpit although he knew it was dangerous.

BruceLeeRealFight:

#5. Bruce Lee had a girl’s name. His family call him Sai-fon, which literally means “little phoenix” in Cantonese. They didn’t call him Bruce Bruce was an English sounding name given to him by a nurse when he was born in San Francisco.

BruceLeeRealFight:

#6. Bruce Lee was a cha-cha champion. Other than being a good martial artist, Bruce Lee won a cha-cha dancing competition when he was in Hong Kong high school.

BruceLeeRealFight:

#7. Bruce Lee hoped to fight Muhammad Ali. During his prime time, Bruce thought of Muhammad Ali as a superior fighter. He owned a few video footage of Muhammad Ali and he constantly watched it to learn Ali’s fighting style. Bruce Lee also adapts some of Ali’s footwork and movement into his own martial art. Unfortunately, this fight never happened.

BruceLeeRealFight:

#8. Bruce Lee was partly German and a mixed ancestry. Bruce Lee’s grandfather was 100% German and his father was Chinese. His mother Grace Ho was a Eurasian. With a mixed ancestry, Bruce Lee was not accepted into many Chinese Kung Fu schools in the 50s until he found a legendary master Yip Man to learn Wing Chun.

BruceLeeRealFight:

#9. Bruce Lee practiced 5,000 punches a day. Bruce Lee was dedicated to everything that is related to fighting or martial arts. He did 5,000 punches a day to master his fighting skills. This explains why his punches were so powerful and so fast.

BruceLeeRealFight:

#10. Bruce Lee had the lightning-fast speed. This is not a secret to every Bruce Lee fan. Bruce Lee used to place a coin in his friend’s hands, he would then snatch the coin before the person could clench their fist and stop him.

BruceLeeRealFight:

#11. In 1973 Enter the Dragon, Bruce Lee fought against Jackie Chan. One of the very interesting facts about Bruce Lee involves Jackie Chan. In the 1972 film Enter the Dragon, Bruce Lee actually had a fight with Jackie Chan. Jackie Chan was beaten up by Bruce Lee badly. In the 1972 Fist of Fury, Jackie Chan got kicked by Bruce Lee during the movie.

BruceLeeRealFight:

#12. Time magazine says Bruce Lee is one of the top 100 most influential people of his century. Under the section for heroes and icons in time magazine, Bruce Lee resonated with other famous people like Muhammad Ali and Frank, Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Robinson, Rosa Parks, Mother Teresa, Charles Lindbergh, and others, as one of the 100 most influential people.

BruceLeeRealFight:

#13. Bruce Lee charged high price for private lessons. Back in the 1960s, Bruce Lee charged $275 per hour to give people private martial art lessons. It would be equivalent to $3,000 in 2022 based on inflation. Would you pay someone 3 grand for an hour of martial arts training today? It wasn’t surprising that there were many people, including Hollywood superstars who were more than happy to pay top dollar for a martial arts class with Bruce Lee.

BruceLeeRealFight:

#14. Bruce Lee had thousands of books. We all know that Bruce Lee spent a lot of time on workout and training. It is amazing that he had time to read books too. One of the lesser-known facts about Bruce Lee is he loved to read and he had thousands of books in his house.

BruceLeeRealFight:

#15. Bruce Lee failed a basic military fitness test. Bruce Lee was widely recognized as one of the strongest men on earth. But do you know that he failed a basic military physical test in 1963 when he was 23 years old? They rejected him because of his poor eyesight.

BruceLeeRealFight:

#16. Bruce Lee was an atheist. Bruce Lee’s father was Buddhist and his mother a Catholic, himself was an atheist because no religion was forced on him. Bruce Lee was well in the fields of philosophy and theology.

BruceLeeRealFight:

#17. Bruce Lee was secretly filmed and included in a 1973 film Fist of Unicorn. Bruce Lee was on a set to help his childhood friend, Unicorn Chan with choreography but the producers secretly filled him and included him in the film to sell more tickets.

BruceLeeRealFight:

#18. Bruce Lee lied to get private Wing Chun lessons. Bruce Lee wanted to get one on one session to advance his wing turn skills. So he would wait outside the class and tell other people that the class was off so that he could be the only student available and learn some extra moves.

BruceLeeRealFight:

#19. Bruce Lee could open a can with his fingers. Bruce had strong fingers that he could bust a can open with finger strikes.

BruceLeeRealFight:

#20. Bruce Lee was the inspiration behind many video game characters. Do you know the character Liu Kang from Mortal Kombat, Law from Tekken, Fei Long from Street Fighter 2 are the inspiration from Bruce Lee?

BruceLeeRealFight:

#21. Bruce Lee had many real fights. In 1958, Bruce Lee became the Hong Kong High School Boxing champion. He defeated a British boxer Gary Elms. He also knocked out a [inaudible] fighter Chong in Seattle, a Chinese martial artist Wong Jack-man, a Japanese fighter [inaudible], and others.

BruceLeeRealFight:

#22. Bruce Lee had many popular students. Bruce Lee personally trained a number of popular people including Steve McQueen, James Coburn, George Lazanbe, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Joe Lewis, Chuck Norris, Mike Stone, Roman Polanski, and others.

BruceLeeRealFight:

#23. Bruce Lee was a Hong Kong child star. By the age of 18, Bruce Lee was already in 20 movies in Hong Kong.

BruceLeeRealFight:

#24. Chuck Norris first job in the movies was given by Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee was a stunt coordinator in a film called Wrecking Crew. He got Chuck Norris a quick scene, which started with one line of dialogue and then followed by a fight scene. Therefore, the 1972 Way of the Dragon was actually Chuck Norris’ second film.

BruceLeeRealFight:

#25. Bruce Lee was too fast for cameras. When Bruce Lee filmed The Big Boss in 1971, the filmmakers said he had to slow down because his kicks were too fast.

BruceLeeRealFight:

#26. Many fighters still considered Bruce Lee the greatest martial artist of all time. It’s been half a century since Bruce Lee died but even today, many famous MMA fighters or martial arts practitioners still call him the greatest martial artist of all time, including Mike Tyson, Conor McGregor, Anderson Silva, Manny Pacquiao, Randy Couture, Anthony Pettis, and more.

BruceLeeRealFight:

#27. Bruce Lee’s death is still a mystery. It’s been half a century and the death of Bruce Lee is highly debatable. There are many conspiracy theories pertaining to how this Kung Fu legend died.

BruceLeeRealFight:

#28. Bruce Lee had no regrets even he died at the age of 32. Bruce Lee didn’t leave as long as many of us do. But we all know that he had no regrets. In one of Bruce Lee’s many popular quotes, he once said, “if I should die tomorrow, I will have no regrets. I did what I wanted to do. You can’t expect more from life.”