I was watching a movie called “The Frighteners” a while back, and it contained a scene in which the star, the short and slightly built Michael J. Fox, knocks out a woman with one punch. This inevitably got me to thinking (sometimes a dangerous thing!)— I have seen countless action movies and TV shows where a man punches a woman-- POW!-- and she is out like a light! When men fight other men in movies and TV, however, it is usually a long ,drawn-out fight. The only thing is, usually guys are bigger and more muscular than women, so I can see that they could probably accomplish a KO with one punch, but I don’t know for sure! Are men really that much stronger than women? Especially if the man is small and slightly built! Do these “one-punch” KOs have any basis in reality! Are women on average that easily knocked out? I certainly mean no disrespect or violence to women (or to any one, for that matter!)-- I am just curious as to how this oft-depicted scenario jibes with reality! Any one care to comment? (I have never been in a physical altercation with any one in my entire life, so I am totally ignorant about such matters!)
On average (though of course you can always pick out exceptions) men have more upper body strength- arms and shoulders- than women do. And how vulnerable someone is to a KO depends largely on the mass of their head and their neck muscles; KOs occur when your head is hit hard enough to slap your brain against the inside of your skull. So especially against someone unskilled in defending themselves, a single strong blow to the jaw can knock people out.
I’m utterly puzzled by your observation. It seems quite the opposite to me. Men hardly ever hit women (unless in a depiction of an abusive relationship, and even then KO’s are rare), I remember being struck by the oddity of the thing when I watched that movie.
When a woman, or a small man, takes on a big guy, however, a one hit knockdown is all but guranteed. But that’s just for comedic effect.
A person of either sex who knows they’re being attacked is less likely to be knocked out than a person of either sex who isn’t anticipating a blow to the head, because they can roll with the punch, put up a hand to defend themselves, etc, which greatly reduces the force of the blow.
What I see more of is tiny gals like Jennifer Garner in “Alias” beating the crap out of guys who look like they are twice her weight and all muscle. Riiiiiight.
If you want to get a real idea of the difference between gals and guys’ upper body strength, check out one of those grocery store musclebuilding mags and compare the upper body on the most ripped out men with the most ripped out women. Some of those women are really impressive, but none of them come even close to the male bodybuilders in muscle mass.
That said, I’m sure that if you did a bell curve of real-world muscularity for both sexes, there would be a considerable degree of overlap. Some gals will be stronger than most guys, some guys will be weaker than most gals.
Still, Jennifer Garner vs. a 200-pound professional bouncer? Riiiight.
There’s always the lucky punch. My son, at 4 years old, punched out the daycare lady. She tried to take a toy away from him and he cold-cocked her.
Do you have any fight experience? I have trained and sparred with women half my size who were very effective fighters. Physical size and strength are certainly an asset, but they are not the only factor in a fight and they can easily be balanced by speed and technique. Granted, a fight between two fighters with similar skills may come down to strength, but to dismiss the ability of any small woman is naive.
As noted above, physical strength is only one of many factors. For an effective punch, speed is even more important than physical size (kinetic energy being mass * velocity^2). A small fighter who has trained to punch with high speed and to use their body effectively can throw a very powerful punch. For example, in many martial arts the power of a punch comes from the hips and you are essentially putting your entire body weight in motion. The bodybuilders I’ve trained with have invariably had trouble doing this. They tend to punch with their arms only. Their muscle mass slows them down and their lack of training prevents them from using their body weight to their advantage so they end up flailing their arms in effectual swings. Of course training can correct this, but the point is that in the absense of that training, their muscles put them at a serious disadvantage.
Also note that a fight is rarely decided in one punch. In a real fight, speed and agility may translate into two things: avoiding your opponent’s attacks and delivering more attacks of your own. In these situations, a small woman may be able to avoid/counter a huge slow strong punch and deliver a number of faster weaker counterattacks. A number of martial arts rely on this strategy regardless of your size or strength (e.g. Wing Chun chain punches).
This does not address the OPs question about how realistic the one-punch knockout is or whether it’s more effective against women. I think your comment about anticipating the blow is quite right. I also think a KO is more likely on a smaller person simply because a given punch is more likely to produce the whiplash effect when you’re hitting a lighter target. But your comments about women fighters being obviously ineffective are misleading.
The one punch knockout, though it may occur rarely, is not nearly so common as you see in movies. You only get long drawn out fights with key baddies, the rest of them go down with one. In general fights are nasty long sessions of people bludgeoning the crap out of each other. Not nearly so pretty.