Instigator / Pro
14
1587
rating
182
debates
55.77%
won
Topic
#3980
Grappling is more preferable than Striking in a 1v1 brawl.
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
Better arguments
6
3
Better sources
4
0
Better legibility
2
2
Better conduct
2
1
After 2 votes and with 8 points ahead, the winner is...
Sir.Lancelot
Tags
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 4
- Time for argument
- One day
- Max argument characters
- 10,000
- Voting period
- One week
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Contender / Con
6
1709
rating
564
debates
68.17%
won
Description
Grappling Styles: Kodokan Judo, Sumo, Brazilian Jujitsu, Chinese Shuai Chiao, Russsian Sambo, and the Western systems of Greco- Roman and Freestyle Wrestling.
Striking Styles: Karate, Boxing, Muay Thai, Taekwondo, Kung Fu, Kickboxing, and Krav Maga.
Definitions:
Grappling- 1. Grappling, in hand-to-hand combat, describes sports that consist of gripping or seizing the opponent. 2. Engage in a close fight or struggle; wrestle.
Striking- To hit or attack someone or something forcefully or violently
Boxing- The art of attack and defense with the fists practiced as a sport.
Preferable- More desirable or suitable.
1v1- One versus one.
Brawl- To contend against in battle or physical combat.
Rules:
1. On balance, BOP is shared.
2. No forfeits.
3. Anything in striking or grappling is fair game and can be used as a point of contention.
This also means blocks and non-boxing strikes extend to striking. (Striking.)
And choking, George Floyd Style, is also permissible in grappling. (Grappling.)
Round 1
Pro
#1
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
Preamble:
I shall aim to prove my argument on several points.
- Compare and Contrast.
- Versatility.
- Physical fitness.
- Resistance and Control.
- Legality.
BOP
This is an on-balance debate, so the burden of proof is shared. I win if I can prove that grappling is overall better in most circumstances in a 1v1 fight than striking and conversely, my opponent wins if he proves striking is better.
1. Compare and Contrast
A BJJ instructor and a TKD master walk into a bar. They have a conversation before the BJJ instructor says that wine is for wimps, the TKD master asks him if he wants to step outside. The instructor willingly obliges and they both step into the street. The two assume their default combat stances. Both are the same height and weight.
The instructor gets in close and does a passive side kick to the master’s ankle before preemptively stepping back. The master gets cocky and attempts a head-kick, to which the instructor is able to foil this attack by launching himself at his enemy while his non-opposing foot is on the ground, supporting his stance.
The TKD master falls to the ground and the BJJ instructor advances into putting him into an arm-lock. Game Over.
This does happen in real life. 6 months of BJJ will win a fight against someone with 5 years of TKD. Tae Kwon Do vs. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu - YouTube (Of the most dominant styles in MMA, the three categories are BJJ, Boxing, and Wrestling.) Two of which are grappling styles.
2. Versatility
The fight usually goes to the bigger guy most of the time, this is why weight classes exist and I don’t think anyone can dispute this.
However, a background in high-school and college wrestling for an average sized guy gives them a huge head-start over muscular guys who have no ground game or grappling experience.
Grappling is great for leaner, more wiry physiques. They develop greater conditioning for muscle stamina, so they will be able to last longer on the ground against an opponent that is physically stronger.
In the early days of MMA where weight classes weren’t a thing, one of the David vs Goliath tossups pitted Royce Gracie (176 lbs) against Japanese professional wrestler Taro Akebono (514 lbs). Within the first few moments of the match, it doesn’t take long for Taro to start being out-grappled by Royce Gracie.: Royce Gracie (Brazil) vs Taro Akebono (USA) | MMA Fight, HD - YouTube
3. Physical fitness
There are more reasons to choose grappling over striking. Both require physical fitness, but to be proficient at striking, you are required to be in peak physical shape more often than not.
In grappling, you can still be proficient even if athleticism isn’t your strong suit. You can be lean or stockier, burlier.
If a woman has lifelong training in grappling, she can very easily dispatch an average sized guy who won’t stop bothering her. Gender is a huge factor, as men are significantly stronger and larger than women, but this only means women have to work harder to utilize their potential.
Ronda Rousey flips this guy effortlessly. Even if he was actively resisting, it wouldn’t make a difference. Skip to 0:14. UFC ChampionRonda Rousey vs Man Judo throw Broken Ribs ORIGINAL - YouTube
Even men who are athletically inclined are still capable of getting clapped by women with training.
4. Resistance and Control
"Jiu-jitsu is the art of controlling posture and momentum...and if you get really good at it, you can win a fight by being lazy."
If you get really good at BJJ, you can very easily win most fights with very little effort. Most police struggles require a lot of grappling training in order to be able to hand-cuff them.
5. Legality
This is the most important one.
A lot of bouncers have to put up with a lot from drunk guys with fragile egos. When a fight breaks out, a bouncer that is trained in boxing can end it with one punch. The problem then comes in with the amount of people filing lawsuits against the bouncers and then the legal repercussions that come with it.
Boxing, Muay Thai, and Kick-Boxing are all great for self-defense. However, the risk of using these in self-defense also means you could give a guy severe brain-damage, broken nose, ribcage, fractured skull, or possibly death. Even if you were defending yourself, you could face fines or potential jail-time for manslaughter.
Bouncers that learn Judo and BJJ find that they are able to use their techniques to restrain their target until the police arrive, without dealing permanent damage. Now the risk of a broken windpipe and a broken arm also exist with grappling, but more often than not, the amount of control minimizes these risks.
Con
#2
So, I've had only 24 hours (with a life in between, believe it or not) to come up with a way to counter this. I'd like to counter my opponents quote without recognition to Sun Tzu with two other quotes of Sun Tzu:
Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt
(S)He will win who, prepared himself(/herself), waits to take the enemy unprepared.
Sun Tzu never taught us to always take the passive route nor to continually avoid war, instead once war was inevitable the idea was to win so swiftly and elegantly that the enemy doesn't want more war (or is too dead to wage it, literally).
My opponent has so much nonsense ground in this debate because of how nonsensical the debate title itself is and I am going to use that entirely to my advantage equally or more so than he has to his.
==
To begin with, what does 'preferable' mean, contextually?
I could literally say that from the perspective of the opponent in a 1v1, whoever's side of the debate wins is automatically going to prefer the other in the original fighter. More interestingly what if what's preferable to the person in the 1v1 is not preferable to the audience or in the long run? My opponent himself broke the vacuum by going into legal issues later on as well as complete and utter nonsense about the fact that a BJJ 6-month-experienced person who may well have had more experience elsewhere defeated an experienced Taekwondo kwanjang (not 'master', know the terminology).
The piece of evidence used is a literal advert for a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu gym! I also would say that TKD on its own is insufficient, I agree. TKD is excellent for balance and kicking training and indeed lacks in how to handle a proficient locker, blocker, arm-swinger and grappler. TKD is very much 'kick that fool well and hard' and embodies Pro's attack on striking. What I do find fascinating however is that Pro flexes how popular boxing is in MMA when boxing is the arm version of TKD, literally they have the same flaws backwards, if you kick well, grapple well and know how to dodge and block a boxer, you will defeat them, same backwards for a kicker TKD.
Popularity in MMA is due to rigged rules, which I will get to in my next point. What I want to point out is 'preferable' could mean anything and my opponent is totally and utterly vague on purpose.
I offer you a threefold reasonable way for us to qualitatively measure and then quantitatively estimate the value of striking vs grappling.
- Knowledge degree requirement to not lose the fight.
- Degree to which one can secure victory against almost any standard street opponent.
- Flexibility for all builds and types to pull it off.
I am aware that my opponent offered a fourth category. I will go into that at the ending and extend legality to other street-smart repercussions that come from being a grapple-dependent fighter.
==
What does one need to know more about to consistently guarantee they will not lose general brawls?
Both Pro and I would enjoy the fairytale ending to a fight; we chokehold the opponent after some grappling and all ends peacefully for all... Except why were we there in the first place? My opponent will later imply the professional UFC bouts with rules that severely handicap strikers being lethal and brutal vs grapplers are relevant or that bouncers dealing with drunk people who don't really want to kill them at all and who are not gonna be thrown back into the fight once locking arms and throwing the person out are relevant.
Let me explain what a general street brawl is and conversely where grappling is most known to be useful.
A street brawl is one of the following scenarios:
- A bunch of thugs (it says 1v1, you could be 1v1 and not know who else is gonna gang up on you from across the street etc) mugging you.
- A 1v1 thug, rapist, enforcer etc out to obliterate you who knows how to grapple and abuse their bulky muscle weight and grip pressure.
- A group of gangsters willing to let you fight fairly to settle a debt, winner walks out alive and debt-free, 1v1 match.
- You're in a place with bouncers but in no shape or form are a bouncer, a random person picks a fight with you, has a broken bottle as a severely sharp knife and knows how to swing.
- Your girlfriend arranged to cheat on you in front of you abusively with some guys who either hate you or bully you and I don't mean consensually. You are taken by surprise and yes I get it '1v1' but you are originally just 1v1 and this is the entire problem...
- Psycho ex and their new partner there to hurt you, only 1v1 in practise, other cheers them on.
If you read the comments section and way the description pans out, the '1v1' restriction is extremely deceptive. The only 1v1 guarantee is the beginning of the fight. You have no fucking clue what is happening after you're on the ground, grappling.
If a striker knows enough about how grapples get ensued and knows far more about striking, they can severely harm an enemy before the enemy can begin to grapple. Even while grappling, all the illegal moves on MMA, like biting, digging nails into vessels in the arm, punching the neck, gouging the eyes, breaking a finger to force a release, kneeing the tailbone to paralyse the person potentially, these are all allowed.
You want to talk life and death brawl with no fucking guarantee of safety? Don't you dare compare it to the grappling-supremacist nonsense that UFC tournaments are. Put your 3 best UFC fighters vs the worlds best military of ANY country that's known to have a decent military. I don't care WHICH martial art they are trained in, they're going to default to strikes and not grapples and defeat the MMA people because of it. The reason for this lies in what's coming next...
==
So about the degree to which one can secure victory against almost any standard street opponent...
Let's agree that a very adept BJJ Sensei, Wrestling 'master' or whoever else can win against an average street fighter. I agree to my opponent, there's no point saying that an expert of any martial art is not going to win vs your truly average thug. However, I now want to discuss degrees of it and explore a flaw in the 'legality' issue.
A true expert striker does not go for killshots instantly with full force strikes unless in a life-and-death scenario. In fact it is infinitely more likely that an untrained by decently strong fighter will accidentally manslaughter/murder (depending on interpretation) a person in a fight as they accidentally strike so precisely and brutally at one point using a killshot technique and such aimed at a vital point (a slight move with the hand to the under-side of the nose can do a far more fatal think than you first imagine, you are mch better off striking hard into the underside of the jaw if you want to knock-out and/or stun opponents, nose is for killshots and anything aimed at the underside of the nose is banned in almost all MMA let alone single martial art scenarios as well as other such moved elsewhere for example liver hits depending).
Sun Tzu's philosophy is embraced first and foremost in Kung Fu a strike-heavy martial art that is excellent at anti-grappling (try to grapple a kung fu expert, they're the ones who invented the techniques to end with their hands or legs around your neck while you keep doing your wrestling or BJJ nonsense they're hurting your ribs and going to either get you unconsciouse or dead).
If you imagine the most adept strikers possible on earth, there is another major element my opponent has to now concede; the millisecond the fight has weapons or is not as 1v1 as we thought, the degree of superiority becomes blatant. 3 cops vs 1 criminal us grappling as an act of MERCY TO THE CRIMINAL to humanely detain them and will then handcuff the criminal to be a perpetual anti-strike grapple. Against a true trained assassin they'd need to restrict legs too and handcruff behind the back, not in front.
5 gangsters handling 1 opponent to beat them up will have 3-4 grappling and locking the opponent as the head honcho/mistress strikes them down.
1 expert fighter vs 3, 4, 5 ANYTHING will use what? Striking. Always. What does this mean?
Let me explain. The more you zoom in to the 1v1 vacuum, the more equal striking and grappling may seem if one's an expert vs an unskilled opponent. The more you zoom out to explore the ceiling of skill and degree of usefulness, the more blatant striking's infinite superiority to grappling is becomes apparent. You can only 1v1 as a grappler and that doesn't make it a specialty preference, you can always 1v1 excellently and with ease as an adept striker, my opponent concedes it forces you to be fit to do so as an unhealthily obese man can just outgrapple any marathon runner, obviously.
==
So, my opponent likes to bring up exceptions to the rule...
My third category is all builds doing it. While my opponent correctly points out that unfit people are inherently worse strikers, this isn't as accurate or severe a differentiator as saying bigger, heavier people with stronger grips autowin grappling scenarios.
If both fighters are medium to high skill, grappling has a guaranteed winner always; the bigger, stronger one. My opponent can bring freak cases due to flukes all he wants, striking is a whole other game.
Put a 19 year old slim built BJJ black-belt vs a 40 year old bulkier man trained in it to a blue belt level. I reckon the latter wins and I have seen enough bigger built mid-tier grapplers defeat experts to understand how this works. Grappling is about build and talent.
Striking is about training, expertise, refinement etc. If you are truly an expert at striking, you're an expert at dodging and blocking by default. It's not all about bone-breaking strikes, it's about never ever letting the enemy hurt you in any way.
Weapons, ingenuity and creativity are only utilisable in a strike-like format. The only way an old man with a walking stick wins a fight is by striking. It's obvious.
Round 2
Pro
#3
Thank you, RM, for the response.
First Round Analysis:
Con makes a couple of great points, but quite a few of these arguments can be refuted in 1-2 sentences. However, we’re going to explore them in depth.
Situational Context:
It would appear that Con has a slight misunderstanding about the resolution. The title only discusses “1v1,” so other factors such as 1v5 do not exist in this hypothetical, as not only do variables change but the situation does too.
Mechanically, it is literally impossible to grapple multiple people. If you were fighting several enemies, I’d say situationally, boxing is better because it allows you to engage a few enemies at a time. But 1v1, grappling reigns supreme.
Moreover, you expressed some confusion over the term ‘preferable.’ It simply means that there are more advantages to grappling in 1v1 fights. There are likewise advantages for striking but overall, there are more pros for grappling than there are for striking.
Rebuttals:
“What I do find fascinating however is that Pro flexes how popular boxing is in MMA when boxing is the arm version of TKD, literally they have the same flaws backwards, if you kick well, grapple well and know how to dodge and block a boxer, you will defeat them, same backwards for a kicker TKD.”
This is way off. None of the arm strikes in TKD are used in boxing and vice-versa. If you even attempt to use the punches they teach in TKD, you risk spraining your arm.
In fact, TKD is so trash at blocking/punching, that in most videos where practitioners of TKD spar against boxers, they are quickly knocked down. In fact, the most obvious thing about videos of Olympic TKD is the notable lack of punching.
You can win a lot of fights by just learning boxing alone, but not TKD. But to say that they share the same weaknesses is laughably absurd.
“You want to talk life and death brawl with no fucking guarantee of safety? Don't you dare compare it to the grappling-supremacist nonsense that UFC tournaments are. Put your 3 best UFC fighters vs the worlds best military of ANY country that's known to have a decent military. I don't care WHICH martial art they are trained in, they're going to default to strikes and not grapples and defeat the MMA people because of it”
A professional fighter will always prevail in a fight against the lesser skilled. Just because someone is in the best version of the military doesn’t mean they possess the skill level to match a professional fighter who fights for a living. That isn’t to say that a lot of UFC fighters weren’t in the military, such as Khabib Nurmagomedov, the best grappler in the world who started wrestling when he first enlisted in the army.
But I’m curious how you arrived at the conclusion that UFC is somehow “grappler-supremacist.”
“A true expert striker does not go for killshots instantly with full force strikes unless in a life-and-death scenario. In fact it is infinitely more likely that an untrained by decently strong fighter will accidentally manslaughter/murder (depending on interpretation) a person in a fight as they accidentally strike so precisely and brutally at one point using a killshot technique and such aimed at a vital point (a slight move with the hand to the under-side of the nose can do a far more fatal think than you first imagine, you are mch better off striking hard into the underside of the jaw if you want to knock-out and/or stun opponents, nose is for killshots and anything aimed at the underside of the nose is banned in almost all MMA let alone single martial art scenarios as well as other such moved elsewhere for example liver hits depending).”
Traditionally, it’s easier for technical fighters to wind down their opponents over a series of repetitive jabs in a sanctioned fight. In real life, it’s not as easy as that.
In a real-life fight where a striker’s life is on the line, a jab and a cross just aren’t going to cut it, so they’re going to utilize some more caliber in their arsenal. Striking is too fast-paced and unpredictable, and it is in these circumstances where accidents happen that a fighter hits just a little too hard and in the wrong spot. (A hook to the temple, a killing blow.)
Now you have either a concussed civilian or worse, a dead one. In street fights, using boxing also runs the risk of breaking your hand. The professional, Mike Tyson, is no exception to this. Professional fighters are expected to show restraint because of the old laws where they had to register their hands as lethal weapons, but this is difficult as a striker.
Comparatively, grappling is safer because when you are actively moving a body, the environment is slower-paced and more controlled, allowing you to better utilize caution when dictating how to beat somebody.
“Sun Tzu's philosophy is embraced first and foremost in Kung Fu a strike-heavy martial art that is excellent at anti-grappling (try to grapple a kung fu expert, they're the ones who invented the techniques to end with their hands or legs around your neck while you keep doing your wrestling or BJJ nonsense they're hurting your ribs and going to either get you unconsciouse or dead).If you imagine the most adept strikers possible on earth, there is another major element my opponent has to now concede; the millisecond the fight has weapons or is not as 1v1 as we thought, the degree of superiority becomes blatant. 3 cops vs 1 criminal us grappling as an act of MERCY TO THE CRIMINAL to humanely detain them and will then handcuff the criminal to be a perpetual anti-strike grapple. Against a true trained assassin they'd need to restrict legs too and handcruff behind the back, not in front.”
Kung Fu, while technically categorized as a striking art, greatly understands the importance of grappling in combat. But look at the mention of police using grappling as a means of mercy to the criminal and refer back to my original points about how grappling is better for control and restraint.
“My third category is all builds doing it. While my opponent correctly points out that unfit people are inherently worse strikers, this isn't as accurate or severe a differentiator as saying bigger, heavier people with stronger grips autowin grappling scenarios.If both fighters are medium to high skill, grappling has a guaranteed winner always; the bigger, stronger one. My opponent can bring freak cases due to flukes all he wants, striking is a whole other game.”
That wasn’t the case with Royce Gracie (176 lbs) and Taro Akebono (514 lbs).
"Put a 19 year old slim built BJJ black-belt vs a 40 year old bulkier man trained in it to a blue belt level. I reckon the latter wins and I have seen enough bigger built mid-tier grapplers defeat experts to understand how this works. Grappling is about build and talent.Striking is about training, expertise, refinement etc. If you are truly an expert at striking, you're an expert at dodging and blocking by default. It's not all about bone-breaking strikes, it's about never ever letting the enemy hurt you in any way.Weapons, ingenuity and creativity are only utilisable in a strike-like format. The only way an old man with a walking stick wins a fight is by striking. It's obvious.”
Ok. So you see, a lot about weight and build determines a lot about a fight. This isn’t only true for striking, this is also true about grappling.
But in grappling, when you learn it and you can do it really well, you can reverse that size advantage. The thing about weapons is actually a really interesting point too, I’d like to add.
When confronting a person with a bat, you have a better chance of taking them down with grappling than you do with striking. Injuries are more common in striking than in grappling. Without even going into the amount of broken knuckles, sprained wrists, or injured ankles.
Upcoming Rounds Announcement:
There are still things to be addressed that Pro talks about and they will.
In rounds 3 and 4, I'm going to be getting very, very technical.
Con
#4
The title only discusses “1v1,” so other factors such as 1v5 do not exist in this hypothetical, as not only do variables change but the situation does too.Mechanically, it is literally impossible to grapple multiple people. If you were fighting several enemies, I’d say situationally, boxing is better because it allows you to engage a few enemies at a time. But 1v1, grappling reigns supreme.
They absolutely exist and in fact Pro lies at the end, notice zero explanation is given.
If you read the comments and the description, I will quote a few things before exploring versatility and flexibility to explain where Pro has completely lost this debate at least on that angle.
Brawl- To contend against in battle or physical combat.
Situational awareness and intuition will more often than not allow you to anticipate whether you’ll be dogpiled or engaging one person the whole time.It’s all about reading the room and in the chance you are outnumbered, any resistance is futile.
But I believe striking is a better means of defense in a situation against someone with a blade. Grappling is useless here.You can incapacitate them with a good few kicks to the patella and with solid boxing offense.
These are all the words of Pro. I am aware they aren't inside the debating Rounds but I am also curious where Pro jumps around from saying these to saying some utter nonsense like 'grappling is supreme'. If the more complex a situation is, the more preferable striking is to grappling, it implies that grappling is the option defaulted to in easy situations.
This is why rapists, stronger assailants that weigh more than their victims and gangsters or cops in a group opt to grapple if they don't want to kill their captured individual. I am aware I just compared the tactics used by cops to that of a rapist but in the pure mechanics of how one restrains an individual, they are similar. The reason it is important to see the similarity is that they restrain the opponent to keep their subject alive and tame. For this purpose alone, grappling is useful and it is only utilisable when the one doing it has a blatant edge over the other in the first place.
To make it much more crystal clear how grappling requires this edge to ever work out, all professions that rely on grappling, such as cops and security, have much stricter height, fitness and weight requirements than ones that enable striking.
The ideal height requirement for men in the military is between 60-80 inches / 152-203 cm. Anyone above or below this requirement is likely to get rejected.
The military, which is striking-prone, actually has a maximum height. This is because the angles and ways a super tall person has to maneuvre and strike are fundamentally different, whereas at grappling they'd still be very capable, assuming they eat the higher food amount required to maintain weight proportional to their height. Women have only 2 inch leniency over men (58 inch minimum).
Before I explore police forces, I would like to point out a fascinating and undeniable fact that may get me 'cancelled' for racial stereotyping. Look around the entire planet at races and ethnicities. So, what I mean by this is imagine how a big black African or big white Scandinavian man fights 1v1. Now extend that to their police force and you probably are correct, minus situations requiring weapons.
However, which part of the world is it that striking martial arts were pioneered to the hilt? The Asian continent and what do they have? Minus some pigme South American tribes, what they have in Asia are the shortest and scrawniest of our species. This is not an insult or mockery to them, it is actually admiration for their ingenuity and adaptability. Pro has a very false narrative that grappling suits all body types but it 100% does not. Striking does and where striking has most edge over grappling is where grappling has least utility; for small, light-weight people. People built smaller, have to resort to striking far more because striking is the default, excellent usage of the human limbs and body structure in a combat format.
Again, look at the martial arts in the description:
Grappling Styles: Kodokan Judo, Sumo, Brazilian Jujitsu, Chinese Shuai Chiao, Russian Sambo, and the Western systems of Greco- Roman and Freestyle Wrestling.Striking Styles: Karate, Boxing, Muay Thai, Taekwondo, Kung Fu, Kickboxing, and Krav Maga.
Admittedly half of the grappling styles have Asian origin but I'll get to that.
Look at the styles known for their striking, they are severely ancient styles that never went extinct for over a millennia and even several centuries on top of that. They were pioneered by some of the smallest, scrawniest human ethnicities and remained useful throughout. Conversely, the grappling styles were pioneered for sports and only remained useful for very big built sumo type utilisers.
While boxing may be the exception to the rule there, boxing has a major flaw since your legs are only being used for positioning, nobody can win a fight by just boxing if the opponent is a good kicker and tackler, this is already agreed by both sides. In fact, I insisted my opponent change it to striking (which is why Pro still has 'boxing' in the description's definitions).
If you were curious, generally speaking outside of Asia, 5'7" is the minimum height requirement for cops with 'maximum' left up for debate. I admit this changes country to country, my point is not about that.
Being taller and thus having superior range helps a striker too, not just a grappler, however a striker can severely compensate and I don't mean in a 'lesser' way either. See, if you're smaller, your limbs can 'shoot' the attack and bounce back to their on-guard position around half a second faster than what a taller person with longer limbs can do. This is because you are moving less flesh, muscle and bone.
This question is asked on Quora: What's the best way to grapple with an athletic and strong opponent that is over 100 pounds heavier than you?
My first choice? Don't. That weight difference means that if he gets a grip on you, you're in much trouble.My second choice? A weapon. Preferably a gun, but a 4″ minimum knife will do.I'm…somewhat athletic, these days at 51. I'm pretty strong…but 100 pounds is one hell of an advantage, especially if your opponent knows how to use that advantage. From your description, he does.Don't go aggravating apes, unless you have no choice. And then you are intent on hurting the guy. I mean hurting badly. Breaking joints, eye gouges, everything you can.
Brilliant answer. In other words, you can't use these terrible big-built-supremacist grappling techniques to defeat bigger people. You need to be deadly and strike.
I will now show you BJJ people admitting how utterly shit their martial is for smaller people:
^ pretends that no martial art was built for smaller, weaker people to defeat bigger, stronger people! LOL! Hahahahha! What do you think small Asians pioneered the striking arts for? A Muay Thai 5'6 guy will break you to pieces at 6'4, believe me! They will strike your limbs first and then strike your body!
What the guy in that video says is that fundamentally all martial arts are utilisable for smaller people but they never were designed for small to vs big is a lie. In fact, there are certain leg-locks and such in kung fu and muay thai that only work as smaller vs bigger, you lock the leg, trap the person and beat the crap out of their torsi as your legs keep them trapped in place and they have to balance on their 1 remaining leg.
My opponent may say so what if they grapple you then? So what indeed, your grappling is only even hopeful if the 1v1 fight where anything can happen stays predictable.
My opponent in the comments said this:
Yes. Circumstances are limitless. Weapons also apply.
Yet now is pretending it stays predictable, 'fair' in terms of weapons and that you don't need to at all consider how the rest of things pan out. The biggest advantage striking has over grappling is that if/when the fight gets truly unpredictable and unfair, you have a much smoother transition to neutralise the advantage via instant knockout moves, kicking the hand holding the weapon etc.
1v1 is 100% a lie in the resolution if my opponent is true to the comments section. My opponent's first comment in the comments section was this (while a user named Austin and I tried to understand the scope of the debate):
What exactly is a brawl? In a street fight, boxing is better, while in an organized spar, grappling is better.Same thing as a fight.It can either refer to a bar brawl or a street fight.
How on Earth are you supposed to guarantee in a bar or street pure chaos brawl that you stay 1v1? You have no idea who is sided with who, you have no idea what someone has packing in their pocket or beneath their jacket etc.
It's all good tackling someone and wrestling them on the ground if you're a big built person who guarantees they are unarmed and the fight stays 1v1. The fact is though that a good striker will have knocked you out hard or at least brutally injured you before you have them on the ground, leading to a perpetual advantage as they bruise and break you bit by bit.
The advantage and reason to favour striking is that if an excellent striker is vs an excellent grappler outside of a UFC/MMA ring, no rules applied, they will use every single illegal strike available to beat the crap out of the grappler and make them beg for mercy if not knock them unconscious or kill them.
Legally, as long as the other fought first, you are in the right. So, 'legally' I don't get the legal argument from Pro. What Pro is saying is if you start a fight as a grappler, you can get away with assault by having done less overall batter. Some rapists grappled and are free. Is that Pro's argument? I thought we are discussing what's better in the fight.
Round 3
Pro
#5
There is a lot of delusion in the example's Con uses.
“You are getting whipped and more before you touch me, I will turn my shirt into a whip and neck-choking rope if need be just like that. You dont understand how important striking skill is, I will lasso your wrist, yank it and disarm you before you can think what to do, if I kick your diaphragm and hand hard, then what?Grappling happen when idiots let each other get too close for striking to keep its power.Only in a ring with rules. The rules are inherently grappling supremacist.”
To then make comments like these……
“choreographed violence is not more artificial than rule-restricted MMA that is grappling-supremacist.”
While these comments are made outside of the rounds, one thing is fundamentally clear from this. Con is trying his hardest to apply fiction to real life.
Despite a lot of MMA hype being gimmick-based, that doesn’t make anything the professionals do inside the cage any less real or barbaric. You don’t understand fighting.
And “grappling supremacist?” MMA rules have always supported the striker. With the set time-limits, grapplers have less time to work their default style and whenever a new round is declared, the striker is always set back on their feet.
Your attempts to discredit MMA are an insult to the athletes who have trained hard to attain the skill that they have. And what happens in the cage is still a pretty accurate simulation of what goes on in most fights on the outside.
“What exactly is a brawl? In a street fight, boxing is better, while in an organized spar, grappling is better.Same thing as a fight.It can either refer to a bar brawl or a street fight.How on Earth are you supposed to guarantee in a bar or street pure chaos brawl that you stay 1v1? You have no idea who is sided with who, you have no idea what someone has packing in their pocket or beneath their jacket etc.”
The part you’re misunderstanding is I never limited the examples of a brawl to only these two options. These are suggestions to bounce ideas off of. I could have just as easily referred to you getting into a physical altercation with an old guy at church because you said something offensive, and that example would have been as applicable as the two in the description.
If you utilize situational awareness, you can assess in which times it is appropriate to use grappling and when it isn’t. The fact is you can spend most of your life learning how to box, kick-box, and properly defend yourself standing up.
But the moment you end up on your back, all that training is useless with no ground game.
Let’s analyze a striking sport.
Boxing:
Speed, Light Punches:
- Jab
- Cross
Heavy, Power Punches:
- Hook
- Uppercut
- Haymaker
My opponent gives the following situation which I shall use as an example.:
“In other words, you can't use these terrible big-built-supremacist grappling techniques to defeat bigger people. You need to be deadly and strike.”
Grappling isn’t only limited to specific builds, unless it’s Sumo. A boxer (under 180) will almost never be able to knock out a guy who is 210+ lbs because the mass of their neck and jaw, along with their proportional strength gives them a structural framework that allows them to withstand the punches. You will never KO a guy who is a lot larger than you and you risk breaking your hand even attempting it.
This is why men like JD Anderson can break cinder blocks using their head.
Or why Conor McGregor (One of the best strikers in the UFC) can’t win by trading blows with The Mountain.
Conor McGregor vs The Mountain (Game of Thrones) - YouTube
Or why a small professional boxer like Floyd Mayweather can’t knock out someone as big as Logan Paul.
Or why a small professional boxer like Floyd Mayweather can’t knock out someone as big as Logan Paul.
But I’ve demonstrated how size gaps can be overcome with grappling training. If the size gap is too significant, then most of the time, it’s not possible. This is true for striking and grappling.
“This is why rapists, stronger assailants that weigh more than their victims and gangsters or cops in a group opt to grapple if they don't want to kill their captured individual. I am aware I just compared the tactics used by cops to that of a rapist but in the pure mechanics of how one restrains an individual, they are similar. The reason it is important to see the similarity is that they restrain the opponent to keep their subject alive and tame. For this purpose alone, grappling is useful and it is only utilisable when the one doing it has a blatant edge over the other in the first place.”
I highly doubt Ted Bundy was a skilled grappler in any meaningful capacity.
If the women he preyed on had grappling training, they would be able to utilize this skill to their advantage when in a compromised situation and put up just enough of a fight to escape. This is precisely why grappling training is necessary.
Stand-Up Grappling and Ground-Fighting
The main objective should be to get your opponent to the ground and a lot of the stand-up techniques of grappling allow you to perform this with a lot of ease. There was a shooter holding a woman hostage and a man rushes in and saves her life by flipping the guy using a known Judo technique. (A flip that can be executed by grabbing the arm.)
- https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UINdQ3Os7oM (Skip to 2:05)
Grappling techniques also teach a fighter how to safely lift an enemy of equal size and throw them.
There’s also another stand-up demonstration that teaches you how to have your opponent miss when they throw a hook and what to do following up.
Here is what body-slams look like in real life.
Homeless Wrestler Slams Cocky College Kid - YouTube (Skip to 0:39.)
Homeless Wrestler Body Slams Guy on Beach - YouTube (Skip to 0:37)
You can’t make this up.
Statistically, most fights are going to end up on the ground anyway.
But if you have grappling ability, you can stop a takedown by performing a sprawl and you’ll land on your opponent and if you want to resume fighting on your feet, you have that option.
“It's all good tackling someone and wrestling them on the ground if you're a big built person who guarantees they are unarmed and the fight stays 1v1. The fact is though that a good striker will have knocked you out hard or at least brutally injured you before you have them on the ground, leading to a perpetual advantage as they bruise and break you bit by bit.The advantage and reason to favour striking is that if an excellent striker is vs an excellent grappler outside of a UFC/MMA ring, no rules applied, they will use every single illegal strike available to beat the crap out of the grappler and make them beg for mercy if not knock them unconscious or kill them.”
The best grapplers know a little striking too. Do you honestly believe the grappler wouldn’t resort to fighting dirty also? If a striker is getting outmatched in the cage, it’s highly likely their chances of survival against the same opponent in real life are very low.
Conor was absolutely getting manhandled by Khabib. If they were in a real-life fight and both weren’t holding back, Khabib would have no problem breaking Conor’s arms and legs.
“Legally, as long as the other fought first, you are in the right.”
What difference would that claim make in a court? This rarely serves as a valid excuse to judges.
“So, 'legally' I don't get the legal argument from Pro. What Pro is saying is if you start a fight as a grappler, you can get away with assault by having done less overall batter. Some rapists grappled and are free. Is that Pro's argument? I thought we are discussing what's better in the fight.”
Now you’re being silly. This hyperbolic strawman doesn’t even make sense.
For one, I clarified that injuries are more common in striking than grappling. (Look it up.)
Secondly, the legality argument is the point that if you use striking in a fight, you risk not only hurting yourself but opening yourself up to potential lawsuits depending on the amount of damage you do to your opponent. Strikers have LESS control over how much harm they do.
Grapplers have MORE control. They are able to subdue an opponent in general with more control, and there’s less of a risk to themselves and their target.
I’ll cite an example. The best grappler in the world, Khabib Nurmagomedov, traps his opponent in an irreversible hold and usually convinces them to concede, so he doesn’t have to snap their arm to win the fight even though he could. Grapplers establish more control whereas strikers sometimes permanently damage the face of their opponent, forcing them to undergo plastic surgery.
Round 4
Pro
#7
The evidence suggests Rational Madman didn’t do the math very well. He used my own words against me in Round 2 but didn’t count on the odds of this backfiring being astronomically high.
Since this is the final round, I’d like to provide an overview of the conversation, analyzing it point by point.
Discussion Breakdown:
- I compare BJJ to TKD and argue BJJ is superior.
Con retorts that the arms part of TKD is Boxing, I explain why this is wrong. This point is never mentioned again.
- I point out that grappling is suitable for ALL builds and body-types. A lot of the time, differences in size can be overcome by knowing basic wrestling. I demonstrate proof for this.
Con counters by posting a link to a Quora answer. (Quora is one of the most misleading websites, more inaccurate than Wikipedia.) He also drops a YT video as “evidence,” but doesn’t realize it contradicts his own argument.
- Con says MMA is fake and compares it to fights you see in action movies.
I counter this by pointing out it is an insult to the fighters who train for a living.
- Con states that MMA is “grappler-supremacist,” but fails to respond or provide evidence when receiving pushback on this point.
- Con quotes my comments outside the rounds to somehow imply that I am lying and that the 1v1 part of the resolution is deceptive because there is no guarantee it stays 1v1.
I refute this by pointing out that situational awareness and intuition will more often than not allow you to anticipate whether you’ll be dogpiled or facing one enemy the whole time.
- I discuss how grappling ends most fights and minimizes injury while striking is inherently fast-paced and uncontrolled, usually resulting in unintended consequences that end up charging you for manslaughter or assault with a deadly weapon.
Con responds by strawmanning this argument to imply I am somehow talking about ‘rape’??????
Now Con has spread a lot of misinformation and refuting it all would break the character limit that I set. He didn’t show up for the last round which means there are no new arguments for me to respond to. I’m going to use that “entirely to my advantage equally or more so than he has to his.”
Rebuttals:
“Look at the styles known for their striking, they are severely ancient styles that never went extinct for over a millennia and even several centuries on top of that. They were pioneered by some of the smallest, scrawniest human ethnicities and remained useful throughout. Conversely, the grappling styles were pioneered for sports and only remained useful for very big built sumo type utilisers.”
Sports? Do you mean the ancient games in which gladiators fought against and killed each other recreationally and for people’s entertainment?
The Gladiators were well-versed in the grappling aspects of Pankration and Greco-Roman style wrestling. Likewise, the Medieval Knights in Europe also had to learn grappling as a fundamental part of their training.
“The ideal height requirement for men in the military is between 60-80 inches / 152-203 cm. Anyone above or below this requirement is likely to get rejected.The military, which is striking-prone, actually has a maximum height. This is because the angles and ways a super tall person has to maneuvre and strike are fundamentally different, whereas at grappling they'd still be very capable, assuming they eat the higher food amount required to maintain weight proportional to their height. Women have only 2 inch leniency over men (58 inch minimum).”
Irrelevant. You’re fabricating a correlation between the height requirements and grappling/striking, but none of your sources indicate this is why. But also, correlation is not causation.
“However, which part of the world is it that striking martial arts were pioneered to the hilt? The Asian continent and what do they have? Minus some pigme South American tribes, what they have in Asia are the shortest and scrawniest of our species. This is not an insult or mockery to them, it is actually admiration for their ingenuity and adaptability. Pro has a very false narrative that grappling suits all body types but it 100% does not. Striking does and where striking has most edge over grappling is where grappling has least utility; for small, light-weight people. People built smaller, have to resort to striking far more because striking is the default, excellent usage of the human limbs and body structure in a combat format.”
I’m going to demonstrate why you’re wrong, using your own links as my source.: BJJ is Not Designed for Small People... No Martial Art is. | Icy Mike vs. Chewjitsu - YouTube
- The smaller person is at a disadvantage in ANY martial art. (Striking is no exception.)
- Being smaller means you can’t afford to make mistakes.
- BJJ wasn’t designed for a specific physique or frame.
If you’re too small to make efficient use of BJJ in fights, then Striking is going to be useless too. You won’t have the size to generate enough force and power to do any sufficient damage in a fight. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t learn BJJ or Striking because you can always get bigger, and the body will adapt to any version of training.
And you used a Quora link as your source.:
The person doesn’t know enough about grappling to be able to use it in a fight, or they wouldn’t be asking the question. And no amount of Quora answers will substitute for six months of getting your hands dirty through training. To be able to grapple someone 100 lbs heavier than you requires that you know grappling first.
It’s the same as asking how do I out-box someone bigger than me? You can’t. Not without first learning HOW to box. And Quora has about as much credibility as a tabloid publication.
“Sun Tzu never taught us to always take the passive route nor to continually avoid war, instead once war was inevitable the idea was to win so swiftly and elegantly that the enemy doesn't want more war (or is too dead to wage it, literally).”
There is nothing passive about combat, just because you use grappling. Grappling isn’t about being passive, it’s about control. Grappling is a trained wild animal. Trained does not mean tame.
Grappling allows you to defeat most people with less effort than say, striking, where you normally have to be aggressive in order to stop a fight.
“Popularity in MMA is due to rigged rules, which I will get to in my next point. What I want to point out is 'preferable' could mean anything and my opponent is totally and utterly vague on purpose.”
I’ve asked him about the evidence for the rigged rules in MMA, still no proof. I even explained how MMA normally prefers the striker, so the fact that grappling has a higher success rate proves that grappling is superior.
“I offer you a threefold reasonable way for us to qualitatively measure and then quantitatively estimate the value of striking vs grappling.
- Knowledge degree requirement to not lose the fight.
- Degree to which one can secure victory against almost any standard street opponent.
- Flexibility for all builds and types to pull it off.”
I suspect Con borrowed this triple-unit scale from an opponent named Sum1hugme that he debated in the past about a similar subject. The quote is:
“There are three qualities that allow an individual to win fights: technique, athleticism, and aggression.”
Their debate was Greco Roman-Wrestling vs Kung Fu. This is the link. Greco Roman Wrestling is preferable to Kung Fu for winning fights (debateart.com)
My opponent in this discussion claims that MMA is rigged, but this particular user’s quote seems to contradict this belief,
“The structure of mixed martial arts rules favor strikers over grapplers. The rounds guarantee that the striker will be stood back up if he can survive. The short time limit per round, necessarily means that grapplers have less time to work once they do get the takedown. Wrestling is favored over Kung Fu in fighting, not because of the rules, or the cage, but because it's effective for controlling the fight. The kung fu practitioner looked naive because he couldn't stop the takedown and got smashed. He was naive about wrestling and bjj, and it showed. Take Stipe Miocic vs Francis Ngannou 1 as an example of what I've been talking about. Ngannou was an incredible striker, and the hardest puncher in MMA ever, but Stipe was an NCAA Division 1 wrestler. What happened? The bigger, stronger striker, got tied up, taken down, and grinded out until his body failed. Over and over, until the end of the fight, Stipe, while considerably smaller, smashed his opponent, who failed to train his wrestling adequately for the fight. Then, in their rematch, it was wrestling that let Ngannou stuff the takedown attempt and subsequently knock his opponent out.”
So to wrap up my argument, I shall now conclude my final thoughts.
Conclusion:
Con labeled this debate deceptive, despite me adjusting the rules and definitions to his request. I have responded to each of his claims and disproved them accordingly. He has argued his points with misinformation, using sources that contradicted his claim or didn’t fully support it.
He has also forfeited the previous round unfortunately. The rules do not allow for forfeits.
Vote Pro.
Con
#8
Actually I only forfeited due to time. Christmas eve into Christmas is busy for me irl, I don't really get the time to make elongate computer typed Rounds.
That said, there was technically a couple hours I think I should have worried more about this debate so I take responsibility and I do notice the rule in the description. If voters want to punish that, it is their choice. I argue that since the Forfeit was Round 3/4 and my case is so strong, I believe voters should not enforce the rule as in they should give me a chance beyond conduct point.
Also please note that my opponent has intentionally designed their case to become a brand new case with brand new points in Round 3.
Please consider this when analysing the debate and fairness to me.
This is why men like JD Anderson can break cinder blocks using their head.
Headbutts are strikes. 100%. I have no idea how to think differently.
If Floyd Mayweather cannot knockout Logan Paul, what does that even mean? That match had no true grappling and Logan Paul is not known to be the best at youtube boxing. The match does seem to become slight grappling as Logan is so useless at boxing he just keeps doing the arm-lock referee-stops technique.
I highly doubt Ted Bundy was a skilled grappler in any meaningful capacity.
He was. He had extremely strong grip and killed by strangling his victims to death, strangling is a grappling move.
If any of his victims were strong strikers, assuming he hadn't drugged them to tame them, they'd have hit him in places so brutally hard, including winding him by aiming at his stomach, that he'd have to release the strangle-hold. For all rape victims, striking is a necessity because most skilled (yes, there is a skill to it even as vile as it is) serial rapists have acquired muscle toning and technique that make them excellent grapplers. They will defeat their specially-chosen victims once grappling, the victims need to strike at any given opportunity as this is the one thing a rapist doesn't prepare for generally; a skilled striker who isn't paralysed by fear and isn't trying to escape the holds passively at all.
If the women he preyed on had grappling training, they would be able to utilize this skill to their advantage when in a compromised situation and put up just enough of a fight to escape. This is precisely why grappling training is necessary.
BULLSHIT! The women Ted bundy chose were built like dolls/barbies. They couldn't have outgrappled him, he's the type of dude that had wrist-flexing exercises regularly, he trained that strangle and grapple technique to the hilt. Also, he had tortured them for days before killing them, raping them multiple times. The only hope they had was effective striking but they were so scared they didn't know what to do.
In fact, it is instinctual to grapple back during a rape. I am sure many of them tried. The instinct when grabbed and overpowered is to push and grapple back. The less instinctive thing is to knee them hard in the stomach because you feel so weak and powerless you underestimate how that can affect their breathing and make them loosen their grip elsewhere. Effective striking was his victims' only hope and he intentionally had abused and malnourished them a lot before killing.
My opponent is genuinely giving the tip that had the women wrestled Ted Bundy, they'd be free. That is literally what every single one of them tried to do, that is the instinctual reflex to being strangled to death and repeatedly raped. I am sure even a couple of them tried ineffective striking and Bundy beat them and hurt them. My opponent is talking utter nonsense.
What could have been the only way for a small built woman to defeat Bundy is for her to have striked his body at key points in quick, swift precise hits. He went out of his way to pick soft-built women that could barely fight back.
One of Bundy's victims was 12 years old. My opponent's sick and vile advice is this 12 year old could have out-wrestled a grown man. Mos tof his victims were slim early-20s.
Over the next several days, Bundy confessed to various law enforcement agents. Bundy told FBI Special Agent Bill Hagmaier he killed 30 people in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, and Florida between 1973 and 1978.
This man killed 30 people, he probably raped all of them too but confessed to the murder. Do you believe he was an inexperienced grappler as a serial rapist and murderer who used strangling as his primary means?
There is nothing passive about combat, just because you use grappling. Grappling isn’t about being passive, it’s about control. Grappling is a trained wild animal. Trained does not mean tame.
Okay but this quote implied passivity:
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
Furthermore, the entire 'legality' point was flexing how a grappler can get away with their assault because it can appear passive in the aftermath. I am glad my opponent understands why grappling attracts rapists and gangsters now, it is about controlling a victim indeed.
Striking is about incapacitating the opponent (whether victim or perpetrator) and bringing forceful damage to them. Striking is effective both offensively and defensively.
As I have said, repeatedly, striking becomes more appealing the more complex a combat encounter becomes, this has been conceded by my opponent repeatedly in Round 2 and the comments section. If weapons get involved, other people join in and/or any other variable is brought in than a pure predictable 1v1 with a standard opponent, grappling instantly loses its appeal wheres striking's appeal only increases.
Striking is preferable over grappling due to that. Both can be used vs inexperienced opponents, only striking can be used effectively in all situations no matter how they play out.
Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:
PRO wisely limits techniques in the DEFINTION section. I would have liked to have seen a statement about what must proved and a less generic definition of preferable. In 1v1 combat, it seems to burden should be to prove which technique is more likely to achieve domination, control, victory.
PRO claims that grappling is overall better in most circumstances in a 1v1 fight than striking. The argument cites several points in support of this claim, including:
1)In a comparison between a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instructor and a Tae Kwon Do master, the BJJ instructor was able to win the fight using grappling techniques.
2)Grappling is more versatile and can be effective for people of different physiques, including those who are leaner or stockier.
3)While both grappling and striking require physical fitness, grappling can be more forgiving for those who are not in peak physical shape.
4)Grappling allows for greater resistance and control in a fight, allowing someone who is skilled in grappling to potentially win a fight with minimal effort.
5)Grappling is often more legal in self-defense situations, as it allows for non-lethal control and restraint of an opponent.
Overall, the argument asserts that grappling is a superior fighting technique in a 1v1 situation and provides 6 instructive videos and 3 relevant sources to support these claims.
CON wastes time with irrelevancies and terms already defined and agreed to.
1) CON unhelpfully frames his first counterargument as a question
What does one need to know more about to consistently guarantee they will not lose general brawls? CON never gets around to answering what degree of knowledge is required to not lose a fight, instead drifting off into non-sequiturs about professional fighting and non 1v1 scenarios. Honestly, I can't even tell if CON is talking about knowledge about striking, knowledge about grappling or some other knowledge. He seems to say that a striker with sufficient grappling knowledge could quickly win but never gives an example or offers an support.
2) CON addresses the degree to which one can secure victory against almost any standard street opponent.
CON concedes that an expert grappler can defeat an average striker while asserting that an expert striker can defeat an average grappler- this concession does not give us any reason to prefer one technique over the other.
CON argues that striker is preferable in non 1v1 situations but that is deliberately ignoring the debate parameters.
PRO politely reminds CON that the defined condition is 1v1.
PRO counters that in a street fight, the control lent by grapple is superior to the punishment dealt by strike, which can easily exceed appropriate levels of violence or even backfire on the striker. PRO offers a persuasive illustration although I would have like to have seen some support from expert opinion here.
CON asks us to read the comments section for a second time but VOTERS may not consider arguments, discussions, explanations outside of the the ROUNDS of this debate. CON leans into PRO's control argument agreeing that grappling provides better control which is why it used by rapists and police - a persuasive argument for PRO but also argues that grappling requires greater weight and strength.
PRO addresses this concern directly in R3- arguing that size and strength can be a decisive factor in any match but when matched against a larger, stronger opponent, strike tactics are less likely to control the outcome and more likely to self injure. PRO convincingly offers a few tactics that might be used to overcome or control a larger opponent.
CON forfeits R3, effectively killing any chance he had of turning these arguments to his favor.
PRO effectively reinforces with Round 3 with additional counters and examples. I would have liked to see a more effective summary of his arguments in respect to CON's arguments, but agree with PRO that CON spent too much too time arguing rules, comments, and used far less effective sources.
I though CON's Ted Bundy illustration in R4 would have been an effective example if any of Bundy's victims had been trained in striking and had been documented warding off Bundy. Too much of CON's argument relied on hypothetical assertions like this without giving us the kind of 1v2 brawl video illustrations PRO used so effectively. Both sides needed some expert opinion: for example, I assume the US Army has a strong opinion on this subject and well supported arguments, etc.
ARGUMENTS to PRO.
PRO's use of sources was far superior: He used examples to show, to illustrate the principle he was describing whereas CON merely used sources to tell us again what CON told us. CON used fewer sources and of these, more sources felt tangential to CON's thesis.
SOURCES to PRO
CONDUCT to PRO for CON's forfeit
Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:
ARGUMENTS:
TBH. Both sides had their moments, but the rebuttals were both so utterly absurd to each other that it was t ading one big thought experiment that was not based in reality. PRO lived in a world where throat strikes, groin kicks, kidney punches, finger locks, and pressure points didn't exist. CON lived in a world where guillotines, locks, grabs, and simply picking people up and throwing their heads into objects like rocks did not exist. The problem here is that these hypotheticals actually make really weak cases.
PRO brought up endless examples of wrestlers beating boxers and such. But these were done within the confines of heavily regulated fights that ban the deadly moves of striking and wrestling. In other words, they don't really prove anything. And, for goodness sake, anyone who has watched a boxing match knows there are holds. So neither side really won on an argument because neither side really gave a convincing, real-world case. And since that wasn't considered, and yhe definitions do not make clear whether these are only certain situations or all situations, then both are right and both are wrong. So neither side really was convincing.
SOURCES:
PRO had so many videos of actual fights of people between different styles where the grappler wins. CON had good experts, but PRO just had so much volume of quality sources that PRO wins on sources.
GRAMMAR:
Both had spelling and grammar errors, but not enough to make it difficult to understand.
CONDUCT:
Since Rule 2 was waived, I weighted conduct on behavior, and both sides called the other a liar, said the other did deceitful things.
-->
@oromagi
I think you mentioned you used to be in the army before, is that true?
nope! maybe Barney?
I think you mentioned you used to be in the army before, is that true?
(In the forums I think)
Well, if it is wrong then it isn't real TKD.
Could you cast a vote please?
The implementation of other styles isn’t significant enough for it to be considered a hybridized version, so it invariably falls into one category.
Your dojo is exceptional, but what you are taught is not accessible in most TKD dojos. McDojo’s and ATA are to blame for this.
The majority of current TKD dojos teach what was demonstrated in the videos. Infact, the only way for TKD to be useful nowadays is to cross-train in other styles.
"BJJ may not be a 'pure' grappling style like Greco Roman-Wrestling because of the use of strikes but it is still technically categorized as grappling."
Well if it incorporates other things than grappling then it isn't grappling. If it, by its very nature, disagrees with its own classification, then it can't be that classification. It is a hybrid form. Virtually every form of martial arts is not one style. They are all hybrids of everything. TKD has grappling in it. Kung Fu has judo in it. Wing Chun has submission holds. These are all elements of grappling. Therefore they are not "striking" arts.
"Now the defense they teach in TKD like the High Inward Strike which is generally taught to people to defend against people with a blade is fundamentally useless."
First of all, that is NOT what that is used for. When I was taught TKD, they told me never to use that for knives because they can simply just stab you instead. The High Inward Strike is designed for grabs to throw the person off-balance because their momentum will be redirected across their body. You are supposed to follow it up with kneeing them into the side to crack their ribs. But even moreso, they said it is generally a weak block for mostly everything else and should be substituted for an outward block because an inward strike will likely not stop the momentum of a punch.
Knife defense is usually only taught at much higher levels and is mostly locks and submissive holds with disarming techniques. But even so, at my do jang they said "this stuff is all for show. It probably won't work in the real world. The best thing to do when they have a knife is to de-escalate the situation. If you can't de-escalate the situation, then redirect the blow using simple blocking techniques. But you will probably get stabbed or sliced."
"Similarly, you can't learn to punch properly using the punches from TKD and if you attempt it, will just feel extremely awkward."
idk where that black belt got their black belt, but that punch was the exact opposite of what I was taught. First of all, any TKD instructor who is worth their salt will tell you NOT to completely extend your arm like that. Second of all, you are supposed to aim with the index and middle finger nuckles, which will concentrate the punch into its most potent positions, which she did not do. Third of all, the punch loses its potency and power when you do NOT snap your fluid punch motion. It is those three combinations that make the punch powerful. Without it you might as well just slap them.
The blocking in TKD is also insufficient. It will almost always NEVER work."
I've actually successfully blocked many a punch using my TKD training. So I can tell you from experience that that is a load of horseshit. At my do-jang, we had weekly sparring classes. They allowed head punches and kicks and basically everything except groin shots and breaking bones. The blocks work. Let me tell you, they do.
But back to that video. In my do-jang, we NEVER told people to use those blocks for fights. They were considered those "just for show" blocks that wouldn't work in the real world. The blocks we were taught to use for sparring are the redirection of the punch and the leg block that muay thai fighters often use. This is because a kick from a seasoned pro would require kicking force to counter. Plus, it allows a fighter to retaliate with a kick of their own. For punshes we used the in to out block and snapped it in place with complete force while making sure the top third of the forearm was used. This takes advantage of the weaker inner forearm bone that is also extra sensitive to pain and also redirects the punch outward and away from the body, allowing the TKD fighter to counter with a punch or a kick by redirecting their opponent's energy.
In short, you have no fucking idea what you're talking about. My do jang actually took the time to teach us what works and doesn't work in the real world, not in the fantasy land of TV movies and forum debates and tournaments. Granted, most do-jangs do not teach sparring, and this is a mistake, but mine did, and I am thankful for it. They also complained that most do-jangs do not properly teach techniques. Thankfully, mine did, and we practiced it in sparring class, so we knew it worked.
BJJ may not be a 'pure' grappling style like Greco Roman-Wrestling because of the use of strikes but it is still technically categorized as grappling.
Now the defense they teach in TKD like the High Inward Strike which is generally taught to people to defend against people with a blade is fundamentally useless.
Similarly, you can't learn to punch properly using the punches from TKD and if you attempt it, will just feel extremely awkward.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67wTxE11EGk
The blocking in TKD is also insufficient. It will almost always NEVER work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7L9ImZH3Jo
TKD teaches some throws, but the use of grappling is minimal. So minimal in-fact, that it is unable to be used.
So this may mean that it isn't a PURE-striking sport, but it still falls under the category of striking.
It definitely EMPHASIZES grappling, but it isn't technically a grappling martial art. Just like TKD emphasizes striking, but it ISN'T a striking art.
A true grappling art is greco-roman wrestling. There aren't punches or kicks in it at all.
Because it isn't. It's a martial art. They first teach you punches, kicks, and blocks before you learn the judo stuff:
https://youtu.be/zcPlJLn-Mp8
https://youtu.be/ANbPXqAEUTU
https://youtu.be/glDbjKIDLNo
The first thing you learn is striking techniques in a gym not focused on winning tournaments.
Wait.
Why do you say BJJ isn’t grappling?
But on a different train entirely. BJJ isn't a grappling martial art. Idk why some people think that. So most of PRO's round 1 arguments are nonsense. In REAL BJJ they teach you blocks, sweeps, kicks, and punches. Because, you know, it was created for self defense.
Additionally, REAL TKD isn't a kicking martial art. Yes, there's kicking in it, but even my short time in TKD I learned multiple types of punches, blocks, and kicks. And at the black belt level they teach throws, submission techniques, finger locks, and you begin to learn grappling (which is similar to wrestling). It isn't just a "wow, pretty kicks" sport. In competitions it is, but that is because of bullshit rules. Traditionally it wasn't like that at all in competitions.
So this debate is debating straw men of fighting styles.
The only martial arts I know of that aren't a compendium of different techniques are greco-roman wrestling and sumo wrestling. But that is obviously because they were invented for entertainment purposes and strikes were always banned.
"Your girlfriend arranged to cheat on you in front of you abusively with some guys who either hate you or bully you and I don't mean consensually. You are taken by surprise and yes I get it '1v1' but you are originally just 1v1 and this is the entire problem..."
This sounds oddly personal...
Rule 2 can be declared void, given the circumstances.
“BULLSHIT! The women Ted bundy chose were built like dolls/barbies. They couldn't have outgrappled him, he's the type of dude that had wrist-flexing exercises regularly, he trained that strangle and grapple technique to the hilt. Also, he had tortured them for days before killing them, raping them multiple times. The only hope they had was effective striking but they were so scared they didn't know what to do.“
Strawman. Out-grappling implies that they overpowered him, I only said put up enough resistance to last long enough to escape.
“ In fact, it is instinctual to grapple back during a rape. I am sure many of them tried. The instinct when grabbed and overpowered is to push and grapple back. The less instinctive thing is to knee them hard in the stomach because you feel so weak and powerless you underestimate how that can affect their breathing and make them loosen their grip elsewhere. Effective striking was his victims' only hope and he intentionally had abused and malnourished them a lot before killing.”
Grappling and striking would be necessary in this scenario. There is no logical reason to believe only one could save them.
“One of Bundy's victims was 12 years old. My opponent's sick and vile advice is this 12 year old could have out-wrestled a grown man. Mos tof his victims were slim early-20s.”
Nope. Never made that claim.
You frequently resort to the use of straw-mans to make hyper-emotional arguments.
I was only referring to the women.
Please vote and please be fair with rule 2, I was genuinely busy, it was literally Christmas Eve and Christmas and I forgot the exact hour of this debate.
I think what's ashame is a coward needing such severe time restriction to hold their own. This guy has no real life distractions near Christmas clearly.
I am finished and it's up to you how to punish me.
It's a shame you didn't make rule 2 more explicit - the way it's currently written, the punishment for breaking it could either be the loss of the debate or the loss of a conduct point. Generally, in ambiguous cases, voters will err on the less harsh punishment.
That's fair - I was thinking more of some other common scenarios, e.g:
-You're walking alone on a dark night. Some drunk with a knife tries to mug you. In this situation, being aware of your surroundings is crucial - if you try and grapple, and his friend sneaks up behind you, then you're basically dead. Striking allows you to maintain situational awareness.
-Someone challenges you to a 1v1 fight. When things start to go bad for them, then their friend jumps in from the crowd to "help"- yes, it's cliche, but I'm sure it does happen quite often.
BTW, this link might be useful: it gives some interesting quantitative data on how street fights actually go.
https://www.highpercentagemartialarts.com/blog/2019/3/6/how-long-do-street-fights-actually-last-and-what-can-we-learn-from-that
If there’s a situation where you won’t only be struggling against one person, then it would be illogical to use grappling.
But most of the time, you’ll be able to tell.
Situational awareness and intuition will more often than not allow you to anticipate whether you’ll be dogpiled or engaging one person the whole time.
It’s all about reading the room and in the chance you are outnumbered, any resistance is futile.
If you are getting coffee and a guy in line is alone and yelling at the waitress, you intervene and tell him to stop. Then he gets mad and challenges you to a fight in the parking lot, it is pretty safe to use grappling.
If you’re at a party and your friend gets drunk so you exchange harsh words and it turns into a fight, the likelihood of other people jumping in to go against you is unlikely. They’re probably going to try and break it up.
Likewise, if a perpetrator/instigator is with a group, then I’d say you wouldn’t grapple. But it’s usually pretty easy to tell if more people are going to jump in.
IMO the resolution is broad enough to allow this kind of derailing - a random street fight could entail all sorts of factors affecting the effectiveness of striking vs grappling.
-Is your opponent armed?
-Is it a 1v1 all the way through?
-What is your own body build?
-How strong is your opponent compared to you?
-Are you looking to beat up or subdue your opponent? Is legality an issue?
-How far are you and your opponent willing to go?
In a straight, fair fight with rules, grappling should win most of the time. However, in a street fight, I feel striking is more consistent and lessens the risk of personal injury.
Discussing the trivialities of extraordinary circumstances only derails the thread.
You can ignore anything you want to ignore and assume things aren't a big deal that are.
Any complaints against the 1v1 resolution aren't really that big of a deal.
But further mention of it will probably be ignored.
I predict much of this debate is going to come down to semantics over the "1v1" part of the resolution.
Is that my cue to sound the boss music?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FM2WB0AyAjA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct5E72lu_Ic
you better be ready boy
Most grapplers are willing to eat shots. A lot of people are untrained anyway, so their attacks can be circumvented by a proper takedown.
I accept your input as valid if some day the grappler can surpass the skilled locking, blocking and striking.
They better hope it all stays 1v1 for their grappling to be useful.
You are an advocate of fantasy based fighting. If you actually watch fights. If you actually train to fight, you will realize quickly that hitting someone with a shirt doesn't work. I was in jiujitsu class one day, and a guy was sitting on a guys back, with his belt wrapped around his neck, pulling with both hands trying to choke him out with his belt. It didn't work. What worked was a rear naked choke.
People get kicked all the time. Grapplers eat shots all the time. Most of the time though, they will get the clinch, secure a takedown, and dominate. I am primarily a striker. When I throw kicks, sometimes they get caught, and I get swept. If you think it's possible to totally stay on the outside indefinitely against a good grappler, then you're delusional, or simply ignorant of what fighting is actually like.
Against someone with a blade, most trained fighters (if they're wearing a belt.) remove their belt and wrap it around their arm to defend against the blade. Their arms are going to get stabbed, it's almost inevitable.
If someone is carrying a beer bottle, crow-bar, or baseball bat, then in this situation a grappler is practically the god of the domain. The ways in which a grappler can take control over this scenario are numerous.
I agree - I think the best course of action would be to take them down quickly (with striking), then run for your life. In a protracted fight, you run the risk of bleeding out even if you win.
I’m inclined to say no in the context of the debate.
But I believe striking is a better means of defense in a situation against someone with a blade. Grappling is useless here.
You can incapacitate them with a good few kicks to the patella and with solid boxing offense.
If the martial artist in your video did take up grappling despite her build being incompatible with the sport, could she use it against people her own height and size?
In that case, it opens up some interesting possibilities - per the definition of striking, "to hit or attack someone or something forcefully or violently." Does stabbing someone count as striking?
Yes. Circumstances are limitless. Weapons also apply.
I will just show you in the debate the harsh reality of why we handcuff people in custody and don't need to full-body restrict them generally.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0qyyfmvGtI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGwcUJTDkqE (Skip to 2:09)
In this second video, there is a demonstration of the superpowers of grappling. The 250 charges the 150 grappler, tackles him, but the 150 uses the momentum to roll on top.
Similarly, knowing grappling can help because if you're trying to outrun someone and they tackle you and you have no ground game, you're screwed. However, if you have decent grappling experience and a big guy tries to tackle you, then you can counter by performing a sprawl and then putting him in a headlock while proceeding to choke him out.
you know what i will have to just risk missing this if it's dragged to a certain day (actually not Christmas).
Maybe. Being a versatile fighter is therefore the solution.
I won't deny that there are certainly situations where striking is better. But there isn't always a size gap between two people in a fight, so I'd say in most situations where the possibilities are limitless, grappling is more beneficial as its diversity is more adaptable. (Not always the case.)
Andy Kaufman never lost a wrestling match against women. Nowadays, if a prime Andy Kaufman time-traveled to 2022, a BJJ chick would fold him like a pretzel.
To understand how deeply wrong and unnatural it is for all slim-built people to teach grappling over striking, you need to understand what their builds excel at vs are shit-tier at.
You cannot ever teach this woman to be this good at grappling:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SYYzsyJCiQ
choreographed violence is not more artificial than rule-restricted MMA that is grappling-supremacist.
it depends on whether the brawl is professional
If, as you stated, we're considering "random street fights," then are potential weapons taken into account? Facing someone who might have a knife or gun dramatically changes the situation.
The resolution leaves some room for flexibility. For example, in a martial art that combines striking and grappling (e.g. Muay Thai), you could argue that striking is the more preferable part, but the grappling makes up for any weaknesses the opponent brings up.
it is important to note that both grappling and striking have their own unique strengths and weaknesses and the decision to use one over the other will depend on the specific circumstances of the situation. In some cases, grappling may be more effective, while in others, striking may be the better option. Ultimately, the choice of which technique to use will depend on the individual's level of skill, physical abilities, and the specific context of the situation.
You pay someone to train your future or current daughter in JiuJitsu, Judo and/or wrestling.
I pay someone to train mine in Kung Fu, Muay Thai, and/or Karate.
I know I will feel happy and safe with her vs a thug. Yours however, can't even get past his knife.
If you have any female relatives you truly care about that are ready to be proper feminists who will hold their own in a brawl and spar or even a slimmer or shorter man, you will encourage them to master striking, blocking and to be so vicious and accurate with it.
I want all mothers, sisters, daughters and more armed with more than just the good old pepper spray STRIKE WITH THE CAN move. I want a village, town, city armed with people who can take off their clothing and fucking choke a bastard out with it after throwing it to his (or her) eyes and striking their diaphragm and kicking them off balance but NOT grappling, instead staying higher and striking down, kicking the stomach and such making the person stay down arms out, not approaching them close enough for a comeback saying 'stay down' and calling the cops on speaker phone all limbs ready to attack and defend with.
That is the place I'd want to live. That is what even the skinniest of us can do with learning.
You cannot ever teach a skinny guy to outgrapple a muscular man, out-striking is hard but not unthinkable especially when cunning and dodging get involved.
America is over-saturated with this bullcrap 'everyone has a gun' mantra. Guess why guns beat everything? A bullet is a striking tool. Strikes > grapples.
Exactly, it's the inherent problem also with in-the-ring fighting as well. People only recognise and respect that people need to strike if a woman is vs a man as they all know the man will win once they grapple unless she does some ninja maneuvring to wrap her legs around his neck and not in a sexy way.
In most random fights, it is better to use grappling styles as a means of self-defense as opposed to striking styles. (At least, in general.)
(You never know the factors such as the height or build of the enemy, so grappling is more preferable as a style in unpredictable circumstances for everyone.)
The angle in which I'll be defending this point is from legality and adaptability.
There is no way you are telling me that if you are a chinese man trained in kung fu, in a street brawl with a big white or black man that is easily going to defeat you once on the ground that you aren't going to utilise strikes unless you're on a suicide mission or clueless.
This is the inherent advantage of being bigger and heavier; you inherently intimidate and can bait your opponent into strikes. That is also why 'self defence' laws have reasonable interpretation such that moving towards someone within their personal space in a threatening way justifies striking back (very questionable where this line is drawn but to not offer any grey area means a weaker, smaller opponent can never preemptively strike in defense before someone grapples them to the floor and they autolose the fight).