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Really? I am a mid 20s decently fit male who knows nothing about boxing and has never been in a ring. I don't think I'd manage to hold a candle against the women competing in my weight class at the olympics.
The gap is much larger than what popular culture lets people believe.
Lucia Rijker one of the best female boxers and kickboxers got knocked out by an amateur Muay Thai fighter. Polish arm wresler Ula Siekacz got in an MMA fight with Piotrek Muaboy and he brutally mauled her.
Technique helps but it doesn't substitute for all the biological advantages even an average man gets: they just hit a lot stronger and can take a lot more punishment.
Realistically the average fight between a man and a women is over as soon as he grabs her and/or she gets knocked out. You can compensate a lot with technique so top women can probably take on men that don't exercise, but introduce any sort of strength training and it's just over.
An amateur Muay Thai fighter is a huge step up from a barely trained rando like me or BC.
I am quite sure that I could pound a woman into submission if I got on top of her, but getting on top of her is the problem. You need several months of training as an adult to be able to avoid cheap shots if you didn't grow up fighting in the playground.
I'll admit I don't know how much that matters in that particular configuration. Could an expert woman neutralize the average dude in at most a couple of blows? I guess you just go for the nuts and the eyes. But you can't really go hard for that in any sort of sanctioned fight so unless you can go for a knockout that's going to involve some level of wrestling, and it's very hard to compensate the strength advantage then.
Seems like you have to thread a needle to make it work.
We were talking about a no-holds-barred fight.
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Fights between really strong unskilled fighters and really skilled but weak fighters (under marquess of Queensbury) look more like the skilled fighter dancing on the outside, trying to sneak in jabs and counterpunch while avoiding taking big hits. A woman defeating a man would look more like going the distance without taking many punches, than it would like getting a quick ko.
Yup-yup, that's what I was trying to say. And if it's not boxing, then throws are an option. Just wait until the stronger unskilled fighter tries to rush you, trip him, throw him, and when he's down kick him in the shins, in the kneecaps, in the groin, in the liver, in the face if you're wearing shoes.
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I sincerely think you would perform better than you think. Even a man's skull is harder than a woman's, the woman's punches won't hit as hard.
I used to row in a past life and happen to sort of know one of the Olympic GB female rowers. Despite the fact that she almost the same height as me (height is very important for rowing) and basically the same weight class as me (if not lighter) she had a 15-20 second faster 2K erg than me (this was before she went professional), although the caveat is that I was only training 3x a week while she'd have been doing 7+ sessions a week.
Perhaps boxing isn't like rowing but equally in the other sports where I can do a direct comparison easily (like weightlifting), the Olympic women in my weight class are miles and bounds ahead of me. The lowest score for the snatch was 90kg in the 76-kg category in Tokyo 2021 while I topped out at like a 50kg snatch back when I used to train for rowing.
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I mean, if we're being 100% literal, yes, BurdensomeCount would almost certainly lose a boxing match. If he knows nothing about boxing, he doesn't know which moves are illegal, so he'd get DQed.
@faceh's thought experiment specified a "no-holds barred brawl" rather than a boxing match with rules and a referee.
In the latter case, my money's on the trained woman (if for no other reason than the man fighting cautiously out of fear of accidentally breaking the rules) - and it might well come out with the trained woman getting knocked out, but winning by default by referee's decision, because the man broke a rule.
In the former case, my money's on the untrained man: assuming he's reasonably fit for his age and body mass, he will absolutely dominate the woman through brute force alone, no matter how much training she's received.
Yep. Have to assume that both sides are allowed to use whatever tactics and techniques they like or else the victor probably wins on a technicality.
Ironically the main thing that a trained female has going for her is less fear of being punched in the face, whereas an untrained guy might flinch and cower when he gets struck.
But the other thing an untrained male might do is flail and swing wildly, and the female CANNOT afford to take an errant hit by pure luck.
The main thing a professional female fighter would have against an untrained male is cardio. Especially assuming we get rid of round breaks.
Yes indeed, I granted in the hypothetical:
I don't know how much the cardio will help if she actually gets caught by the opponent. She can certainly try to outrun him the whole time.
But again, 70 isn't inherently an age of fragility and decrepitude. It would be for many, I grant. But part of the reason I zeroed in on THAT age is its just high enough that we might question the outcome. I do reassert that I would bet on the 70-year-old, but I could lose money on it.
So are we assuming that your 70 year old is a top 1% athlete for his age group? That obviously changes the calculus significantly!
I'm picturing a robust 70 year old man, of which I know several. Many are still very strong, more than capable of deadlifting a decent number or helping you move a couch. But age brings limitations: most are not going to be tremendously good at keeping up physical activity for extended periods. Mile times slow by about 33% between peak and 70. An untrained 70 year old is going to do a mile in around 10-12 minutes, a girls high school track runner of mediocre ability will do it under 7, and I'm going to very much bet an olympian will be equivalent to a high schooler in miles run per week. And I don't even think we need to question who will recover more easily from the effort of the mile.
The thing is, assuming we've removed the Marquess of Quensbury rules, we've also removed round timers, rest period, and the 10-point-must system of judging. So our female olympic boxer is under no obligation to limit the fight on time, or to attack at a pace necessary to avoid losing points. The 10-point-must system is the only thing protecting the old man from defeat here, take it away and I think he's hosed.
The standard outline strategy for a lighter, weaker fighter who is trying to win by finesse and speed is to stay on the outside, hit and run striking your opponent quickly and getting away before they can hit back, counterpunching when they try to come in on you and then retreating before they can close the distance, feint and then dodge and retreat, wasting your opponent's energy. As he gets tired, go in for the kill, increase the attacks as he slows down and gets worse at catching you.
An untrained guy, especially one trying to "mog" you with power, is going to be throwing big wind up haymakers. He can't produce power while remaining compact, that's a technical skill that is very difficult to teach and takes practice. His arm punches will not be threatening, only his haymakers. You'll be able to see it from a mile away if you're an olympic level boxer. There's almost no chance of "catching" her in open field, it's only going to happen if she chooses to close. In a standard match, you can't just retreat constantly because you're handing the round to your opponent. Without judges' scoring or rounds or point deductions or DQs for not being aggressive enough, you can just choose to retreat and only do the absolute bare minimum to force him to keep expending energy pursuing you (ie to keep him from being able to rest with his hands at his sides for extended periods). This is where cardio goes in: no average 70 year old can keep up intense physical activity for half an hour with no break. Every olympic boxer can. After running in circles and swinging at air for thirty or forty minutes straight, if he doesn't die of a heart attack on his own, he'll be wheezing and his hands will be down and it will be easy to knock him off.
This should be fairly doable for a female fighter unless we're going with a really big weight class and height difference, Amy Broadhurst is 5'8" and I think she could fight a 5'10" 175lb geezer without too much trouble on reach.
I give it a 5% chance one of his haymakers connects early, but not much more than that. You'd lose a LOT of money.
Well let me ask the specific possibility, if the 70-year-old eschews striking and just attempts to grab the opponent, what are the chances they are able to lock down the fight and just throw the female to the ground and hit her there? No elegant takedown, just grabbing on and throwing her down.
I'd speculate that a 175 pound geezer could sit on Amy Broudhurst's chest and obviate most of her cardio advantage right there.
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