Well, my Dad said it would stop many, in fact most, people. True, it won’t stop a pro or someone on crack. It worked just fine for me. Most people are not “experienced fighters”.
Right. This is like the argument that you shouldn’t lock your doors or get a security system for your home, because they can, of course, be disabled by someone with enough skill. But how many times are you going to be facing someone with enough skill? You’re just trying to improve your odds.
The fight scene in Bridget Jones’ Diary between Colin Firth and Hugh Grant is the best example I’ve ever seen of that sort of fight.
Apart from the bit where they go through the window, of course. 
Except of course it’s not.
Way too much assumption on your part. How do you profess to be familiar with how “most people” are trained? Particularly considering how many schools have adjusted their training since the advent of MMA?
Regarding the question of who’s more likely to win - a street fighter or a martial artist - I think I have a little experience in the area.
In my experience as a bouncer and Krav Maga student, I can say that most martial artists that I’ve come across have had no idea what they were getting into in a street fight. Krav is all about street fighting - incapacitating your opponent and getting the fuck out of Dodge by any means possible. Almost all martial arts guys that I have trained with are floored (literally) at how easily their moves are countered by an experienced street fighter…
That being said, the average drunk in a bar is not an experienced street fighter. When I was bouncing, I rarely had to use any force at all other than a steel toed boot to the back of the knee…
Which brings up a good point, bouncers aren’t drunk, and the patrons are. You’re not busting out precision moves when just standing is wobbly.
Good point. It’s also like gun fanatics saying a .25 is worthless as you really do need something more powerful sometimes, like against someone hopped up.
Sure it is. You’re asserting that “trained martial artists” are superior fighters, but in fact the training that most martial artists receive is oriented toward technique, not the practicalities of fighting. Quite frankly, most people don’t want to do what it takes to become an experienced streetfighter.
First of all, while MMA training has expanded significantly it is still a minority of the MA training market. Second, MMA is less a technique-based traditional martial art than replicating actual fight-like conditions, to the point that it is not unusual to sustain fairly serious injuries in training. While it integrates some traditional MA techniques, a majority portion of MMA is (or degenerates to) groundfighting, which most traditional martial arts (karate/kenpo, savate, boxing) try to stay way from.
You’re trying to define a “trained martial artist” as someone “trained” by the experience of being in an actual fight, which is not what you are going to see in most dojos, particularly the franchise schools that teach along traditional technique method, i.e. Parker Kenpo, aikido, taekwondo. I’m not saying such training is not useful, but the technique is only one component of an effective fighter, and the other components are taught only incompletely or not at all in most schools.
Regardless, most movie fights do not look like MMA matches any more than they look like Chuck Norris facing off with a circle of henchmen before the final showdown with the main villain. The vast majority of real fights are one or two punch affairs, even between trained fighters. This Jason Bourne business of extended Krav Maga combat that goes on for a minute or more of movie time with each combatant taking multiple blows to the head or torso and executing precise, seemless technique without being winded or seriously injured is just not real, any more than a sniper taking 500 meter clean and steady shots from a moving helicopter is.
Stranger
I’m reminded of an interview I heard shortly after ‘Cinderella Man’ was released. Russell Crowe worked out at a boxing gym in Toronto while the film was shooting, and several of the boxers from that gym were on set as extras or as ‘sparring targets’ for many of the boxing shots. CBC interviewed the coach from that boxing gym as well as some of the boxers. From memory, because I can’t find the interview…
Early on, one of the boxers said that Russell Crowe had an okay punch, for an actor. Pause. The interviewer asked him to elaborate, and he said ‘Well, it was pretty slow and it was always obvious, but he did have a little bit of power.’ The interviewer became intrigued - ‘Was he actually hitting you guys some of the time?’ Pause. ‘Well, here’s the thing - he’s a brave one, I’ll give him that. But what people who don’t fight don’t understand is that we spend years learning two things - how to punch hard and quick, and how to take a punch. So, he used to say to us “Come on, guys, let’s spar for real today!!”, and the coach or the assistant director or whoever was there would catch our eye behind Mr. Crowe’s back, and they’d just shake their heads.’
The coach then stepped in and explained just how much power is behind a boxer’s punch, and how the director had made it absolutely clear to him that Mr. Crowe was not to be injured or scarred under any circumstances. The continuity for the film was already hellish because of all the boxing, and having to write in where he got a bruise and then keep track of whether the bruise should or should not be covered up depending on which take got used for which scene - Just! Don’t! Hit! Russell! Crowe! Hard! Ever!
So here were these boxers, taking it easy on the actor, and yet, taking everything he could dish out. Except everything he could dish out wasn’t that much compared to what these guys were used to.
Then why do world-class MMA fighters, in full fighting mode, visibly shirk from even a slight brush of a foot to the groin area? There’s pain and pain. IANAE, but I’ve been hit on the nose four times in past drunken brawls and even when it did drop me on my ass and ruined my shirt, I felt relatively little pain. I’ve also been hit in the groin area multiple times in sparring / fighting, and the pain has been basically incapacitating every time. Intense waves of pain shooting in all directions from the sack really make it hard to concentrate. Seems to affect the pros, too, who get to spend ample time recovering after an accidental nut contact.
But what if they attack one at a time?
So you don’t think technique has anything to do with fighting? :rolleyes:
But MMA techniques are increasingly included in other, traditional martiial arts training.
Sorry, but that’s ludicrous. Of COURSE MMA is based on techniques…that’s what arm bars, takedowns, etc… ARE. And again, you are apparently not aware of how much these are being incorporated into traditional martial arts nowadays.
No, that’s nothing but your baseless assertion. I never said that.
So is it that you lack either basic reading comprehension skills, or the courtesy to actually read through an entire post before responding with invective and ad hominem?
Stranger
What exactly is an “experienced street fighter”? And how are they different from an experienced martial artists? From what I’ve seen, for the most part a “street fighter” is usually one or more loudmouth guys attacking someone they think they can easily beat. When that person is an experienced martial artists, it usually ends up with him opening cans of whoppass on the street fighters.
IMO, an experienced street fighter is someone who has been in a number of fights and doesn’t panic in tense situations. In reality though, the real thugs, the real hard men if you will, will never stand up directly a fight another person. I’ve seen experienced martial artists get beaten to within an inch of their lives by a real streetfighter. I saw a professional kickboxer nearly killed on Abbey Street in Dublin when he was stabbed repeatedly by a real street fighter.
I’ve been in a few fights when I lived in Dublin and they were unpleasant experiences. I don’t care how good you are at martial arts, having a tinker from Summerhill gut you from behind will take you down very fast. And that’s what streetfighting really is. Being willing to do whatever, whenever to win. It’s not talking back, it’s not standing up and being tough or knowing how to take a punch. It’s hitting first and hitting the hardest and that’s that.
Anyone who tells you otherwise doesn’t have @#(@# clue what they are talking about.
With that firmly settled, can we please move on to the Batman vs. Spiderman question?
I can kind of see a blow to the nose as not being incapacitating but the genitals? Every time that I’ve been hit in the gonads, it becomes “curl up into a ball on the ground and cough my guts out” time. Even if I were enraged, I don’t think I’d be able to pursue anyone.
As to the OP: I was always taught that the first rule in a fight is “If you must fight, hit something soft with something hard.” You don’t see that much in movie fights.
Spiderman beats him to death in about a second. Much stronger and faster.
Faster than a speeding bullet? More powerful than a locomotive? :dubious:
Might want to re-read who’s fighting (unless I’ve just been whooshed myself).