Sonnen doesn't know martial arts. He's a wrestler; he doesn't know how to respect people. Some say he's promoting the fight, but he disrespected my country, my family and fans.
People often say, 'Ah, ultimate fighting is so violent,' but it's rooted in martial arts. Martial arts incarnate respect. You can't walk into a dojo and say to your sensei, 'Hey, salut tabarnac!' After every one of my fights I go and shake the hand of my opponent. I don't need to hate the other fighter to fight him well. It's a sport.
On 'Black Lightning' I have a stunt double who's a lot younger than me. The fighting style on the show is heavily martial arts-based, and I know boxing; I don't know martial arts. I also have a really bad knee, and he's been doing martial arts since he was 6 years old, so I'm not thinking, 'No, I can do that! I can make that look cool!'
I wanted to know what exactly martial arts is. When you look at martial arts films, the later ones became more and more exaggerated. It's like, wow, is martial arts only a show?
Jackie Chan is a very good comedy/martial arts star. He does one kind of martial arts that Jet Li doesn't know how to do and Jet Li does a martial art that Jackie Chan doesn't know how to do. You can both go to two Chinese restaurants, but both can have different kinds of food.
Jackie Chan is a very good comedy/martial arts star. He does one kind of martial arts that Jet Li doesn't know how to do, and Jet Li does a martial art that Jackie Chan doesn't know how to do.
I don't like to trash talk... I don't know how to do that, it's not me. In the martial arts world that I was brought up it was all about respect.
The thing about mixed martial arts is you have to know every single martial art in the world or you're at a disadvantage. So, there's so much to learn. I have to know wrestling. I have to know kick boxing. I have to know boxing. I have to know karate.
You know, it's such an insult to actual martial artists that I say that I do martial arts.
My background in promoting martial arts started in 1985 when we were doing PK Karate, which was on ESPN. Fast forward to when mixed martial arts became legal in California. I made the jump to MMA and never looked back.
Martial arts, for me, is not just some kind of job to gain some money or whatever. No, martial arts, for me, is my lifestyle, my religion, my philosophy... Martial arts are everything for me.
Miles and I had been looking to do a martial arts show for some time. Our first two movies that we wrote were "Lethal Weapon 4" and "Shanghai Noon" with Jackie Chan. Then we sort of got pulled into the superhero world, but then you look around at what's not on television and there wasn't really a martial arts shows. There are shows that do martial arts to a degree, but there's not a martial arts show.
I didn't know anything about martial arts. I'm a big fan, but I never practiced martial arts.
You know, women are so much cooler than guys because we can do more martial arts. Martial arts are pretty much made for women because we're quicker and we're smaller than men, and so we're faster. You girls really should take martial arts.
I am so happy because I want more people to like martial arts movie not just martial arts audience. Even martial arts can be used in comedy, in drama, in horror movies, in different kinds of movies.
I feel that not only have I been out there promoting my style of karate, but just promoting the traditional martial arts, and it makes me very happy.
I mean when you go to a network and say, "We want to make a martial arts series in the future." And give them the pitch. And by the way, the only way to achieve the authentic Hong Kong martial arts we need a full-time fight team unit working concurrently, and we're hiring a Chinese fight team from Hong Kong. And they were like, "Great, let's go."