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

In My Humble Opinion
101

Which is why I followed up by saying how difficult a good shoot was. Of course, I have seen a great many more half-assed attempts at single- double-leg takedowns, than good low quick ones.

In no way did I intend to suggest one could simply calmly backpedal while landing uppercuts at will. Instead, your goal is to interrupt and/or redirect the shoot, while keeping your legs out of range, and taking advantage of any other targets that present themselves. I’m just saying that my strength is striking and I love uppercuts. If some guy wants to grapple me, the last thing I want to do is go to the ground with him, so I’m going to at least try to get a couple of good strikes in first and see where it takes me.

Many mediocre grapplers telegraph their shoot, or they don’t get low enough or go too low and lose their balance. Or they approach grappling/takedowns as either bearhugs or football tackles. In such cases it can pose no insurmountable problem to sidestep them, tie them up before they get to your legs, or direct them into the ground.

I also saw a wrestler take a drunk down nicely and tie him up, whereupon the drunk’s buddies started kicking the wrestler in the head and back. That was truly ugly.

But I am only speaking from my experience. Apparently, yours differs from mine. Which is fine.

102

Good example. I had a similar experience with Tim Tackett at a seminar, much to the amusement of everyone watching.

Dude, you know some impressive people! :smiley: Did you ever get to meet Guro Dan?

103

I have a bunch of fat guys and small Chinese girls here at work. Hmmmmm :dubious:

104

An instructor of mine would do a similar demo. He would stand casually, with both hands in his pants pockets, at arms reach. “I’m going to punch you in the face, you can stand or defend in any way you wish.” He could then land a perfect solid punch to the defender’s face at will. We would wear headgear for the demo, and he would pull his punch so not to knock us out. It was simply impossibly fast to react to in time. He would then show the same technique on a heavy bag at full power, with no loss of speed.

105

I really think that some people are giving too much credit to a size and strength advantage, in the sense that it’s being viewed as the ONLY advantage and thus outweighing anything else.

No argument that at the same height and weight, the average man is noticeably stronger than the average woman, and that’s a big advantage in a fight.

However skill plays a big role in a fight as well. Look at some good NHB fights…the early UFCs are very educational because most people didn’t really know what would happen and there were very few real mixed martial artists.

Plenty of big strong guys have gotten beat by plenty of smaller, weaker guys. Some extreme cases are things like Royce Gracie submitting Akebono (as noted before, Royce is about 6’, 180lbs. Akebono is 6’ 8" and well over 400 lbs). Gracie beat him with technique. Or Hackney vs Yarbrough in UFC2 (Hackney is a big guy for sure, but Yarbrough was billed at about 700lbs and made him look like a child); that was basically a punching match between a kenpo karate expert and a huge sumo wrestler. Hackney found out quickly what did not work (anything but shots to the head) and proceeded to knock Yarbrough down with one punch to the head (and he had to reach way up to land it), then pummelled Yarbrough into submission.

Yarbrough has also been beaten by even smaller guys (one fellow in Japan who was tiny, like 130-150lbs).

Royce Gracie vs. Kimo Leopoldo - Kimo was substantially larger and stronger than Royce and pretty much all muscle. He also knew jiujitsu in addition to striking and was probably the toughest challenge Gracie had in those early fights. Gracie still tapped him out with an armlock. Again, superior technique won against a big size/strength advantage.

Tank Abbott - probably who leaps into a lot of minds when you say “Street brawler”. His early appearances he didn’t show much technique, just big and extremely strong, willing to take a lot of punches and has a “Don’t give a f—” attitude. He creamed a lot of people, just knocked the stuffing out of them. But he has been tapped out, beaten in a standup fight by other punchers (Vitor Belfort comes to mind, Tank is much larger and stronger than Vitor). He was also beaten by Scott Ferrozzo (!) whose primary advantage appears to have been a larger beer belly.

Helio Gracie (5’ 7", 140lbs) made his reputation beating people much larger than him in violent, no-holds-barred matches for years. He went about 15 minutes with Masahiko Kimura (considerably larger and stronger judoka) and lost when his corner threw in the towel to prevent his arm from being badly broken.

Closest thing I recall to the “small” fighter taking on a total couch potato was when Don Frye fought some enormous (400lb) tub of lard - bell rang, they rushed each other, Frye punched his much larger opponent in the face several times and knocked him out in about 8 seconds.

There’s tons more examples of big strong fighters getting whipped by smaller, more highly trained opponents.

My point is that when you’re talking about really well trained combatants, and by well-trained I mean trained in actual fighting, knowing what it’s like to get hit hard and practicing against actual resisting opponents (i.e. not someone who is a master of forms or TaeBo), size and strength are definitely important but they are not the only thing, skill and technique can and do win fights. The smaller fighter certainly needs to have a minimal level of strength and conditioning (enough to take some damage and also be able to dish it out; we’re not talking about an adult vs. a 6 year old here) but as we look at progressively less conditioned, less skilled fighters the size & strength advantage becomes less important.

Tough, well trained woman against larger couch potato? Woman can certainly win.

Same woman against larger man in decent shape but no real combat experience? Definitely tougher but the woman could still win.

Same woman against a larger man who gets into and wins street fights frequently? Much tougher but woman still has a chance.

Same woman against a larger man with comparable skills? Extremely tough for the woman but feasible.

106

Attended 2 of his seminars (with hundreds of other folk). Didn’t take advantage of an opportunity to go out and train at his academy. And my school would have folk like Ron Balicki and Paul Vunack in for seminars.

Most often it was more the case of I knew a lot of people who knew some impressive people and let me tag along.

Also, my job used to involve a bit of travel, and I would always seek out people to train with. I was always pleased and impressed at how open and welcoming and generous most MAs were. It is a lot easier for someone training MA to meet and train with someone at the top of the MA world, than - for example - it would be for a little leaguer to hang with a major leaguer. One of the thing that made MA so fun IMO.

107

I’m gonna say she whups the shit out of #1 (Me)

#2 is about 30-70 in her favor, due to her superior training in fighting compared to the big muscular guy. Also, it depends on what the muscular guy was training for. If he trained in the school of “Crunk Lift Heavy Objects”, she will very likely have distinct speed, agility, and trained reflex advantages over him.

#3 could go either way if the other guy is an experienced brawler. This guy has a size and weight advantage over her, which depending on their stylse could concievably play into either person’s favor. And while formal training and conditioning in fighting is very useful, so too are years of experience.

#4 I would tend to give it to the guy, assuming equal training and giving him a sizable strength and weight advantage. Girl still stands a chance, this would largely depend on psychology (ie: Is the big muscular martial artist guy expecting a serious fight, or is he inclined to GIVE a serious fight to the girl, and vice versa for the girl’s willingness or expectations for the fight).

108
  1. Man
  2. Man
  3. Man
  4. Man

Martial arts are great and all, but what are they going to do for you when you’ve got a guy refusing to play by your rules, weighing 180% of your body weight, towering above you, pumped up on adrenaline and wanting to rip your face off?

As soon as the guy gets hold of the woman, it’s over. A man of that size could pick the woman up with one arm and destroy her. Even couch potatoes are capable of extraordinary bouts of strength when the adrenaline starts pumping. So the woman has superior agility? BFD. The guy stays still waiting for the woman to come close enough to grab and then pummels her using his reach advantage.

As was previously mentioned, the “professional football hooligans” from British football fit this description. They arrange gang brawls between rival “firms”, unarmed usually.

109

As stated in the OP, the woman has good grappling skills. I don’t know how you’re defining “good,” but for me, it involves not letting that happen. If it’s your basic assumption that this guy is going to grab her before she immobilizes a knee, sidesteps, immobilizes an elbow, steps behind him, kicks the back of his knee, climbs up onto his back and starts doing some real damage, then okay, sure, I guess he wins.

110

Not only that, but grabbing a grappler is no guarantee that they’re going to stay grabbed. They don’t have to be stronger than you to break your grip, they just have to have good leverage against your thumb. Grabbing also means your arm is extended away from your body instead of guarding your face and eyes.

111

Just wanted to add, several folks have mentioned “taking out a knee.” I never really considered the knee to be a prime target. For one thing, it is really hard to practice striking an opponent’s knee. If you did it with anywhere near sufficient force, you would be incapacitating all of your training partners. And I would be very hesitant to try anything in a real conflict that I had not practiced many times at speed and full force against an uncooperative opponent.

I also recall having been told more than once by folks whose opinions I respected, that it could actually be relatively difficult to take out a knee if the foot was not planted and the knee locked. Personally, I don’t know.

I’m a huge fan of leg attacks, but my preferred targets were the shin, and the outside of the leg just above the knee.

112

When I was playing soccer a lot of my friends were into karate. As long as I remained farther than arms length I’d kick the shit out of them every time. If they got in close enough to use their arms I was screwed. The only advantage I saw to karate was the unanticipated speed of a double kick. It’s very successful if attempted against someone who isn’t expecting it. So it’s hard to say given the scenario. The couch potato suggests someone who is slow moving and non-athletic. He’s toast.

A 250 lb man cannot be easily hurt by a 140 lb women. The weight/muscle differential is too great. His only vulnerability is his nuts or a head shot. Unless the man can be killed on the first blow it’s over. He hits her anywhere she’s going down. If he bear-hugs her she’ll be crushed.

113

What, does she move faster than sound? An irate guy isn’t going to go sauntering up to her, he’s going to be moving at some speed with his arms flailing everywhere. I’d like to meet somebody who could do all that you described without being knocked flat on their ass by a swinging arm. As has been stated repeatedly, kicking out a knee isn’t easy, yet you’re basically suggesting she do this to a guy virtually sprinting at her?

But this is the whole point of the thread, isn’t it? The fight, to my understanding, isn’t some prissy grappling match where each is trying to get a pin on the other. The man doesn’t need to keep his grip on her. He’s got a massive weight advantage - he just needs enough time to throw her to the ground and stamp her, or smash her into a wall and knock her unconscious.

114

You don’t have to take it out. You just have to hit in that general area. Guys that big are generally going to have weaker leg joints, especially if they’re fat (Tank Abbott is no exception). There are people who have knees that won’t break, but the resulting moving of the knee cap will cause immense pain, the kind where one grabs his knee with both arms and hands. A charlie horse can have the same initial impact. A trained fighter only needs seconds then to strike at the back of the head of an opponent, particularly one on the ground grabbing his knee. Football players are no exception. Those that twist the wrong way or plant their foot wrong – all it takes is a little bit of pressure, then pain!

We had these training sessions where we would get whacked in the back of a leg with a baton. It hurts like hell, enough for me to stop what I’m doing. And, that was a foam padded one we used in training. It was used to simulate simul-strikes in sparring. I was 6’ 180 lbs then, and my sparring partner wasn’t even using full blows. Muay Thai artists can floor you with that force, especially if you’re not used to it. I have seen muay thai artists at 130 lbs put down guys 200 lbs, because these guys were not used to having to balance as they were asorbing a kick from so low. That’s why you don’t see untrained combatants trying to kick.

115

Well, I can speak to some of this from personal experience. I am 6 feet tall, 190 pounds. I boxed, played football, can bench 275, run a marathon, climb a rope. I helped teach a women’s self-defense course, so I know a whole bunch of dirty tricks and whatnot.

I’m pretty strong and pretty tough, and I might as well be a sack of hamburger meat as far as my 5’6" 120 pound wife is concerned, because she can kick my ass any time she feels like it without breaking a sweat.

She’s one of those naturally gifted athletes and she took Jujitso from the time she was twelve until she was 18 at a pretty hardcore studio in California, not the girls course, but the combat course.

I’ll explain my experience and you can decide what to make of it: I’ve tried to spar with her, and, on occasion I’ve made her mad. What happens is that you basically can’t hit her and she makes all your strength and size work against you.

When we sparred she stepped into my punch, hyperextended my elbow (so that my arm basically went dead,) slid into me like a python (still holding the arm,) and just leaned slightly back in the direction where I had no balance (Boxing teaches you to throw a punch and maintain your balance, so it wasn’t like I was lunging,) and fell back landing on top of my solar plexus so I couldn’t breathe.

She was being nice.

She’s strong, but nowhere near as strong as me. She’s strong like a cat. You could beat her up if you could get hold of her and keep her still but every time you try, some body part gets hurt.

She knows all these painful joint locks, that will make you cry and scream and give up (or at least make me cry,) and they are all effortless and require no strength. She just puts a part of you against another part of you, twists it in some way that you would never think about and that it was never meant to go, and then you will suffer intense pain while you are helpless and she smiles.

She’s like python and she just gets in this position close where you can’t get any leverage or do anything and starts making your body hurt.

I would never, ever be so foolish as to rush straight at her and try to pound her. That would make it very easy. It would also make it easy for any practitioner of aikido.

It would make absolutely no difference if I was 250 pounds.

She’s very good at this and she’s a gifted athlete, but she’s not world class. There are people that are much better.

In a real fight my only chance would be to hang back and throw haymakers to make her stay away because the moment she got hold of something or got close it would be over, and, if I did hit her, her training wouldn’t defend her from the physical damage my punch would cause.

But she knows this, and when we’ve sparred she’s pretty careful about picking her spot and it’s rare that I can touch her.

She states that past a certain point physical size and strength isn’t really an issue since she never actually resists momentum or attempts to work against strength.

She’s very fast, faster than me or most men. She’s the best tennis player at our club, and the best female player around. She’s been athletic all her life.

As far as I’m concerned, that’s the key. Most women don’t get majorly involved in refex oriented athletics till they’re older, if at all. She’s played sports competitively all her life like a lot of boys have and she has the reflexes and body skill to match.

She also knows what it’s like to get hurt. Her nose is crooked in a cute way where it got broken one day during a match when she was sixteen.

In my experience from the women’s self defense course, most women are timid an defensive and unused to dealing with pain when confronted with physical force, and this handicaps them. My wife is not timid, doesn’t get intimidated, knows she’s not as strong as most men and has a plan and a system and experience dealing with it.

Most men do not have experience dealing with a woman like this and it is quite a surprise. It still surprises me and that’s an advantage.

So, against a 250 couch potato, I’d put any amount of money on my wife (I was once 240)

Against a 250 pound street brawler, I’d still give my wife 5-1 odds

Against a 250 pound martial artist, I guess it would depend how good they were and what discipline. Someone with a skillset less than hers would be able to neutralize a lot of her techniques and force it to strength and win on those merits, but then again you have to realize that your weight and strength can work against you. I’ve had it happen to me. If she’s making you fight against your own body weight, it doesn’t help to be big.

She knows all this weird stuff, too. Like when we played around she likes to work on your arms from the elbow down to the hand, so one time I made a fist, locked my wrist and kept my elbow in close to my body so she couldn’t do anything. The moment I made that whole part rigid so she couldn’t work on it she turned it against me by pushing it towards me like a lever, as soon as I started to resist she just twisted in the direction I was pushing and we both went down and I’m in a pretzel with my whole body weight and hers pushing down on my wrist which is in an entirely wrong position.

She likes arms and hands and wrists, but she can do this knees or ankles or feet or a combination.

The joints are the weak point. There’s certain directions where they have no strength and certain ways they can’t twist or go without intense pain and damage and strength or stamina or size has nothing to do with it. She knows what these are and knows how to make them work against you and if you don’t know what they are and how to protect them and know how she’s going to come after them she has you at a disadvantage.

The scenario that she knows how to deal, that she’s trained for is specifically the scenario against a much larger stronger opponent who’s going to try to overpower her. That is the easiest scenario for her to defend.

It seems to me that the worst scenario for her is the very careful, very strong, and adept attacker who is going to be cautious and who is going to stand off at a distance and throw hard strikes without allowing her to close.

Or maybe I’m just one of those big strong pussies.

116

True enough you cant just win by a pin in our hypo, but a good grappler (even a smaller one) can win by a submission hold from underneath on even a larger opponent. Don’t get me wrong; I totally agree that the weight advantage is a huge disparity and disadvantage to our hypothetical woman, but I’ve sparred with too many smaller fighters to completely count her out. In freestyle wrestling, being on your back is a huge disadvantage, and it’s reflected in the rules: too long on your back and you lose. In submission grappling, being on your back holding your man in the guard isn’t a disadvantage, something that takes freestyle wrestlers some time to get used to. The guy on his back holding a fighter in his guard isn’t at a disadvantage - the guy in the guard is. The guy holding the guard has all kinds of sweeps, reversals, and submissions from the guard he can try, while the guy in the guard can’t do much of anything until he passes the guard.

Admittedly, that’s only true of pure submission grappling, and when you add strikes into the mix it’s a completely different ballgame. The guy in the guard does have something he can do, which is punch or elbow you in the face until you pass out. That’s not as quite as easy as it sounds; when you’re in the guard you can’t put the whole power of your hips into your punches, you’re mostly arm-punching, and the person below can control you with the guard to a limited degree. Figthers experienced with striking in the guard can get around that with some degree of effectiveness, but if you’re not trained and can’t manage the trick you’re doing more damage to yourself by expending your energy than you are with your strikes. If our hypothetical couch potato gets gassed and can’t punch or struggle anymore in the guard anymore, tables turn in favor of the grappler. Now our couch potato is in the grasp of a 125 pound python that is slowly breaking his arm, dislocating his shoulder, choking, and eating him.

Aagain I don’t want anyone to misunderstand, I fully see and agree that the man in any of our hypos has a massive advantage in size and mass which would be a huge obstacle for our hypothetical woman to overcome. I’m just not convinced that it’s an advantage that couldn’t be overcome. I’ve sparred with too many ass-kicking smaller fighters to automatically dismiss any smaller fighter out-of-hand solely on size and weight.

117

Scylla: good story. Hey, we even both said “python.” :smiley: What school of jiu-jitsu did your wife study?

118

Or maybe you can’t really attack your wife. You’re set up in an unreal situation - you’re sparring against your wife. That’s got to put a certain element of constraint on you.

I’ve seen many fights. Grew up on the wrong side of town. Hung out with my bouncer brother. They just don’t happen like most people think - not against real street fighters.

Most of the time, fights don’t start with two people squaring off against each other. Most of the time it goes something like this:

“What are you looking at?”
“screw you.”
<SMACK> out of the blue, unexpected, suddenly the meaner of the two in the altercation is all over the other guy. Screaming in his face, spitting in his eyes, charging him back over a chair or table. Usually, the other poor guy is so startled that he doesn’t have a chance, and hardly puts up a defense. If you’re not an insane street fighter, having that kind of lunacy happen to you can just make your brain go, humminahumminahummina. Pure panic.

Occasionally, a guy will start a fight with someone who’s prepared, and his sucker punch won’t go off as planned. Then they’ll both be on the ground just punching and kicking at each other until someone’s buddy or a bouncer hauls them apart.

It happens very fast, no one gets a chance to get into a stance or prepare a counter-move. It usually starts with a sucker punch, and if the other fighter is any good, he’ll start it when he’s in a position to dominate you in the first place. Like smacking you in the side of the head while you’re sitting in a chair and he’s standing over you. Then when you try to get up, he’ll wait for you to lean forward and give you a knee in the face, or he’ll just swarm onto you and knock you back over the chair, making sure his knees or elbows land on your teeth.

In my message, I said that the one way a woman can win is if she’s skilled in joint lock techniques and can manage to control the guy long enough to get him in a good submission hold. But that’s about it. I’m also assuming that the ‘couch potato’ is fighting for his life. A woman can beat some of those couch potatoes because it may only take a punch to completely make them give up the notion of fighting. But if it’s a fight to the death, my money’s on the 250 lb couch potato, every time.

119

I’ve seen you say this before, and I’m inclined to agree with you. It’s the sort of situation most (not all, but probably most) martial artists aren’t prepared for and will give them an instant lesson in dojo versus crazy town. That brings up a question, though…do you think it’s possible to prepare someone for that sort of experience through stress and fear based scenarios? Do you think it’s possible to learn (and teach) your brother’s mean streak, or is that something you either have or you don’t?

120

Yeah, I do. Go through SEAL training, and you’ll learn to be a badass. That kind of training shifts your entire mental framework. Turns you into someone who is simply psychologically ready to take on just about anything.

It’s not about teaching you some techniques. It’s changing who you are.

There are some martial arts that due turn out real badasses, but not because they have the best skills. It’s because they’re the most hard-core. The guys in the UFC are a perfect example. They have talent, training, AND they really, really love the notion of hitting other people and being hit back.

You do not want to run into these guys on the street.