I have no doubt that a 200 lb newbie against a 130 lb well trained Martial Artist will probably lose; my point is that a 200 lb well trained martial artist against a 130 lb well trained Martial Artist has an undeniable edge, which is what I tried to get at with the Ken Shamrock and Royce Gracie example, or any UFC or vale tudo fighter out there - technique comes first, but to say strength is ignored or irrelevant seems to me a mistake.
On pepper spray - blinking doesn't matter at all. Pepper spray is greatly misunderstood because people get the impression that all it does it hit the guy in the eyes, and the guy can't see well or at all. It does much more than that.
Pepper spray (a good one anyway) fogs around the person's entire head, and while the eyes do the main thing, pepper spray burns the skin, burns the nasal pasages, and will even burn inside the ear drums. The burning is so intense that even if the person is biologically programmed to not feel pain, the body itself will go into protection mode, and your brain will think your lungs are suffocating (the spray also gets in the lungs, too). It's like drowning without the water. Pepper spray not only hurts, it shuts the guy down. Plus it's basically 100% effective, and can work against animal attacks (including friggen' Grizzly bears. I may be good at triangle chokes, but when Smokey the Bear starts chasing me, no wristlock in the world is gonna save me).
The best part is that as soon as the eyes burn, 99% of people will instinctively try to rub it out of their eyes, which just rubs it in more. And possibly even better than that is the person WILL recuperate without any permanent damage. It's legal in states where stun guns are not, and hundreds of times more effective.
I know I've been pushing pepper spray a lot, but I've met two people who are alive today because of it, one of which was using a brand that wasn't even that great.
Not to say that it's infallible; in a closed room you stand a good chance of getting yourself and innocent bystanders sprayed. But then again, if you didn't have it in such a situation, a couple of you could probably end up dead.
If you want a good idea of how strong pepperspray is, there's a show on MTV called, "Jack*ss" (you can figure out what the asterisk is) and you can probably find the episode online. In it, a young rogue named Johnny Knoxville does a skit called "Self Defense", where he tests pepper spray, a stun gun, and a tazer on himself. He laughs at the stun gun (he goes down, but he found the whole thing hilarious), he laughed a little at the tazer (until his friend kept shocking him while he tried to remove it), but when he got hit with the pepper spray, he went straight down, without a smile, and just kept cursing. The show shows clips of him almost recovering then falling down again.
Johnny: "It's like my eyes have diarrhea."
The show concluded with Knoxville saying: "The pepper spray was the worst by far."
As far as my thoughts on grappling, check out my grappling, takedown, striking rant up above. The jujitsu you describe sounds pretty good; but like I said, if a striker and a grappler face off, it's going to come down to who's better at takedowns. Most grappling arts focus on grappling and takedowns, but if the boxer knows takedowns just as well, the match is far more evenly matched than people think it is. For a good example of this, check out what I think was a Pride fight or something between Royce Gracie and a Japanese professional wrestler (not a grappler, though). Because the Japanese guy was trained really well at takedowns, he defended Royce's takedowns perfectly, and the fight lasted I believe over an hour (and the Japanese guy won!).
One image I will never get out of my head is a match between Dan Severn and this incredible kickboxer (who, unfortunately, knew absolute squate about takedowns). The guy gives Severn a kick, but the Severn is so tough he shrugs it off, grabs the guy, and just body slammed him head first three times into the matt. It was at this point I realized, yes, strength can actually matter.
So let me redo my fight theory a bit:
Skill + Real Strength = Fight Variable
It would work like this: Bill doesn't do the wristlock quite right, but he's so strong that he can power it to the point that it's just as good as someone weaker who has the technique better. Their fight variable for that section would be the same.
The three categories are:
Takedowns
Grappling
Striking
Each category gets filled in with the fighter's fight variable. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would give myself the following:
Takedowns = 2
Grappling = 8
Striking = 7
Let's give Royce Gracie the following:
Takedowns = 9
Grappling = 10
Striking = 3 (he has that little kicky thing)
Since Royce is better than me in 2 categories, he wins. Let's analyze my little brother.
Takedowns = 5
Grappling = 6
Striking = 5
Since I have two categories better than him, I get the remote control and the big couch, while he tends to his bruises and tattles to my mom. My mom's variables goes as follows:
Takedowns = ?
Grappling = ?
Striking = ?
Authority = 10
Since the authority value trumps all other values, I get grounded.
Cops have an authority of about 9, also trumping all other variables.
And so goes my finalized fight theory. Though I should add my final variable:
Pepper spray = yes
trumps everything. Except mom's authority, which extends to the "possibility of telling dad" ratio.
-Ramon http://razor.ramon.com
[This message has been edited by razordu30 (edited September 12, 2002).]
