Top notch female martial artist versus 6' 4'', 250 pound man -- Who wins?

In My Humble Opinion
61

Do you mean if we were boxing full contact, or if we were fighting for all the marbles with no rules? If it was the former, I still think she’d have been able to take me at the time. I had a little martial arts training, but I was completely new to boxing and kickboxing and she had several years experience, good instincts, and hit hard. She didn’t know who I was and didn’t know I was the new guy, so all she saw was a reasonably fit kinda-big guy in front of her who might know what he’s doing, so she uncertainly asked the instructor if it was all right to go full contact. The instructor and I both shouted “NO!” at the same time. :smiley: That was several years ago, and I’d have been fine sparring full contact with her the skill level I have now, but at the time she probably would have messed me up.

Now if it’s the latter and it had been “untrained me” fighting “boxing-trained her” for all the marbles with few or no rules, harder to say. Certainly my best bet would have been to shoot past her first couple of straights and either get her in a clinch or ground-and-pound her, but I don’t know what her skill level in takedown defense and ground fighting was. I know she knew some, it was an MMA school and she rolled, but I don’t know how good she was. It’s an important question; there was a Brazillian jiujitsu brown belt there who wasn’t a whole lot bigger than she was, maybe 155 to 160, and even though I had 50-60 pounds on him he could toss me around effortlessly and submit me at will. If she had me outclassed both standing up and on the ground, my size and weight advantage might not do anything for me. That’s getting into the realm of an experienced MMA fighter, though, and there aren’t a whole lot of women fighting MMA. On the other hand, there’s probably not any reason that a woman couldn’t reach that skill level…

62

I have a black belt in Karate.
I have sparred with some good female martial artists.

My opinion:

#1 - Man
#2 - Man
#3 - Man
#4 - Man

Now the disclaimers - I’m assume they are engaged in a punching/kicking type brawl, and that both are trying to the best of their ability. I’m also assuming that the man in #1 and #2 isn’t someone who will just cower and start whimpering as soon as he’s hit, but will do his damndest to fight back.

First of all, women just don’t have the kind of power that men have. I have been kicked full-power by a female black belt, and I’ve been kicked full power by many male black belts. There just isn’t any comparison. They don’t have the musculature, the skeletal structure, the weight distribution, or the body mass to be that effective.

Second, NO martial artist is guaranteed of putting you down or knocking you out with one blow. Movies do a terrible disservice to people who think things like, “I just need to connect a good blow to the solar plexus, or a good kick to the head, and the fight’s over”. Uh uh. It is incredibly difficult to stop someone by punching or kicking them until they cannot continue. Unless you get very lucky, the odds of any martial artist completely disabling a strong defender with one blow are slim. The odds of a 110 lb female disabling a 250lb man that way is way more than slim.

The way this kind of confrontation would go would be - woman hits 250 lb man. 250lb man charges woman and hits her with about 500 lbs of force. Woman winds up on the ground with 250 lbs of pummeling monster on top of her. Fight is over.

In this scenario, it hardly matters if the guy is in shape or not.

The final caveat, however, is if the woman is skilled in a style which teaches joint locks, and she manages to get the other guy in a good hold, she might be able to dominate the encounter. But if it’s just a punching and kicking battle, she’s in big trouble.

I saw a fight a number of years ago between a male and female martial artist. They got in the ring, and he just stood there and let her kick him and punch him, only blocking his face. After allowing this for some time, he wound up with a roundhouse kick and dropped her like a sack of cement. Fight over. It wasn’t pretty.

63

Very interesting thread.

I’m 6’4” 215 pounds. I’m in OK shape. My Wife is a serious athlete.

I though, work with my hands a lot on my days away from programming. And do quite a bit of heavy lifting as it were. Always have.

What has always surprised me is that I seem to have much, much faster reflexes than my Wife. I was never into sports, so I have not had a lot of balls thrown at me. But my reaction time seems to be about twice as fast as my Wife. When I fumble something, I can more often than not grab it before it hits the floor (gotta be careful though if it’s a chef’s knife or something). Guess I’ve dropped a lot of tools in my life.

Is this a Man/Woman thing?

64

Yes. Shodan already answered this, and it’s indisputable. Men have an enormous upper body strength advantage over women. All other things being equal (nobody’s sickly or disabled, they’re both in the same “shape”), a man the same size as a woman will be significantly–and I mean significantly–stronger than the woman.

So, though no martial arts expert, I’ll hypothesize that an 140-lb man versus an 140-lb woman, where both are of comparable skill–well, advantage man.

65

No contest. A sufficiently motivated normal man could kick any woman’s ass unless it was a completely unexpected one-hit knock out. Men have testosterone on their side. It sucks but there it is.

On the other hand, that testosterone makes a lot of men lose their hair.

No one said life was fair.

66

Sure, but don’t we have to differentiate between your average black belt and a professional fighter? You’ll get no argument from me that a female fighter isn’t going to have the power that a male fighter of equal stature and experience is going to have, but the skill levels grow exponentially between hobby, amateur and pro fighters. The aforementioned Kathy Long could reportedly bench press 210 pounds; that’s not a lot compared to what even garden variety strong guys can bench press at the local gym, but it’s more than most men can bench press.

To analogize, the women’s gold medalist at the Olympics may not be able to outrun the men’s gold medalist, but she can outrun the rest of us. Take a hypothetical woman who trains professionally to fight MMA, day and night, year round. Don’t you think she’d have at least a fighting chance against at least your average non-fighting lug?

67

Well, I just talked to my ex.

He’s 5’10, 190, 2nd degree black belt in hap ki do, trained in kempo karatie, bow staff, a bunch of other things.

In his opinion, HE would be hard pressed to defend against a 6’4", 250 lb attacker, even if the guy was a couch potato.

As he put it, the guy would only have to get lucky and land one punch to the face and he’d pretty well be out for the count.

And when I described the various scenarios in the OP he laughed out loud.

So, I have to stick with my original assessment - woman gets her ass kicked every time.

68

How much power does it take to poke someone in the eyes? Or to kick a guy in the nuts? You’re assuming that the woman is going to fight like a man, but that would be stupid of her.

And it’s not enough to say that, given the same level of fitness, a man has more upper body strength. Who says the woman is going to be relying on her upper body? If they’re truly equally fit overall, and the man has more upper body strength, then that implies that the woman would have more lower body strength.

On thinking about it some, I’m not sure the street-fighter in scenario 3 actually exists. Sure, there are people with no inhibitions about hurting or killing their opponents. I’m sure some of them even have a fair amount of fighting experience. But how much experience would such a person have in unarmed combat? The guy who has no inhibitions is exactly the guy who’s going to pull a knife or a gun at the first opportunity, which doesn’t leave much chance to get practice with bare hands.

69

Interesting. Ryoko Tamura, who held the Judo World Championship for 10 years, used guys this size for training and routinely schooled their asses.

In her case, I’d say woman for cases 1-2, a toss-up for #3, and probably man for #4.

70

Okay, but what if the woman has a pointed stick?

71

Depends on if the martial artist trains and is willing to really hurt somone, or if they play by normal dojo rules. Same as in the bruce lee thread, if the woman is highly trained to break knees, groin shots, eye gouges, etc and willing to do so without hesitation. Then it really depends on who gets in the first knee break. You can break someone’s knee with as little as 8 pounds of pressure in the right place. It’s not strength, it is placement and speed. we trained a lot with many different techniques and scenarios to break knees

Couch potato = broken knee
big guy = very high probability broken knee
street fighter = odds are she can still break his knee
martial artist = which one is quicker

FWIW - 2 ancedotes

Case one, Thuy a gorgeous Viet Namese boat person refugee with hair down to her butt and really outgoing. She was a junior and probably 17. We had half a dozen refugees in the late 1970’s at my high school. Couple of the young little guys were getting picked on. I remember very clearly on the quad with an awful lot of witnesses when she went up to the group of senior jocks that were picking on these two freshman boat kids. Politely asked the jocks to not make fun of or pick on the kids. “What cha gonna do about it gook bitch?”

Jumping spinning back kick upside the head and big ass jock was out on the ground. Lucky he didn’t have a shattered jaw. Of course he was a dumbass and wasn’t expecting anything.

Case two, a 110 pound dripping wet high school freshman girl from my Kenpo dojo (Garrett’s Kenpo Karate at the YMCA in Orangevale) was in some kind of altercation with a big football playing jock. I didn’t see this one myself, but she did one sweeping roundhouse kick and moved both of his kneecaps over about 1/2". That’s pre-internet days but IIRC it was Rancho Cordova High in Sacramento.

72

How about a semi-informed opinion?

I have a friend who was a (some kind of multiple) black belt in tae kwon do (I think) and ran/taught at a karate school for at least a decade. She is about 5’2" and probably weighs around 100. Her husband is a big guy, 6’2" and I’m guessing 200+, in typically sedentary weekend-golfer shape, who started taking karate a few years ago and spars with her. And even though she’s no longer teaching they both agree she can wipe the floor with him any time she wants. Of course it goes without saying that he’s not going to seriously hurt her or vice versa.

One of her clients was a woman who started taking martial arts when she got out of a relationship where the guy had used her as a punching bag and decided that was not going to happen to her again. Now this is double hearsay, but according to my friend about a year into training this woman’s ex showed up at her place wanting to “try again,” got nasty in his same old way when she told him to get lost, and she clocked him. Of course she had the benefit of years of pent-up rage. (Problems with this story: the student could be lying; the student could have clocked the ex when he came in the door rather than when he got nasty; even if it happened exactly like this I have no idea of the relative sizes of the student and the ex.)

So based on this I’d guess that an expert who wanted to win would prevail in scenarios #1 and #2, and if the goal in scenario #3 was to get away the top-notch female could do it, but not “win” in any other sense (like getting the guy into a headlock), and she’d be toast in #4.

73

You’re all missing the essence of the issue entirely. The woman would win in every scenario.

She would begin by distracting him with some trivial issue - like whether he took the trash out or what he was doing out until 2 AM last night. Then she would proceed to hassle him over this issue until he is so dejected and demoralized that he erupts into a rage which causes him to do something irrational and harm himself. Then she will have sex with the plumber.

See, she always wins.

74

Well, it’s an opinion. I’m not sure I can prove it to you. Women are not built like men. Men have a much higher muscle to fat ratio. Generally, men are used to getting hit hard. Dojo training teaches students to pull their punches.

The best 130 pound female boxer in the world has no chance against the best 130 pound male boxer. There is no way she can have a similar musculature. He will hit her harder than she has ever been hit in her life. Early and often.

But we’re talking about seriously hurting people. Point karate is not combat.

Tank Abbot. He will take a 130 lb. woman’s best shot, ride her down to the mat, and game over baby.

75

I don’t have anything to add. I just want to ask a question. To the few people that said a martial artist female would have a decent shot against a martial artist that’s 8" and 100lbs larger, really? She’s going to give up a ton of reach, even if she could take him out in 1 hit, how’s she supposed to land it?

76

Ah no, sweetie!

My idea of “top notch female martial artist” is Coral Bistuer, thrice World Champion in Taekwondo. She is over 6’ (has a couple inches on her husband) and used to train with the guys.

Assuming she isn’t recovering from delivery or somesuch, she can kick most guys’ asses. Including quite a few of your #4.

77

Just curious - were the various martial arts experts giving Ms. Lee no chance at all discounting joint locks? I’m 6’4" and 230, though not admittedly in the best shape in the world - I train in a style that’s big on joint locks (similar to hap-ki-do). There are women not much bigger than the hypothetical Ms. Lee who can put me in excruciating pain very quickly by applying a wrist or elbow lock, often by catching a punch from me. And that’s just in my club - I really would not want to annoy any woman holding a multiple black-belt in hap-ki-do.

I still don’t think this would give Ms. Lee much of a chance in scenarios 3 or 4, but given that most untrained fighters are conditioned by the media to ‘put up your dukes’ and box, in scenario 1 or 2 she only needs to knock aside one punch to apply a wrist or elbow break. I can’t imagine an untrained fighter being up for much more fighting with one arm hanging uselessly.

78

Interesting OP though I question some of the assumptions that are being made in replys. If I am mistaken as to the OP’s terms then I will of course revise my judgements.

The biggest assumption I see being made is that someone skilled in martial arts = does a lot of dojo training/tournaments but doesn’t get into actual fights. This may be true of most people who study martial arts (for whatever reason, hobby, covation, etc) but I see no reason it should apply to the players in this case.

Anyway, here’s my take on the various players.

Female martial artists: highly trained, highly skilled, lots of experience in fights (both real and those done for training. As stated, she’s top notch. The OP didn’t say “she’s good at winning tournaments” but that she was “top notch” and drew a comparison to Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee had plenty of “real world” fight experience.

Male 1: no clarification needed

Male 2: ditto

Male 3: has gotten into a lot of fights. Has experience but no training. “Street Brawler” does not = vicious Tazmanian Devil of punches, kicks, and dirty tricks. It means someone who gets into fights alot. He is not a “top notch” “no holds barred” UFC contender. He is a street brawler.

Male 4: An accomplished martial artists. I’m going to give him the same attributes I assumed the woman would possess though at a lesser level given that she is “top notch” and he’s merely “accomplished.”

That said.

Woman wins #1 easily. She’s got speed, training, and experience. She knows how to hit, evade, grapple, avoid grapples. She’s an experienced fighter and he’s a couch potato who knows how to push AB Up Up Down.

Woman also wins number #2 unless the man gets very lucky. He’s got size and strength but she’s got the skill and experience to know that and avoid those advantages. As before, she knows how to throw a punch or evade/block one. She knows how to grapple, he doesn’t.

Case #3. The first real challenge. I’m still going to have to give it to her though. She’s top notch, he’s a run-of-the-mill street brawler. She knows how he’s going to fight, he doesn’t have a clue what she can do. If he’s cautious though he might be able to “rope-a-dope” her and get her into a situation where his size can trump her advantages. As before though, she has the experience. She’s a top notch fighter who fights against other top notch fighters. It’s unlikely that he knows anything she hasn’t had thrown against her before. He on the other hand is a street brawler, he fights other street brawlers. If he gets lucky he has a decent change, if not he’s toast.

Case #4. Goes to the guy in all likelyhood. She’s got the experience and skill but he’s got the size and strength. The difference between this scenario though and the previous is, even though he’s not quite as good he’s accomplished enough to know what she can do and thus is in a much better position to counter it. Wheras the man in #3 had been in a lot of fights, man #4 has been trained, has practiced, and has also been in a lot of fights.

That’s my take on it.

79

Well, see, that depends. If she manages to trip him (very likely in all but #4), the fact that he weighs 250 pounds will be his problem and not hers.

80

I absolutely feel that the man of same height/weight has the advantage. Do you play sports? Have you ever played against women? They can train to have skills, but they never seem to have a burst, an ability to put out big power when they need it. . .sprinting to a soccer ball, for instance, or drilling a shot, or especially leaping. They have no upper body strength, nothing in the shoulders and back. Little in the core. A woman the same weight as a man has a lower center of gravity, WEIGHT IN HER BOOBS which are completely useless in athletics, and too much weight in her rump and thighs.

Personally, I am about 5’5" 150. My wife is about 5’5", maybe 140 (she’s not very forthcoming wtih that).

We both run, stretch, work-out, cycle. She used to lift a little. She used to do gymnastics.

Naturally, we don’t normally compete in feats of strength against one another, but you can still tell from playing around. The difference between our strength, quickness, and power is remarkable.

Look at professional examples. Look at the difference between a 6’3" NBA player and a 6’3" WNBA player. She can’t get off the floor. 5’10" guys dunk. Lots of sports have women of similar size to men who are slower and less powerful.

When any one is considering B – the 6’4" 250 pound in GOOD shape – consider this: Ray Lewis is 6’1" 250. Naturally, he’s in GREAT shape. . .but with 6’4", you are talking about a very large, very strong man. 6’4" 250 is HUGE. The woman would be like a rag doll.

The 250 pound couch potato still has to walk around each day. He has strength. That’s not a crazy-obese man. We didn’t say 6’4" 400 (who I’d give less of a chance).

Also, a 5’4" 250 pounds man. . .completely different story.