The match between Jet Li and Jackie Chan at their absolute peak would quite likely come down to their training. As Biography tells us, Jackie Chan has studied martial arts since the age of seven, and he was once considered the most likely successor of Bruce Lee himself. However, a lot of Chan's physicality and acrobatics also come from the rigorous, decade-long drama and acrobatics training he received at his alma mater, the Chinese Opera Research Institute in Hong Kong. He eventually picked up hapkido, which Hammerhead MA tells us is still his only "official" martial arts training. Chan's master initially had some reservations about his kicks, but the star eventually mastered the style through sheer hard work and acquired a black belt.
Jet Li, as Biography notes, is a different beast. He started his martial arts training at age eight, won a national championship three years later, and toured the globe with the Beijing Wushu Team. He was so good that in the 1970s, he held the All-Around National Wushu Championship for five years in a row. That's a pretty amazing pedigree, though it doesn't necessarily make Li an invincible warrior — as Neurologica Blog points out, Wushu practitioners rarely see success against MMA fighters. Still, Li's onscreen take on his martial art is notoriously aggressive which, combined with his multiple real-life martial arts championships, could be enough to win Round One against the less formally-trained, more laid-back Chan.
WINNER: YOUNG JET LI
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