Did Jackie Chan enter any tournaments and win early in his career?
How about Jet Li?
Jackie Chan trained in a Chinese Opera troupe. I don’t know that he actually ever did any real fighting.
From my vague recollection of Jackie’s autobiography, I believe the Chinese Opera Troupe had a lot of martial-arts training. Whether or not that qualifies as “real” fighting is another matter.
Jackie would probably lose in a fight against Bruce Lee, but he’s much more cinematic. 
I think he could whup Chuck Norris, however.
In my post “real fighting” = tournaments versus training/acting.
I’m sure he’d kick my ass.
Someone with his incredible speed might not have to be THAT good to kick ass. He could make average contact a bunch of times in a very short period of time! Also, the speed of the blow can enhance it’s “punching power”, can’t it?
He may not have competed in tournaments (I don’t know), but from what I understand about the Beijing Opera school, he sure got his ass kicked a lot!
On the other hand Jet Li won the Chinese national competition several times. Pretty much the top credentials you can get.
I would like to preempt the inevitable question, “who would win in a fight?”
As you can see from that site, Jet Li won a number of martial arts tournaments in China, but I think these are performing competitions, not beatdowns.
And it’s a little hard to figure out what’s up with Jet, anyway. The PRC picked this guy out early to be a sort of martial arts poster child, and at first glance some of his accolades seem to be a little improbable. I swear I once saw a PRC “documentary” about how the kind and benevolent kleptocrats so graciously permitted a Shaolin monastery to continue to exist in the immediate aftermath of the Cultural Revolution. The problem? The star pupil is Jet Li, who as far as I know was never a monk.
(Oh, and that was NOT The Shaolin Temple, generally credited as Li’s first film. He was only about fourteen in the propaganda piece I saw.)
Jackie Chan was primarily Chinese Opera trained, but also studied some genuine traditional kung fu styles. Check out his autobiography, a fascinating read, very enjoyable. He has personally been in many personal fights and challenges, but has never participated in any “smackdown octagon kumite” sports.
Jet Li trained in wushu, winning a few championships, but has also never done the “smackdown” stuff. Wushu is a performance art and the tournaments are demonstrations of that art. Jet has also trained in several traditional kung fu styles in addition to the sport wushu stuff.
Gordon Liu could have kicked both their butts
Whoever said that Jackie Chan could beat Chuck Norris…
You DO realize that Norris has probably the best credentials as a ‘real’ fighter of any of the big martial arts stars, don’t you? He was heavyweight champion in full-contact Karate for a number of years, and was considered one of the best fighters of his era, along with people like Joe Louis and Bill “Superfoot” Wallace.
Chuck’s getting on in years, but in a real fight against Jackie Chan or Jet Li, I’ll put my money on Chuck. In his prime, I would have put money on him against Bruce Lee, too. Just because of the weight differential. Lee was a better martial artist, but Norris outweighed him by about 60 pounds, and that means a lot.
You must not have watched any Bruce Lee movies. Size does not matter. A kick to the face, balls, eyes or throat will put anyone down whether they are 300lbs or 160 lbs.
He he, I think the closest we’ll ever get to knowing the truth of that last one is to watch the end of Return of the Dragon, Sam. You can read some biography excerpts about those two and their relative skill levels, but it’s a topic for a whole new thread…
AFAIK, Jackie wasn’t ever a tournament fighter; too busy and too popular making movies! - as are almost all screen fighers. People who are very good real-life fighters frequently make bad screen fighters unless they can retrain themselves to perform for the camera; I personally find it a bit boring to watch two steroid-freaks roll awkwardly around the ultimate fighting mat putting each other in head-locks for 5 minutes straight and occasionally punching each other on the back of the skull. Same for when somone gets flattened by s shot you don’t even see; fighting for the movies and real life are entirely different, and few people can switch from one to another.