How Kung Fu Theatre Almost Destroyed America

In the 1980’s, if you were a kid living in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, Saturdays at 3pm were all about Kung Fu Theatre. The old west style martial arts movies, filmed in Chinese and dubbed (terribly) into overacted English, made martial arts seem supernatural. Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and a bunch of knock offs became hugely popular in the hood. Kids in bad places feel like they need to be tough. Nobody was tougher than The Dragon.

There was an influx of fake Kung Fu and Karate masters in the 80’s who tried to copy what they saw in movies, sometimes without ever taking a lesson. These pretenders had no idea what they were doing, but not enough people had the experience to realize that what they saw Saturday afternoons on channel 5 wasn’t real fighting.

Then again, I thought pro wrestling was real until I was eleven years old. Grown men used to cry defending the legitimacy of Bob Backlund’s WWF championship. Fans actually thought the muscle bound, untrained Ultimate Warrior would last more than 90 seconds in a real fight before collapsing.

When the Ultimate Fighting Championship came along in the mid 1990’s, illusions were shattered. Even pro wrestling gave up pretending it was real. Actual fighting was on display for the world to see, and it didn’t look like Kung Fu Theatre. It wasn’t ballet. It wasn’t even just punching. It was violent, aggressive, and at times brutal. Today, the sport is internationally popular, but the artistry of it, what is really going on during a masterful fight…