Part of it is that we attribute the characters Arnold plays to Arnold himself - The Terminator, Conan, the Commando, the Predator killer. Part of it is that he is so cartoonishly huge.
In general, we assume a large, muscular guy is dangerous because in general, being bigger and stronger and faster is a distinct advantage in a fight. Most fights aren’t well-coreographed martial arts displays. They are two guys grappling around bashing each other with kicks and punches. Maybe a highly skilled fighter like DeLaHoya could offset the size, but I would not want to put my 5’10 175lbs against Ahnolds 5’10 200 something.
Look, it’s like calling Van Damm a pussy becuase Chuck Zito kicked his ass at scores. He’d still take our head off with a flying judo kick 'cause none of us here are Chuck Zito.
And we aren’t talking about whether his bodyguards could kick ass.
According to my brother (Pope Charles of Houston and the Golden Triangle area, the Church of the Subgenius) Ahnold was kicked out of the Austrian army for being incompetent (he was a REALLY bad driver, unfortunately he was a really bad TANK driver). My brother challenged Ahnold to a fight after Ahnold made that “Democrats is sissy boys” remark about Admiral Stockdale (Perot’s running mate) because Stockdale wore a hearing aid (POW injury), nothing ever came of it.
No I felt football players better illustrated the point because although basketball players are certainly tall “most” of them are thin and lanky, Many football players on the other hand are huge and thick as far as muscle mass but retain speed with all the muscle they gain to be able to cover all that yardage so quickly.
So you despise hime enough that you would rather definitely get your ass kicked by arnold, whereas bruce is not that big and you would stand a much greater chance of kicking his ass.
what a suprize you guys say you can rock arnold’s shit as he is out of his prime and is aging happily and peacefully. You guys wouldn’t of stood a chance in a fight, and a fight doesn’t mean a fist fight, it means whoever is the last man standing by any means necessary.
Oooooh kay - keeping the zombie going - I once asked my step son if he would rather fight Arnold or Vin Diesel. The boy is 230 lbs of fightin’ youth with experience. Or at least he used to be. He relied, “Vin Diesel” without any hesitation. He explained that although Vin Diesel was younger and probably better shape that Arnold had more experience and patience and that would kick your ass every time.
However, IIRC, Arnold just had some heart surgery done (He came OK), so just about now, according to him, he is getting now back in a condition to beat a good number of people right now. Just not big guys in good shape.
My father (Smart Guy, at one point very into weightlifting) says that bodybuilders tend to be stronger than the average guy but not tremendously so. He says they’re exercising different muscle types than that which gives great strength. Specifically, that they exercise by repeatedly lifting relatively light weights for a long period of time, versus lifting very heavy weights for a shorter time. The latter is what develops strength.
He says the amount that these body builders can actually lift rarely makes its way into reporting about them, because the amounts are very unimpressive compared to what the squat “mesomorph” types who compete in weightlifting competitions can lift.
