[ul]
[li] A chimpanzee that’s grown up among humans and has always been reasonably friendly and docile.[/li][li] A recently caught crocodile that’s grown up in the wild.[/li][/ul]
Both fully grown animals of average size for the species. Your goal is to survive as uninjured as possible, not to inflict damage on your opponent (unless you feel that’s necessary to achieve your primary goal).
Which would you rather wrestle for, say, two minutes?
People wrestle alligators all the time. All you need to do is jump on its back and hold its mouth closed. After that, it can’t do a lot except thrash around. (Alligators have very strong muscles to close the mouth, but the ones to open it are weak, which is the secret that professional alligator wrestlers use to dominate them.)
I’m not sure I would trust a chimp to understand the wrestling was “just in fun.” If it got angry, it could do a lot of damage in a hurry.
I wouldn’t want to mess with either. But to play along… what are the “rules”? Where is the fight? Land? Water? How much room would we have?
I know either animal COULD kill or seriously injure me. But depending on the conditions, I might be inclined to pick the gator. The chimp is stronger and faster than I am, and he’s also smart. I might be able to elude the gator for 2 minutes, but I definitely couldn’t elude the chimp. With a little luck, MAYBE I could get on top of the gator’s back and hold him down for 2 minutes, or at least get into a position where he couldn’t hurt me much.
The alligator. You can outrun him, you maybe could get on top of him and claw his eyes out. Any chimp can kick the living shit out of the toughest man in the world without breaking a sweat.
If the chimp were raised among the proper sort of quality humans, you could trust him to adhere to the Marquis of Queensbury rules. Gators are notoriously poor sportsmen.
Alligator wrestling is an actual thing. You can pay to go to an alligator wrestling camp to learn to wrestle gators. The trick is to get on their back and hold the mouth closed. Gator Wrestling: 'Not A Thinking Man's Sport' : NPR
Not so much with chimps. Oh, they used to have ape wrestling shows back in the old days. The ape was always, always, always muzzled, because the joke was to get a local tough guy to step into the ring and then watch as he got his ass kicked by the chimp. Or you could just google for chimpanzee attacks. Get used to seeing words like “face” “eyes” “feet” “hands” “testicles” “mutilated” “severed” “ripped off” and “critical condition” in close proximity. Why would a chimpanzee attack a human? - Scientific American
Having just returned from a week at my mom’s house, I would rather wrestle a chimp and alligator at the same time than watch another episode of The View.
When I was about 5 I challenged the neighbors woolly monkey to a fight and he beat the hell out of me. I would pick the gator. I have handled 6 footers with no problem. Big ones are much harder but can be handled, a chimp simply cannot be handled.
Crocs wouldn’t be significantly different than alligators. Actually, alligators have wider jaws and might be somewhat stronger. (Of course it depends on the species of croc too. If it were a full grown Nile or Saltwater Croc I might reconsider. You probably couldn’t hold one of those. )
