Chuck Norris was interviewed during a break while filming a Total Gym commercial and shared his thoughts on how he and Bruce Lee would have done had mixed martial arts been around in the ’60s and ’70s.

“Of course MMA wasn’t in existence when Bruce and I were training and when I was fighting,” said Norris. “Even though we fought bare-fisted during our competition, and we had a lot of injuries, but it wasn’t an MMA-style fighting.”

“I have to say, being confident in myself, that I feel I would have done very well in the MMA arena, because of my judo training. I was a black belt in judo, plus I had multiple black belts in karate, taekwondo, tang soo do, and so forth. Plus I studied jiu-jitsu with Gene LeBell back in the early ’60s and ’70s.

“So I felt I was pretty well-rounded, and really credit that for the success I had in the ring in my competitive days. And so I feel I would have done well, and I think Bruce would have too.

“He was a fanatical trainer. When he and I would work out, we’d work out for three or four hours in his backyard in Culver City, California, and after we finished working out, we’d go into the living room, and I’d sit down on the couch, and his wife Linda would bring me a glass of iced tea. 

“Well Bruce would drop down to the floor and start doing crunches. I said, ‘Bruce, there’s times to relax, too. You need to relax, as well, because you’ll burn that engine out if you keep right on training all the time. You’ve got to recharge your battery.’ But Bruce had a hard time doing that. He had a hard time recharging his battery.”

John S. Nash has the video.