To quote a line I heard long ago on this, “Kirk would win, because Picard would say ‘Let us reason together’, and Kirk would kill him.” Kirk’s just more aggressive.
Besides all of that Kirk has a much higher win ratio in fights to the death with one loss and dozens of wins even if he tends to spare the person that the god like alien is making him fight at the last second. Picard has one loss and zero wins so that makes it easy.
Yeah, Picard is, all around, a better Captain, but Kirk is a better fighter. Picard’s strong suit has always been in convincing his enemies that fighting will go poorly for them, regardless of how it will go for him, i.e. “The Defector”.
I think I would have to go with Picard Killing Kirk. I agree that Kirk is the more aggressive, physically superior opponent, but I think Picard would twist things with his superior brain power and have Kirk actually kill himself.
The idea of Picard as both starship captain and ambassador always appealed to me because it just made so much sense in the “Star Trek” universe. If you’re the vanguard of the human race, you’d better have mad diplomatic skillz.
Then it jumped the shark in the episode with “Hugh” where Geordi et al. came up with a virus that would kill all the Borg… and Picard said no because it was too mean. Hugh seemed like such a nice guy. This was at a time when the Borg were a nigh-unstoppable killing force that threatened to wipe out the Federation and all its neighbours. I just about barfed. Picard managed to take being a milquetoast and turn it into being a traitor.
Kirk would kill Picard inside a minute. I was going to say he’s take Picard’s balls as a trophy but I’m not convinced Picard had any.
I have seen an episode or two where Picard bests several Klingons in hand-to-hand combat. I can’t recall any times where Kirk has done so. Edge: Picard.
Picard’s only chance is to very quickly, before Kirk’s shirt is torn, blind his opponent with the glare from his pate and strike with a Butch Cassidy style kick to the privates.
^ :dubious: ^