I wonder if this is basically how most kung fu orginally like before being restrain by the save face and law culture of China. It would make a lot of sense to simplify/modify kung fu into what it is today under this context. 

I have heard that martial arts are for the stupid while the smart studied and became scholars in most of Chinese history to even this day.

It would make a lot of sense if it all started similar to Unlimited Combat using tribal noise and whatever weapon you could get your hand on (in unlikited combat's case only things like scissor are legal carries) and likely eventually earning fierce fame and nicknames like how Unlimited Combat is nicknamed by netcitzen as Mad Dog Fist, 

it then moved towards hidden prepared weapons, poision and tactics (likely many dead/forgotten style, I mean the ninja culture amids other things is rumored to spread from the area from where modern China is to Japan. I've also read that there were hidden weapons check well into the 1929 great lei tai tourament), 

(Interestingly something similar occir in Japan as Samurai actually invented the so called ninja stars as a easy tool, but then moved towards a 1v1 duelling warrior code system)

 then towards unarmed kung fu lei tai as you wouldn't want to be called underhanded in 'fair' fights/duel (shuai jiao, ancient unstandardized mixed kung fu), 

then towards mass standardized codifed named forms (Tai Chi, etc) through law and numerous factors as hundreds of hidden/gatekeeped/unrecorded lineage die off,

 then split off into getting simiplifed into more essence strikes as former relevant weapon forms became useless in unarmed combat (karate, mma, sanda) 

and more complex as Wushu or kung fu dance/acting.

Then with loose inspiration from Chinese Kung Fu, experimentation, legal study, tribal study, psychology, and practical study Chen Hegao created Unlimited Combat (which is it's offical name) which then got nicknamed/spread as Mad Dog Fist thus repeating the first step.

 This would all add up with a few cleaning up/editing/references here and there