Martial Arts Superstar, Jet Li has made a surprising statement defending the growing world of eSports. Well it’s surprising until you hear that he’s a spokesperson for the Chinese MMO, Age of Wushu.

Translated by MMO Culture, the diminutive star of films like Hero, Lethal Weapon 4 and Once Upon a Time in China said, “If poker card games and chess both have the players sitting down and are considered sports, why not virtual gaming as well? There are two kinds of sports – one physical and one mental. There is no good reason to debunk virtual gaming as a sport, and I believe the participants of such virtual PvP events have the same mentality as physical athletes.

MMO games are seriously big business in the East with China and South Korea seeing a huge growth in the genre in recent years, a growth that consoles could only dream of. When asked about his opinions of the Chinese gaming industry Li replied, “In five to ten years time, I hope to see China games being the market leader in the industry. For now, the biggest and globally recognized genre China studios are developing is wuxia.”

As for us, well we’ll stick to playing as Jet Li in his PS2 game Rise to Honor which did a fine job of recreating his modern-day action movies. Actually, can we have a sequel please?

Anyway readers, are eSports players to be taken seriously? Or will they always remind you of this guy?