It’s not a weapon for Chuck. Chuck is such a real man, he was born with feet made out of big ass-kickin boots. 
What about a hyena? Would the arm-down-the-throat work there, too?
I doubt it. They are reported as being able to bite thru bone, so I suspect they might do the same to your arm.
Regards,
Shodan
As a species there’s no reason a healthy human being should lose to a wolf in a one on one encounter where there’s no ambush factor.
However societally even the more rugged people aren’t really trained or conditioned to deal with stuff like this near like we used to be. It’s because we’re so successful as a species in fact that we haven’t had to worry about teaching our children to fight off wild animals or to be able to survive in situations like this.
Put a wild wolf up against a man from c. 15,000 B.C. and the wolf would be in bad shape, and in fact a lone wolf would not be wise to tangle with a human in any case. The wolf would be up against a larger animal (or roughly the same size), one that thinks and operates on a level beyond anything the wolf could imagine or comprehend. The man would have weapons and tools on him that the wolf has no instinctual ability to deal with. Teeth and claws, biting and scratching, a wolf knows that, knows how to deal with it from other animals or other wolves. But rocks being thrown at him? That’d confuse the wolf as it would be getting hurt by another animal without being near close enough to do anything back. If a sling or early-bow was being used the wolf wouldn’t even see it coming. If the early man had a spear he could use it to insure the wolf couldn’t get near him without injuring itself, and could even use it aggressively to kill the wolf.
Even if due to some bad circumstances our theoretical cave man was without tools or weapons he’d still have a very good fighting chance. While ancient man on average was not as large or strong as humans today, they were tough and in good physical shape due to years of hard work hunting, gathering and building things. He’d be fast and creative, because otherwise he would have died or starved long before. He’d also be familiar with wolves, as survival in a region with dangerous animals would necessitate knowledge of how wolves behave and how to deal with them. He’d also be familiar with nature, he’d be able to make use of anything and everything around that could be used to help him. He’d know how to quickly climb a tree and etc. He’d also know that to kill him the wolf needs to get him down and needs to get to his head or throat. And eventhough the wolf is strong and has vicious teeth the man will be familiar enough with physical-altercations that he’s not going to panic and freeze. He’s going to make sure to keep his vital areas defended even if the wolf gets him down, he’s also instinctively going to know how to use his hands and feet as weapons and exactly where and how best to use them to kill a wolf.
The cave man might die, because shit happens. But I’d put my money on the cave man, with or without tools.
Modern man has the ability to do anything that ancient man did, we just aren’t trained for it or experienced in it. What one man can do, another man can.
Some things a person would need to know in order to survive this is how wolves/dogs kill human beings and what can be done to prevent it. In general a dog or a wolf doesn’t have the kind of bite that is fatal anywhere it hits. A lion can bite off your arm or take such a huge chunk out of any part of your body it wants that you’ll go into shock and probably die pretty quickly from any serious biting.
Wolves and dogs are aware of the limitations of their bite, they know to go for the throat and they do if they intend to kill. The throat is a pretty weak spot for a human and any domestic dog of sufficient size could kill a full grown person by biting into their throat. Focus on not going down, if you’re not down on the ground the wolf can’t get your throat, if you do go down protect your throat over everything else. To kill a wolf if you can get a hold of one is actually not that complex. An average human male has more than enough arm strength to wrench the neck of a wolf and kill it instantly, a directed blow to the wolf’s head or throat will also leave the wolf in a world of hurt. Animals in general seem to fight through pain better than human beings, but a heavy blow to the skull or throat of a canine can do serious damage and fast. The average human also has enough strength to lock on to a wolf’s throat and asphyxiate them.
One advantage a human also has is the fact that we have multiple natural weapons. A wolf or dog really only has their teeth, unlike some animals wolves/dogs claws really aren’t all that well suited for a fight like this. Their scratching and clawing would be painful but if one can find a way to control the head/the mouth of the wolf it’s basically end game.
I’ve rambled a lot, but ultimately I’d say the average modern man would lose to a wolf, but not because of physical limitations but mental/training limitations. Most humans are just not conditioned for this type of thing, they’d have no experience at fighting an animal. That lack of experience means the person wouldn’t know properly what to do, and also would become paniced much easier than someone who is familiar with situations like this.
Wolves are not natural predators of man. I am hard pressed to think of an example of a wolf attacking and killing a human being although there may be rare incidents.
My answer to the OP would be that a human being could kill the wolf or they could both walk away.
Thanks for the opportunity to once again recommend my new favorite author, David Quammen. He writes mostly on natural history, including a book on man-eating predators. He doesn’t deal with wolves – mostly tigers, crocodiles, and bears – but it’s an interesting read.
Ever been up close and personal with a wolf? My hybrid could easily reach my throat with me standing.
What natural weapons are you referring to? Aside from the ability to use our extremities as clubs, of course.
If we are talking about a wolf v man in a man created environment (no weapons possiable) then it would be to the wolfs advantage, if it is in a natural environment then that would tend to be to the man’s advantage.
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The wolf can, but thinking is not a wolf’s biggest strength, and it is man’s biggest advantage.
Unless you are using human intelengence inside the wolf, we don’t know what tactic a wolf would use. Also humans are more capable of taking care of wounds then most animals, and given time (during the ‘retreat’ can limit bleeding and not weaken).
Right, but he would either have to jump, or go up on his hind legs. A human is agile enough to avoid those attacks.
I’ve fought with a 100 pound golden retriever and a black lab that was probably 80 pounds. The retriever was a softie so we won’t count him, but the lab liked to play fight rough. He would do the run and jump at me, in order to knock me down. I had little difficulty in getting my hands on his chest and flipping him on his back.
You have to remember here, a wolf has only one weapon. He can only bite with his mouth, and that brings many disadvantages. The biggest is that if he is biting me, he is in range of my weapons. For example, he could clamp down on my arm. Sure it would hurt like hell and do some damage to that arm. But the end result is that I wrap my other arm around his neck, get my body on top of him and choke him to death. If the wolf doesn’t get his jaws on my neck he can’t do serious damage to me.
As for the slash and retreat tactic, that works becuase dogs hunt in a pack. If you are surrounded, a dog can always come up and bite you and retreat. If you go after one dog, he simply runs away, and another attacks you. A lone wolf can’t do that becuase my attention is soley directed at him. In fact, if he gets withing attacking range of me, I am the one thats going after him. Like I said earlier, the thing that can hurt me is if he gets his jaws on my neck. If I am running at him kicking and such, I am in little danger of that happening.
Those would be the weapons. I can’t hit a wolf with 4 blunt objects in addition to my grappling abilities.
In order to make this a fair match, if the human can’t use any weapons or tools at all, including improvised ones, the wolf has to fight with a broken jaw. The human need not get an M4 Carbine, but he should be allowed to at least grab a tree branch and club White Fang in the chops.
I agree, man evolved to fight in a natural environment, his limbs have the ability to firmly grasp objects, and the mind is able to use these. Not being able to use these improvized weapons would not make the fight ‘fair’, but then again not all fights are actually fair. Also to the wolf’s disadvantage (as mentioned above) is it has evolved to fight in a pack, not by himself. A wolf may be far less willing to engage w/o backup.
The OP has the flaw of how do you convince the wolf to fight w/o assigning human intelengence to it, I guess you can try to remove a pup from a mother, but that would be her defending it not attacking you.
I’ve heard that most such animals don’t understand ‘missle’ weapons (thrown rocks), it woudl confuse them, even if it doesn’t hit them, and will sometimes make them reconsider the attack - I don’t know if that is true or not.
I’d bet on the man, if he’s healthy and has play-wrestled with dogs before.
Support for this position? As per treis, the wolf has one real weapon, his jaws. Further support: a kid, 11-year-old girl, playing with her brother’s Brittany spaniel hunting dog, could routinely catch him behind his jaws when he jumped at her, and hold him so he couldn’t bite her even though he tried. And she could get a dog from behind, dig her fingers into his jaw-closing muscles, make him open his jaws, and hold him, again by gripping right behind his jaws (this rescued the Brittany one time when he needed it). There was some risk. The dog would be throwing his head around, trying to bite, and struggling.
Assuming a large, strong critter, the man might have had to hold on even though thrown on the ground and scraped by toenails while desparately holding the grip and keeping the arms extended, but could probably get his weight onto the wolf and eventually strangle it.
I’ll also bet on the man, assuming we’re talking someone in decent shape, with decent reflexes, and who doesn’t lose his head in a crisis. A wolf can move quicker than a man on the ground, true. But for the wolf to make the kill, it’d have to go for the neck. And while a wolf can reach a standing human’s neck, it has to jump to do so. Lacking wings, a wolf cannot maneuver while in midair, which gives the human a chance to grab it. And it’s not too hard to put a grab on a canine such that it can’t bring its teeth to bear. Put the wolf in such a hold with one arm (yes, I have done this, and I’m not even all that athletic), and your other arm is free to do whatever you want.
You’ve done this against a wolf?
Not so; as I pointed out before, a standard wolf hunting technique is to slash the prey and then patiently wait for it to bleed to death. The wolf never has to come to grips at all.
You’ve wrestled with a wolf?
A dog, any kind of dog, is not a wolf. Any comparisons to what a human can do with a domestic dog are going to be very invalid.
I don’t think most of those arguing in favor of the human have a good idea of the capabilities of a wolf.
The OP specifies an average wolf against an average human, both adult males. So we can assume that the wolf would have an advantage in strength, and a big advantage in endurance and speed.
The wolf’s advantage in experience of combat would be much larger - a wolf must kill to eat, and defense of territory battles are occasionally violent. The average man has close to zero experience in hand-to-hand combat.
It’s a mistake to use experience with domestic dogs as a guide to wolf encounters. Most breeds of domestic dogs have had much of their agression bred out of them over thousands of years.
As Colibri has pointed out, the slash and run tactic would almost certainly be a winner for the wolf. With much better speed and endurance, he could conduct a series of quick attacks and retreats, occasionally inflicting damage and always tiring the man. After 10 hours (and probably much less) of this the man’s ability to resist attack would have reached the point where he was easy prey. The wolf would never need to go for the man’s neck - a series of injuries to legs and arms would do the job.
The man’s best chance would be to close with the wolf early, accepting injury for the chance to choke the wolf. This might work, but only if the wolf accepted that kind of encounter (which he could easily avoid). Blows from arms or legs would mean almost nothing to an animal even half as strong, quick and tough as a wolf.
And, as we have pointed out, that won’t work for a lone hunter against a lone human. The wolf can come up to me and try to slash, but I will either kick him in the head, or grab him.
Wolves are pack animals. They probably would be handicapped in a one-on-one battle. The way they take down larger prey is to attack from multiple directions (using the slash and retreat approach). I think a wolf would be unlikely to attack a larger animal like a man on its own.
Given that a wolf weighs 60 to 100 pounds, they would have a disadvantage in weight. However if one could get in a slash at a hamstring, it would probably be all over.
Bullshit. Have you actually tried this?
Probably true; however, the OP presupposes a wolf motivated to “fight to the death.” One would have to postulate one that was starving and had no other option.