I think some of you are giving way too little credit to #3. In an actual fight, an experienced street brawler will often prevail against even a high-level martial artist of comparable size, weight, and strength. Many martial arts students have lots of practice with the stylized attacks used in the dojo, but precious little with the often unorthodox attacks used in the real world. I think the street fighter would have her for lunch.
For what it’s worth, the Fight Science show demonstrates that there really is such a thing as a “before he knew what hit him.”
You’re crazy.
He’s a martial artist. What do you think we’re talking about here. This is a 140 pound woman fighting a 250 pound man!! Do you think that “martial arts expert” just means equality in a fight regardless of size or strength?
Have any of you ever done
Wrestling?
Boxing?
Tae kwon do?
Aikido?
Have you ever arm-wrestled a larger person, or a woman?
Because I’ve done them all. And if you think that technique is enough to overcome the mass discrepancy outlined in the OP, I suspect you haven’t done any of them.
That woman would tire herself out trying to budge that man. Forget knocking him out. She’s punching UP. If she tried to move him, or flip him, she might as well be fighting a wall.
If he goes down on his back into a defensive posture, she might as well walk away.
I am not trained in martial arts. I have never seen a Lara Croft movie. :rolleyes: I have watched plenty of football. This is not a 140 lb. running back being tackled. This is a “top-notch black belt” attacking an opponent with no martial arts skills. She will have speed and moves that #1-3 have no experience in defending against. You do not have to be big, heavy, or even enormously strong to land a damaging blow when not properly defended against. As one who has “done” martial arts (at what level?), can you comment on how much strength is needed to land a powerful blow? I thought one principle of most martial arts was to provide huge striking power at the point of the blow without using brute force. The technque of “bouncing” a punch off a skull creates shock waves and more damage than the street fighter’s follow-through punch, where the fist actually attenuates its own blow.
I have seen black belts do demos including breaking a board held over their heads by kicking it. A woman of that size could kick the guy in the head or certainly solar plexis unchallenged.
The following are excerpts:
In case #4 I believe the woman would have no reasonable chance.
For the unrealistic situation of a confined cage match, where the rules require the woman to wrestle the man into submission, sure.
In realistic martial-arts, the woman is looking to disable the man and escape, while simultaneously defending herself. It is quite capably trained.
As a martial artist, I’ve come across many smaller women purely faster than me and, while not “by the numbers” stronger, their technique has given them harder and more effective strikes. One of my past instructors barely cracked 5’ tall, but fought like a pit bull on PCP. Have you ever tried to give a reluctant cat a bath? Picture trying to control a 120 lb chiseled athletic black-belt woman reacting the same way. 
Oh please.
When I was doing judo I grappled with a tiny (100lbs soaking wet) Japanese woman (me rank amateur, her black belt). At the time I was 200+ lbs and far stronger than she will ever be.
Randori consisted of me getting held down and totally unable to get away from her for several minutes. I was pretty spent at the end of it. She was tired as well but she maintained control at all times. If that had been a real fight she could have waited until I was pooped and then choked me out.
What’s it all mean? Obviously size and strength make a big difference but that’s not the end-all and be-all. Practical knowledge of hand to hand combat makes a huge difference as well.
If all other things were equal I’d bet on the man but all other things are not equal. As plenty of fights show, “bigger” does not equal “winner”.
Thought I’d also like to comment on a cool demo I saw once. A woman shin-kicked through two Louisville Slugger baseball bats simultaneously, snapping them both with a single kick. :eek: 
:eek:
My intensely ingrained evolutionary reflex to avoid pain prevents me from ever attempting such a thing 
I have an old g/f who held a blackbelt in judo. She said she would be dead meat if she had met me in a dark alley. She was 5’3" and about 130 lbs, very muscular. Competed at college level.
I have no fight training outside of high school football and wrestling. I was 5’10" and about 280lbs at the time.
Her reasoning:
#1
Despite massive differences in training and technique I am just too damn big for her to toss around.
#2
Because I played the sports I did, I have alot of practice staying on my feet and don’t tend to extend my balance to where she could exploit it.
#3 Because of my size and build she probably would not be able to do enough damage to seriously deter me before I could get a hand on her and slam her on the ground squishing her her like a bug.
She said if she met me in a dark alley, best bet is run. Thunderdome scenario, I end up bruised all to hell and she ends up dead.
Martial arts are not magic, its just learning how to optimize what your body can already do. Physics still apply. There are limits to how much force a human body can generate with its size and muscle mass without breaking itself in the process.
Another girl I dated who was like 5’ 8" 180 with a few belts to her credit in TKD on the other hand I would never have picked a fight with.
I just watched the video, and to me it seemed mostly to demonstrate that if not allowed to completely go insane on your opponent by the rules of the tournament, then indeed the little guy will have time to get you in a headlock. In a streetfight though, Akebono certainly looked like he could have ended it for any of the first thirty seconds in either of the two times they came together. Just as said, once he had the guy down and squashed, he wasn’t allowed to do anything but sit there and wait.
Which saying, personally I would vote on the girl winning #1 and #2, definitely losing #4. I would probably give the advantage to the guy in case #3.
This is me, except I’m 5’8" and I don’t have a black belt. Even if I did, I would get my ass kicked in every scenario.
Even the couch potato - 250 pounds is big. If he wanted to hurt me, he would hurt me.
Maybe if you could get a pressure point to work you might have enough time to get him in the goolies and then run like hell, but in a hand to hand fight? Forget it.
I don’t know why that guy thinks that a boxer can’t break concrete blocks. I could, after doing about a year of TKD.
FTR, I did about two years of TKD. I earned two belts above white. I spent a year doing aikido, and a couple years of boxing off and on.
Martial artists aren’t mystical and magical. They can’t walk on snow without leaving footprints. They don’t generate force beyond their physical capabilities, and even if our woman had some magic touch technique that sent shockwaves through a skull, good luck applying it precisely when an aggressive man who outweighs her by 110 pounds and is 9 inches taller than her is trying to stop her.
You guys need to think about that for a minute. She weighs 140. He weighs 250, 80% more than her. You give her the speed of Flo Jo, the strength of ultrafilter’s woman, the technique of Royce Gracie, then ‘A’ is in trouble, and ‘B’ gives her a fair fight. ‘C’ and ‘D’ still destroy her.
Well, so far, I’ve studied judo, boxing, kung fu, aikido, tae kwon do, shotokan karate, fencing, various sword styles, and medieval weapons techniques. My primary instructor for most of these, although male, was 5’6". You’re absolutely right in that if somebody his size tried to use that size against somebody bigger, he’d lose, male or female. However, if he used the level of training specified in the OP to outwit & outmaneuver his opponent, he could still win, which is why I said #4 would be a fair fight. I’m willing to give the street fighter a little more credit and say that one could turn out to be an even fight, but the first two, all else being equal (i.e., no saying “Well what if the big guy attacked her by surprise? What if he had better footing”), the trained fighter would win.
This is why people become trained fighters. To win fights against people who don’t know what they’re doing.
A top notch martial artist will wipe the floor with an untrained couch potato. All she needs is one good blow in the face, throat, balls, knee, or solar plexus, and Mr. Couch Potato is down for the count. Once he’s disabled by pain she can kick him in the face repeatedly. Mr. Couch Potato won’t have the speed to block these blows, or the speed to grab her. And even if he swats her with a lucky blow it probably won’t be disabling.
But the others are trickier. She’s got maybe a 60-40 shot against an in-shape guy…it depends on getting that disabling blow in, but it’s not gonna be nearly as easy against a guy who’s alert and in testicle-protection mode and who’s used to some roughhousing. And if he manages a blow against her it could potentially be disabling. But still, break his knee and he’s in big trouble.
As for the other two, she’s got very little chance. She’s got less chance against the street fighter than the martial artist. 10-90 shot. The street fighter isn’t going to let her kick him in the balls, and the second he gets a grip on her she’s dead. And the martial artist can outpunch and outkick her and outreach her. Bigger and stronger is better than smaller and weaker. And that big guy isn’t neccesarily slower than she is.
Speaking as someone who has trained in several martial arts, and has acheived mediocre expertise at best, I think a lot of you folks are placing way too much emphasis on “top notch martial arts skills.” I don’t care how many baseball bats you can break with your shin, until you have been in a real fight you have no idea how you would perform. My money is on the 6’4" 250 lb. in shape streetfighter, even against a top notch male martial artist who weighs in at 130 lbs.
Grapplers, wrestlers, jiu jitsu players and boxers have the best chance of surviving a brawl. Watch UFC sometime, and see how often a spinning roundhouse kick at head level connects.
What precisely is a “top-notch” black belt? Are we talking world class? Among the best women in her large dojo? A regional champion? What style is she? Has she experience in serious street fighting?
One scenario that is tough to counter is this: What happens if the big goon rushes the woman, smashes his 250-lb mass into her, knocks her down to the ground, and then starts knocking her head against the concrete? After 2-3 blows, she is helpless and the fight is over.
If it’s no-holds street fighting, I give #1 and #2 to the female champ, #3 more likely to the man, and #4 would be an ugly ass kicking.
That said, I think lots of “top-notch” martial artists would get their clocks cleaned in a no-holds street fight against a big, street-hardened tough guy.
Geez, I have to agree with Trunk on this one.
It’s all well and good to idealize martial artistry, but I can’t think it would be of any use in any of the OP’s scenarios except #1. She could run him aroudn for an hour or so, and then start hitting him in the head after he’s passed out.
I think the real clarification here needs to be the scope of the surprise element. If there’s surprise, then the entire OP is misleading.
As for #2-#4, I can’t think there’s much of a chance for Brucette Lee. Can she get lucky and hit him in the “goolies” (thanks, Alice)? Maybe. What people don’t realize is that a nut-shot isn’t an end to a real fight. Playing soccer, I’ve been able to get up and create a “red-card situation” for myself after blocking a shot with my tender bits. Adrenaline does a lot.
I’m a good example of #2. I’m 5’10", 195#, in good shape (sports, running, diet). While I agree that I’d probably catch a few shots from an Olympic-level (for lack of any other reference point) female martial artist, I’m fairly sure that I’d be able to force the situation to my advantage.
The street fighter? Absolutely wins. I’ve seen a few of those types…their key is that they are able to lose all societal restraint. No-go for the femme board-breaker.
#4? If you equate the skill levels, this becomes a boys vs/ girls issue. I think guys win, mostly (e.g. muscle, etc.).
Slight hijack, but I remember back in college, I dated this girl who took a self-defense course. This instructor was famous for sending them out of that class with a hugely inflated sense of their own abilites to cause damage (to the extent that the instructor told them to “face up” to an aggressor!!). Being 20 (and knowing everything), I went to the next class and yelled at the instuctor. nothing changed, but I felt better. I told my girlfriend to go for the knee and RUN as fast as she could.
Last thing…Martial arts are designed to level the playing field when size and speed tilt the contest one way. Discuss.
-Cem
Funny…I would give a slight edge to the #4 scenario over #3. I still think she’d get beaten badly, but I agree wholly with your last statement. When a person can remove the “don’t hurt” filter from their conciusness, it’s a huge advantage.
-Cem
Whoops. Just reread the OP.
In scenario #3, the 6 foot 4 inch, 250-lb, kick-ass street tough would beat the living crap out of the female martial artist. If she gets a lucky shot in and it goes to the concrete “mat” and she really gets his blood up, he might well kill her in a frenzy of aggression she couldn’t begin to imagine.
No dojo can replicate a no-holds street fight against someone who will stop at nothing to beat you senseless, especially if the big goon is willing to risk getting hurt or killed in the process. I’d also guess that most black-belt martial artists have zero street fighting experience.
The street tough would likely beat the crap out of 98 percent of all male martial artists.
From the OP:
So, yeah, if a 5’7" woman stands there and waits for a big guy to knock her down, sure, fight’s over. If that’s what people are picturing when they think of “good grappling skills,” we’re not in agreement on that point.