Where did the Chuck Norris joke phenomena originate from?

The Chuck Norris jokes started in the summer of 2005 as the result of a thread on the SomethingAwful forums. A thread started called “Post Your Vin Diesel Facts” in response to the movie "The Pacifier" coming out. This movie featured Vin Diesel as a Navy SEAL turned babysitter. After the thread died out a teenager named Ian Spector decided to make a web page called the "Vin Diesel Fact Generator" to be a repository for the "facts" and allow visitors to make new "facts". The web site had some popularity but started to die out by the summer, so Spector solicited suggestions for a replacement for Vin Diesel. Norris was the winner by an overwhelming margin on write-in votes. This was possibly because of the "Walker Texas Ranger lever" joke which Conan O'Brien was running on the Tonight Show at the same time. As a result Spector changed the "Vin Diesel Fact Generator" into the "Chuck Norris Fact Generator" which you can visit at http://chucknorrisfacts.com and the rest was history. The new generator debuted in December of 2005 and was just a one-pager with an email address to make submissions. The first fact listed on the new site was "Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. But he is so badass, he has never cried. Ever." Here is a list of the "Top Ten" facts from site when it first started (note there actually 11 facts). 1. Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. But he is so badass, he has never cried. Ever. 2. Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits. 3. Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs. 4. The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain. 5. If you can see Chuck Norris, he can see you. If you can't see Chuck Norris, you may be only seconds away from death. 6. Chuck Norris has counted to infinity. Twice. 7. Chuck Norris does not hunt because the word hunting infers the probability of failure. Chuck Norris goes killing. 8. Chuck Norris doesn’t wash his clothes, he disembowels them. 9. Chuck Norris is 1/8th Cherokee. This has nothing to do with ancestry, the man ate a fucking Indian. 10. In fine print on the last page of the Guinness Book of World Records it notes that all world records are held by Chuck Norris, and those listed in the book are simply the closest anyone else has ever gotten. 11. There is no chin behind Chuck Norris' beard. There is only another fist.

I don't know how it jumped to Chuck Norris but I always thought the concept started with Saturday Night Live and their Bill Brasky bit.

I think it all started with the Soviet Russia jokes. But I know one thing for sure. If Bruce lee didn't die young, all those jokes would be about him. Plus Bruce lee surpasses chuck Norris intellectually, and as a martial artist, tremendously.