I’ve always been a Martial Arts enthusiast, and I used to be obsessed with Bruce Lee. I thought he was God. I’ve not thought much about him in the last 10 years or so, however, even as I have become a full-fledged Mixed Martial Arts fan.

But I realized yesterday when reading some Bruce Lee quotes that it’s an absolute travesty that he was taken from us before he could see MMA become what it is today.

Many accept that he was special in some way, but few realize just how special. I think he was the pioneer of Mixed Martial Arts itself. His own art, Jeet Kune Do, was less of a style of its own and more of a philosophy — philosophy of being eclectic with techniques from any combat system that works.

“Jeet Kune Do: it’s just a name; don’t fuss over it. There’s no such thing as a style if you understand the roots of combat. — Bruce Lee”

What’s amazing about this is that it’s the ONLY approach that works in modern MMA. Mixed Martial Arts took over a decade to figure out what he had already learned in the 1960′s. He respected the classic arts but realized their limitations early on.

I really wish he were here today to enjoy the MMA explosion. He would have embraced it like no other. And I’m quite sure he’d still be fighting despite how old he would be today. Contrary to what many fanboys think, however, he would in fact have many losses both by submission and by knockout. But he would also have the most untouchable record in the world. He would insist on fighting in the heavyweight division at times, he would fight on very short notice, and he’d probably try to convince an organization to let him fight multiple people at the same time. He always pushed the limits.

“Unfortunately, now in boxing people are only allowed to punch. In Judo, people are only allowed to throw. I do not despise these kinds of martial arts. What I mean is, we now find rigid forms which create differences among clans, and the world of martial art is shattered as a result.” — Bruce Lee

I just miss him. I wish he were here to see what’s happening. He deserved it. Half the fighters over 30 are probably in MMA in some part because of Bruce Lee. We should pay our respects to the first evangelist of truly mixed Martial Arts. R.I.P.:

For those of us who are brutal enough to love MMA and geeky enough to use RSS.

• UFC News http://www.ufc.com/index.cfm?fa=rss.home
• Sherdog MMA RSS Resources http://www.sherdog.com/news/rss.asp
• MMA-News http://www.mma-news.org/e107_plugins/rss_menu/rss.php?1.3
• The Ultimate Podcast http://www.podshow.com/feeds/theultimate.xml
• Ultimate MMA http://www.woai.com/rss/649.rss

If you haven’t heard of MMA, you should fix that. And if you’ve heard of MMA but are UFC-biased, you should fix that too. There are tons of amazing fighters out there that aren’t yet in the UFC.

But most importantly, if you know of MMA and of UFC but don’t know of Fedor Emelianenko, you are missing out.

Fedor is widely considered to be the best MMA fighter ever. He’s a God when striking or grappling, and can take massive punishment and come back to destroy you. Check out this fight with Randleman where he gets dropped on his neck, rolls over, and submits him like it never even happened.

Then at the end he tries to help him up as if to say sorry. The guy is inhuman. Oh, and he never stares people down in the ring. He looks down and is always respectful. Then he comes out and hurts you. When this beast was asked if he had any pets he responded:

Yes, I have a pet turtle.

Fear any man who ignores being dropped on his neck and has a pet turtle. And here’s a highlight reel:

[ Video: Autistic Coach Gets To Play: What Happens Is Amazing ]

[ Video: Autistic Coach Gets To Play: What Happens Is Amazing ]

65 Million. Holy crap. This is a total dream scenario. Now we get to see the best of both organizations fight each other. Dude, I’m so enthused about this…

Oh, and say goodbye to boxing. That’s a done deal. MMA is the future.