Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fight history of Bruce Lee

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect to Bruce Lee#Fight history. Rough consensus is that the topic is not encyclopedic enough or notable enough for its own article. Most of the article's suitable content has already been merged to Bruce Lee. Regards, Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 12:24, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Fight history of Bruce Lee

Fight history of Bruce Lee (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)

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The topic is not notable, since Bruce Lee who was an actor throughout his career and not a professional fighter, did not participate in official tournaments and thus, unlike real sportsmen, lacks an official fighting record which could be referred to on the basis of solid sources. Combing through the entry reveals the unsubstantiality of most of its contents:

• 3. Quotes about martial arts and fighting skills is trivial and thus needs to be removed anyway
• 2. Fights Without Date / Anecdotal / Speculative is precisely what the heading says
• 1. Fight History by Date consists of scattered references to brawls and street fights in Lee's early wild days. The evidence rests mostly on hearsay from eye-witnesses. Only one of Lee's few semi-official fights took place within the framework of an organized event and none in a regular martial arts series. It is clear from that that Lee was never a real tournament fighter and that the oral character of the - invariably awed - accounts of his other fights naturally frustrate any encyclopedically useful attempt at an objective evaluation of his fighting capabilities.

Most of us are fascinated by the movie icon Bruce Lee, including me, but the whole entry is a thinly disguised hero story and as such unencyclopedic to its core. The two episodes which had indeed an impact of Lee's life and career, his teen brawls in Hongkong which led to his remigration to the US, and his unwillingness to stop teaching non-Chinese in his Oakland dojo, should be transferred to Bruce Lee, the rest discarded. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:57, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Comment: On a closer look at the main entry Bruce Lee, there are more dubious forks such as The awards and honors of Bruce Lee and Physical fitness and nutrition of Bruce Lee, but I will leave their discussion to others. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 15:05, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Um the reason is because the paragraphs were too long to be placed in the main article. I condesned the sections and split it in trying to clean up the main article. I think given Lee's unusual physical fitness and widespread coverage sources on this, this is appropriate. There just need a lot of work to be written into articles. I certainly think there is enough interest in such an article. 12,505 views already in February 2010. But I have no objection if you want to readd it to the bloated main article and condense it down. ‡ Himalayan ‡ ^ΨMonastery 11:02, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

@ Gun Powder MA: To say he was (only) an actor through and through would be the same as if you say Arnold Schwarzenegger was an actor through and through, never a bodybuilder or politicain. If the name of this page would be "Fight RECORD of BL", i would totally agree with you, because he wasn t a so called "professional fighter". But what is a professional fighter? A sport figther or tournament player. But c mon, fighting and martial arts is much more than tournaments or sport. When people claim "Bruce Lee was not a tournament fighter", they re right! But to say he was not a (street) fighter is not true. If we start to relate ANY comments about fighting to sport records, we have also argue about the claim that the Samurai Miyamoto Musashi was involved in over 60 duels during his lifetime, and never lost one. No "official" source exist for his fights, but it s no reason to delete this claims.

• - his fight against Wong Jack Man is documented, just two different opinions (Linda Lee Cadwell claims it least about 3 minutes. Wong himself claims 25).
• - his fight against Boxer Gary Elms in a Hong Kong Boxing tournament is mentioned in many documentarys. I am sure you could find more sources about it by visiting Lee s former school in Hong Kong (La Salle College), because it was a school tournament. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.97.227.220 (talk) 19:58, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
• - all quotes in section "Quotes about martial arts and fighting skills" are well documented (just check out the references).
• - the opening thread stats "some by date, some without", so any reader can judge for himself what he want to believe, especially the section "Fights without date / Speculative / Anecdotal".
• - to claim the whole page is unsourced, undocomented etc., is not true.

Other example: Go to the wiki site of Wong Shun Leung, who was the teacher of Lee. You re gonna find a statement like "Wong reportedly won at least 60, and perhaps over 100, street fights against martial artists of various styles". Should we delete this as well, just because Wong was not a "professional fighter" too?

• Professional Fighters: Fedor Emelianenko, Muhammad Ali, Semmy Schilt
• Street Figthers: Lenny McLean, Geoff Thompson (writer), Wong Shun Leung

Both should be mentioned and taken serious. It s not fair just to consider professional fighters and ignore street fighters.

Finally i hope there come more people and talk with us about it. Because i don t think 1 or 2 people should judge about remove a whole site. Best Regards 188.97.227.220 (talk) 20:03, 25 February 2010 (UTC) CB (talk) 21:04, 25 February 2010 (CET)

Comment: I agree we need to hear more opinions, but in the end we have to decide with a view to the standards established by the documentation of fighting records of true professional sportsmen. These can be nicely summarized from and solidly referenced through official statistics and all kinds of sports almanachs, but for Bruce Lee's inofficial fights we are reliant on the (rose-coloured) oral accounts of (self-declared) eye-witnesses. This is not an objective way and I don't see how a encyclopedic entry can be based on that slim and unreliable basis. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:36, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Keep informative article that might interest many readers. Str8cash (talk) 23:24, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Comment: I am sure a list of Bruce Lee's pre-marital dates might interest even more readers, but that can hardly be our criteria for keeping, can it? ;-) Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:36, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

• Nota bene: [1] --87.79.143.161 (talk) 00:11, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Any claim has his source, exactly as it should be on Wikipedia. If you have a problem with it, Gun Powder Ma, ignore it. Like i said before, especially the section "Qutes about MA and fighting skills" is WELL documented. If you say it isn t, you consider guys like Manny Pacquiao, Joe Lewis, Ed Parker Jr., Dan Inosanto etc. as liars. Pls. do some research before you judge about it. Take all kinds of documentaries, books, and any source listed as reference, and then say again it is not objective. This page was done around 6-7 months ago, and to this day no one said it should be removed (deleted) because of "unobjectivity" or what s however. Why? Think about it... CB (talk) 01:30, 26 February 2010 (CET). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.97.227.220 (talk)

• Delete - Statistical/directory style information, not encyclopedic. We have to draw these lines somewhere. Shadowjams (talk) 08:22, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

One last thing: Please still fair and don´t try to maniuplate! Some individual changed my words above, put in some statements i didn t wrote, so i had to fix it. It s not my decision to keep or delete, but it s also not encyclopedic to change words of other people. I guess anyone will agree. Best Regards ;-) CB (talk) 11:56, 26 February 2010 (CET) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.97.227.220 (talk)

Currently the article needs a lot of work. Note it was split from the main article because it was too long and needed many of the quotes cutting out. I think this could be written into a decent written articles with adequate sources. But it would rebloat the main article again if we were to delete this... ‡ Himalayan ‡ ^ΨMonastery 11:00, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I've redirected as I think it is more appropriate to condense this in the main article. I only split it because it degraded the main article. An AFD is unnecessary and a waste of time. The article amounts to little more than dubious coverage of his teen brawls. I've now cleaned this up and reinserted it into the main article without bloating it You are free to close this AFD. ‡ Himalayan ‡ ^ΨMonastery 11:26, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the effort, but I am not sure if we are allowed to remove the tag in the midst of an Afd, and whether this makes sense. After all, you only moved the problem from one place to another. What do the admins or somebody competent in these things say? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:12, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps in future you'd be better discussing things with the creator on the article talk page first and proposing to merge before going to AFD... I've redirected the Physical article too. I've condensed them and cleane dthem up a little, the article is better than preivously. I only split into this article to remove excess from the main article. In thinking about it the best thing would have been to clean it up on the spot like I did earlier instead of splitting into more messy articles... This article probably fails WP:Athlete anyway... ‡ Himalayan ‡ ^ΨMonastery 13:41, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I have reinstated the ongoing Afd, since the question is not only if an article of its own should be kept for BL's fights, but also whether much of the article's contents is encyclopedic. Please don't remove the tag again ("this notice must not be removed, until the discussion is closed"). Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:37, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

You must have a lot of time to waste... ‡ Himalayan ‡ ^ΨMonastery 17:24, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

• Keep There are hundreds of books which cover the history of Bruce Lee and his fights, including the fights recounted in the current article. The topic is therefore highly notable. Colonel Warden (talk) 19:39, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Comment: There could be a thousand books each repeating the same few unreliable eye-witness accounts, but they don't change the fact that Bruce Lee has no professional career to show which we could objectively trace here. Since he was a street fighter, the testimony to his fights is mostly anecdotal, which makes the entry not notable in my view. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 11:28, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

---

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, JForget 00:53, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

• Delete - Per Shadowjams. -RobertMel (talk) 02:52, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Martial arts-related deletion discussions. -- Nate^t/_c 17:27, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Actors and filmmakers-related deletion discussions. -- Nate^t/_c 17:28, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
• Keep about a notable martial artist and with lots of sources, its a bit of a mess but it needs cleaning up not deleting. I can see an argument for merging back into Bruce Lee after a clean up but @ 69k this may not be sensible. --Nate^t/_c 17:38, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
• Keep as a good break-out of Bruce Lee though I'd say that a list of the fights of the best-known martial artist ever qualifies as notable on its own. The issue of who he fought and how well he could fight is certainly a frequent one. Surprisingly well sourced. JJL (talk) 19:41, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Comment: What means "well sourced" for you? Are you happy with an article which mostly consists of reproductions of eye-witness accounts (and invariably flattering to the extreme)? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 19:57, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

• Delete Lots of street brawlers can get "eye-witnesses" to say what good fighters they are. That Lee was involved in some street fights isn't notable in itself, people only care because it's Bruce Lee and he's famous for things other than his street fights. Since Lee didn't compete in organized competitions there's a lack of independent reliable sources. If any of the fights can be shown to be significant to his life, then it should be in his biographical article. Papaursa (talk) 01:47, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

• The point is that there are frequently multiple accounts of the fights, being a street fighter is not what makes Lee notable, but it is important nformation about a notable marital artist, and the mail article is too big to include this in there. Tidy it up, scrap detail based on overly POV single reports fine, but if your reading about Bruce Lee, some sort of info on fights is very relevant. --Nate^t/_c 08:56, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

There are only two episodes really noteworthy, his teen brawl in Hongkong which led to his remigration to the US, and the fight which resulted from his unwillingness to stop teaching non-Chinese in his Oakland dojo. These two can be summarized in less than 1 KB. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:49, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

You comment on any "Keep" statement your opinion, over and over again. CB (talk) 13:34, 9 March 2010 (CET)

• Delete - Not all sources are verifiable or trustworthy. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 17:29, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
• Keep - I agree with Himalayan (Clean up, not delete). CB (talk) 13:34, 9 March 2010 (CET)

Comment: The user has just awakened from a long long peaceful slumber. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:16, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

• Merge or Delete - everything notable here can be, or already is, covered in the main article on Lee, and the article itself is very bad. Many of the sources used are not even remotely reliable - I mean, A&E programs, random websites, (deleted) blogs, and IMDB pages? Really? There's also Wikipedia self-reference, taking disputed and much debated bits of martial lore at face value, and significant claims that are uncited or original research - the section on the Wong Jack Man fight is especially bad because of this. At the very least, what is here needs to be seriously cleaned up (this also goes for what has already been copied to the main article, which now sufferes from some of the same problems). Ergative rlt (talk) 23:47, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
• Comment I agree there would be in interest in Bruce Lee's fights, but the lack of reliable sourcing renders most of this article useless. Much of this is against unnamed opponents at unspecified times (or vague dates like years). Even the apparently documented ones fail the reliability test--I find it hard to believe he finished a 10 second fight by "knocking Uechi the length of the gymnasium." If you eliminate the irrelevant quotes section and the undocumented incidents the little that remains could easily be incorporated into Lee's biography (if it isn't already there). Papaursa (talk) 19:12, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Redirect Given that the contents of this article have already been cleaned up and merged into a relevant section in the main article I see no point in continuing with this.. ‡ Himalayan ‡ ^ΨMonastery 17:44, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.