I can sympathize up to a point. Thing is, Bruce Lee was playing a campy, silly role on a campy silly TV series. If he had a problem with that, he shouldn’t have taken the part.
I mean, I’m SURE many of the actors who played the Joker’s henchmen were genuinely tough guys who would easily have kicked Adam West’s butt in a real fight… but so what? They were hired to play goofy villains, and their parts called for them to get beaten up! If that was a blow to their pride, well they could always turn down the roles.
In the same way, many of the wrestlers who were “defeated” by Bruno Sammartino or The Rock were extremely strong, very tough guys who might well have WON in a real fight. But pro wrestling ISN’T real- it’s a campy joke. Guys who can’t accept that shouldn’t be wrestlers.
Actually, Burt Ward studied karate in high school, and was a brown belt at the time of the Batman series.
Not necessarily a badass, and certainly not on Bruce Lee’s level as a martial artist, but not exactly a novice either.
I think the basic problem of a fight between Kato and Robin is the campy style of Robin’s TV fighting vs. the way Bruce Lee portrayed Kato in a fight. Not the same sort of thing at all. Both are stylized and exaggerated, but in very different ways.
That’s another point (one I started to make but forgot to): “The Green Hornet” really wasn’t campy in the same way “Batman” was. It was played as a straight action show. It wasn’t getting the ratings “Batman” was and the crossover was supposed to be a ratings booster, so it was a matter of “hey, come on our more sucessful campy show and let your serious characters get their asses kicked by our semi-buffoonish superheroes.” I’m sure it was a little irritating.
There was a MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE episode – “Butterfly” – where a crooked Japanese industrialist managed to pull off the perfect murder on his estate while all eyes were on the martial-arts exhibition he was hosting. He left no evidence incriminating himself, and neatly framed a prominent American businessman for the crime (with a big fine international incident on the way once the guy is found guilty, natch).
So our heroes swing into action, hoping to frame the real killer by drumming up some fake evidence; why not, they reason, have our makeup-and-disguise types re-enact the killing for a cameraman at the same spot – while all eyes are once again on a martial-arts exhibition? We already know it’s the perfect diversion for this sort of thing, right?
Their go-to guy for this is Willy Armitage, a record-breaking weightlifter and judo expert – who they know will get his ass beat. There’s never any question that he’s going to lose, and nobody suggests that his opponent cheats; our hero puts up a fight as best as he’s able under the rules, and so does the other guy, and after a good deal of back-and-forth one guy is eventually slammed hard to the mat and wrapped up in a painful submission hold – and despite the training montage we all watched, it’s the good guy who loses.
I mean, sure, he only wanted to last long enough for his buddies to film the re-enactment – but he could’ve done that by winning, instead of, y’know, losing the fight (and the $10K his ostensible manager put up as bait for the challenge, at that).