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Been watching avengers and thinking about black widow, and I hear a lot about how women can't beat men in a fight, how most women are weaker than most men, etc. Seems culture-war adjacent because of the whole trans in sports and such.
Setting aside superpowers, I don't dispute the truth of this fact, and I don't dispute the truth that elite men will be much stronger than elite women, and well-above-average men will be somewhat stronger than elite women, but it seems people take this too far and think even a trained woman can't beat an untrained man, and I don't see why THAT is true.
I've seen a study that said women of the same size as men, on average, will have 50% the upper body strength, 50% grip, 65% leg strength.
Surely these are just average joes and average janes? Do you mean to tell me if the woman trains for a couple years, and is healthy / responsive to training, she wouldn't be stronger than the majority of men that don't train, or are just fooling around in the gym / not really progressively overloading? (to what degree am I overestimating performance of average jane after several years of training? I'm guessing there was a large genetic component to why powerlifting women are so strong? What is the average ceiling for strength for a woman that trains powerlifting AS A HOBBY for a few years?)
Don't most women just avoid actual strength training / bulking out of temperament/desire for their body to look a certain way and not out of inability to do it and see results that would put them above-average for men?
I'm just not that familiar with female athletes, with exception of powerlifting and streetlifting spaces where there were strong women who could do shit like bench 200, squat 400-500, etc while being pretty lean. In retrospect those were probably very elite women, but are you seriously saying average joe is stronger than them?
And, if those women just decided to start learning some MMA for a few years. I could see a black widow-esque level of performance against men who are buff but not trained in MMA, or trained in MMA but not buff? Add in some genetic talent, special training, equipment etc. and it isn't so far fetched to have someone like black widow. Maybe she'd need to be a bit bulkier to be realistic but still.
Are dudes supposed to just walk into a gym, being sedentary, and start benching 200? Is that a normal thing for men? (genuinely asking, I'm a dude but have a very small frame. maybe some big frame people out there just naturally have strength? But again, those wouldn't be average joes.)
How much of this is a question of female temperament? Are they simply not encouraged to weightlift , bulk, or train for combat as frequently? And most MMA girls are mainly training skill and don't have a powerlifting base to build off from? If a 5'10 girl bulked to 180 or so, and does powerlifting as a hobby, how much weaker is she really than an average 5'10 joe who isn't trained? 5'10 criminal joe that comes up to mug her or something, are you really telling me 5'10 powerlifting mma chick doesn't clock him?
Note I am making sure to equate the sizes of the woman and man in question. I'm not making 5'4 hero chick go against 5'10 criminal with ease, but if the sizes are equal I just don't see how the hero chick loses. Although if you make 5'10 criminal (who likely has some training, but doesn't powerlift) into 5'10 average joe, then even against 5'4 powerlifting mma chick...just how much of a disadvantage is the size if strength is equal? It's gonna be a close fight at least, no?
There is/was a German TV host that can serve as our "slightly above average man": Stefan Raab. In the early 2000s, he had several successful TV shows, one of them was pretty simple: a challenger needs to beat him in a tournament of random tasks. Quizzes, shooting pool, racing cars, rock climbing, race of cutting bread loafs, classic tug of war, ball games. The details are not terribly important, but Raab was comically difficult to beat. He destroyed a long list of (perfunctorily) competent looking opponents.
He's also relatively tall and heavy. And he had the bright idea to challenge Regina Halmich, female world champing in flyweight boxing for 12 consecutive years, to a boxing match. He reportedly trained for 4 weeks, and she destroyed him in 6 rounds, breaking his nose in the process. And it was not close. He had absolutely no chance, only a freak knockout could have saved him - but he can't really touch her at all, making that difficult.
So that's one data point. I'd put Raab at around +1 SD of the adult male, both in general fitness and in boxing. That is not enough for the female +4 SD, at least not in boxing. I'm sure wrestling and MMA would have looked different... but maybe not, not sure if 4 weeks of training is enough not to end up falling on top of the female world champion - just to get choked/arm barred immediately anyway. Also, Halmich (above) is a flyweight. A heavier/stronger woman, one who additionally is trained (and allowed) to kick, might shift the difficulty for the average man again.
Still, looks nothing like Black Widow, obviously.
I think that’s the crux of the issue. If Marvel had been casting women who look like this instead of Scarlett Johansson, this thread probably wouldn’t have been made. When they think of a female athlete, most people in this thread are imagining a 5’3 petite woman with maybe a little bit of muscle, not Sarah Scheurich.
Yes. Same goes for the fighting style itself. Black Widow goes in close, often for a quick take down.
The tactic that worked for Halmich was staying out of range with far better leg work, provoking strikes at his range limit to tire him out, dodging/blocking them easily and then going for low risk ripostes as he obviously ran out of gas after a few rounds. Doesn't make for good cinema.
Even in that fight Halmich got caught in a grapple.
Most realistic version of the Hollywood fight is (a taller) Black Widow kicks him in the leg until he can't fight back. Never Back Down did it and it was perfectly cinematic (and accurate, it really would take only a few), it just isn't as cool as acrobatic jiu-jitsu.
Boxers do that all the time, right? No real penalty for doing so, so you don't have to avoid it. Getting on his inside and using her shorter levers and better technique might even have been advantageous. But yes, catastrophic for her in an MMA fight.
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