Inspired by this thread, I began to wonder.
I am about Bruce Lee’s height, have had the barest of TKD training, am fit and work out. If faced with Bruce Lee (or loose brie, or Chuck Norris) who was sporting a freshly broken ankle, could I beat them? Assuming they weren’t incapacitated; the break is a fracture that leaves their foot useless.
What do you think?
What are the odds on an average man against an injured professional fighter?
One good punch and you’d be down and out. My money’s still on Bruce.
Perhaps so, but one good punch and Bruce would be down too. Martial arts training does not make you capable of taking more punishment, it only teaches you how to avoid it. In this case I would say that it would be fairly easy to cause your opponent severe problems. Skipping the possibility of throwing rocks, etc. and grabbing a weapon, here would be my strategy:
Mobility is on your side. Bruce only has one leg to stand on, so you are much faster on your feet. You can easily tire him out just be walking a circle around him; he will have to hop to keep facing you. It might take a while, but eventually he will not be able to hop anymore.
Again, his mobility is limited. Martial arts trains you to always keep your legs bent; a locked joint is just begging to be snapped. Such stances can be tiring, and this would be doubly so if you could only use one leg. Try it out yourself by bending your knee enough so that a kick to the kneecap would not lock it, and standing on that leg. You cannot do that for long, so basically what you want to do is aim a side kick at the knee (attacking from the side of the knee works well even if the leg is bent, so Bruce will need to keep changing his orientation).
Bruce wants to grapple at this point, as your two good legs are too effective a weapon. You want to avoid the grapple, but getting him on the ground is not a bad idea (after all, that is what you were trying to do with the kick). As long as he is standing he is getting weaker, but if he sits down you have more of an advantage. The down side is that you will have to press it by attacking without pause. Start by aiming for the head, then probably move to the junk if he guards too well. If you have to, stomping on the injured ankle is always a good thing to do if you can’t think of anything else.
Given enough time you will be able to wear him down without really exposing yourself.
You’d win unless you did something really stupid like walk straight in and get close enough for him to punch you, or to get down and start wrestling with him once he’s on the ground (I’m not sure how good Bruce’s grappling was; I doubt he was anything special, but probably better than you).
Like was suggested just stay out of punching range (he can no longer kick), and get behind him by walking or jogging circles. Shove him over, then brutally start laying in the boots until he’s finished. This is for someone with no training.
With some training you could close in and out-punch him (he won’t be able to shift position worth a damn while you can), and/or take him down pretty easily and start the soccer kicking.
Personally, if I found myself facing Bruce Lee and noticed that he had a freshly broken leg, my strategy would be to turn around and run as fast as I could. (*)
Call it a draw.
(*) Then again, that would be my strategy if he didn’t have a broken leg. The only difference would be the probability of that tactic being successful.
Note that I do have some TKD training, but only an orange belt. :o
I would probably resort to fighting dirty anyway, however.
Minor quibble: MAs do help people take more punishment. Most martial arts have some element of sparring. It’s rare to find a school where it’s not in the curriculum at all. The more one gets hit, the more used to getting hit they are, therefore, they can take more.
My money’s on Bruce Lee.
No, no matter how much you spar your bones will still break with the same amount of pressure. A concussion is a concussion; martial arts training does not anchor your brain any better. The amount of muscle mass does come into play, but Ilsa_Lund said that he is fit and works out. Being hit in practice lets you learn how to roll with a strike and keep your balance when being struck, but this does not really help you when you cannot avoid an attack.
The pain threshold on a person who has sparred might be a little bit higher, but in a life-or-death fight I am betting that adrenalin will override any differences they might have.
sevenwood, thats a good strategy. I sometimes joke that I have all of the ranges covered if I were to be attacked. For kicking range I have trained in Tai Kwan Do, for midrange and close (arms reach) I have trained in Shodokan Karate. For grappling I was on the wrestling team (this is real wrestling, not the WWF “wrassling” you see on TV). In the event that my opponent is out of range of even my kicks, I was on the cross-country team. 
Eh, could I bring mys word to the fight? In which case, broken ankle or not, I could take him 
If not 
then Phage’s strategy sounds good. Tire him out by staying out of reach, forcing him to face you for a while. When he shows an opening tear into it like a monkey on a cup cake.
First, since Bruce Lee is dead, I don’t see the relevance of this question.
Second, considering what a good sport Bruce Lee was, I can’t believe that he would enter into a contest with anyone who was armed with nothing but a broken ankle. Hell, even Samson had a complete jawbone of an ass with which to smite the Philistines. Can you imagine how far he’d have gotten with only a broken ankle?
Oh, wait…
Did you mean that your ankle was broken? OK. You’re dead.
On the other other hand, if you were suggesting that Bruce Lee would fight you while his ankle was broken… why don’t you just take a gun with you to the fight, you wimp?
I’d bring a gun, but it is Bruce’s ankle that is broken. Now that would not be sporting.
Rather than beating Bruce Lee with a broken ankle, you should beat him with a bat. Much more effective.
Could I beat him with some loose brie?