Hong Kong has a healthy claim to being the birthplace of modern mixed martial arts. One of the sport’s earliest progenitors was Bruce Lee and his jeet kune do fight style, but there was a time when Hong Kong was the epicentre of global MMA, with one of the earliest professional fight leagues attracting some of the biggest names in martial arts.
SCMP Sport investigation discovers that modern mixed martial arts has its roots firmly in Hong Kong, and that Bruce Lee was among the earliest adopters of techniques that would become MMA.
In the early 1980s, a group of kung fu enthusiasts began staging the Full Contact Boxing championships.
Hong Kong martial artist Bruce Lee was many MMA fighters’ first exposure to mixing various disciplines, and a one-minute scene in film “Enter the Dragon’ is considered a seminal moment in the sport’s development
Relive the time thousands travelled from Hong Kong to Macau to watch a “death duel’, the first martial arts “super fight’ which gave rise to Bruce Lee’s interest in free-form combat.
The city had its own groundbreaking competition, the Full Contact Boxing promotion, many years before MMA swept the globe
The Full Contact Boxing league gave rise to some of the toughest men in the city during the 1980s, who delighted fans and took on all-comers.