DEATH BATTLE

No yeah, Glass Joe's an insane Determinator through and through. If you assume the bonus missions for the Exhibition mode are things that happened, he even gets a Throw the Dog a Bone moment and manages to beat Little Mac through a timeout.

...that said, now that we've gone full circle. Yeah he probably loses to Dan. ^^;; Even if he has a technically more impressive fluke win, Glass Joe still has way too many weak points where he instantly keels. Dan just has the one if he gets too caught up in his Unsportsmanlike Gloating.
(Fun fact, though: according to Smash Ultimate Dan is weaker than Joe, at least in Spirit form. Doesn't mean much for a versus debate though.)

Okay, but you still understand that there is an absolutely gigantic gulf between things like 'Von Kaiser has a little freak-out' (I wouldn't call it a full-on mental breakdown since it's more like two seconds of lightly tapping himself in the head to hype himself up for his big attack,) and Bald Bull having anger issues... and actively attempting to murder someone? Even when Mr Sandman goes crazy and attacks Little Mac until he's completely exhausted, he's doing so entirely within the rules of the sport. None of these things even remotely suggest that these people are okay with attempted murder.

and Oh yes, I am definitely 100% Team Dan, I just also like the idea of hyping up Glass Joe. Maybe after Dan beats Glass Joe, we bring back Joe in Season 15 and give him a win against an even weaker opponent, and so on and so forth.

Technically Glass Joe has a really ridiculous feat because there's a Captain N episode where he cameos, and he's shadow-boxing, and he... loses the fight to his own shadow, somehow, getting KO'd instantly. But the fact that his shadow was able to harm him means that both Glass Joe is capable of interacting with non-corporeal beings that occupy no physical space, but also, it was his shadow - clearly an extension of him - that knocked him out. Glass Joe's shadow can physically strike other people! Beat that, Great Tiger.

I’m not saying they’re trying to actively murder someone, but you’re not convincing me that these people are holding back in anyway. Especially since the series isn’t adverse to a non lethal one hit ko punch.

To be clear on my part, I don’t think this is a case of “every boxer scales to every other boxer”. I can imagine plenty of them holding back against certain other fighters (Mr. Sandman is probably holding back against any fight he’d happen to have against Glass Joe), but there definitely are plenty where they’re going with full force (even if not necessarily lethal force), and I do think Mac himself likely scales roughly to them. Of course, it also rather hard to tell what would count as “attacking with lethal force” in the Punch-Out!! universe since they do things that WOULD be lethal in real life (again, horseshoes could fucking kill a man when struck with the force and speed of a boxer’s punch) but evidently aren’t here since Mac does take it.

Though, again, something like the “Mr. Sandman breaks a building feat” only happens after Mac beats him once and then comes back to fight him again, and since clearly every character got stronger in between their first and last fights, I don’t think anyone besides Mac scales to that on the basis that he’s not shown fighting anyone again until that point. Joe took a punch from Mr. Sandman, but it probably wasn’t the building-level punch. As for Mac, however? I can fully believe it, he’s probably going with all he’s got since he’s angry, humiliated, and probably knows Mac can take it by this point.

I feel like it's pretty easy to prove that at least some of them hold back somewhat, because if Don Flamenco used his send-a-bull-flying punch and Mr Sandman punched as hard as he did when he tore down a building then it would be incredibly likely that the likes of Glass Joe, Von Kaiser and Disco Kid would be dead right now. I think the general argument actually works better regarding Street Fighter; like, if two heroic characters in a friendly environment are having a fight and if one of them is strong enough to punch their opponent's head off, then... they're very clearly not going to actually try to do that. Otherwise they would very quickly get arrested; not just for murder, but for plagiarising the events of Invincible by crying over their opponent's body "I thought you were stronger!"

One thing which I don't think would feasibly be taken into consideration if they ever did an episode with Little Mac, but is kind of funny to think about, is that technically, you could make an argument that he doesn't scale to any of these attacks, because if you take him at his best, i.e. a perfect run, then he doesn't actually get hit by anything, he just dodges. Which would be tremendous for his speed, but not so good for his durability.

I always thought the joke about Glass Joe beating Nick was that Joe accidentally hit the secret One Hit Knock Down spot both Rick and Nick Bruiser have. Granted, he still would've had to do it three times.

Or maybe it wasn't even Glass Joe who threw the punch? Maybe it was... his shadow?!?

I found the clip by the way. 6 minutes and 13 seconds in.

Technically the guy who gets KO'd by his own shadow is never identified by name, but he does look similar enough to Glass Joe's arcade version, and it's listed on the Punch-Out wiki under 'Other Appearances'.

Edited by Elmo3000 on May 3rd 2024 at 3:50:49 PM

Both Dan and Joe are The Determinator incarnate, they have a humiliating track record, but they believe in their own hype to the point it drives despite. Both are in a field filled with fighters at the absolute peak of their strength, have lost against them, but they keep going.

Difference is, Joe has shown complete wear and tear from years of head damage from his profession, to say nothing about his gut. Dan has been slammed into a car, dropped from a high place, undeniably taking hits from stronger foes, hell he was slashed in the face and stabbed by Vega, and he was fine soon after.

Here are two potential fights I don't think have been brought up as much, but are very fitting.

Arthur (Ghosts n Goblins) vs. Shovel Knight or Arthur vs. Sir Daniel Fortesque.

These matches are essentially three Knights who are more or less dealing with Magic and monsters, are likely in the same ball park in feats, weaponry and power.

Edited by Mrbda241 on May 3rd 2024 at 8:10:04 AM

Hmm, that could be an advantage for Joe, that between the two of them, Joe definitely doesn't believe his own hype as much as Dan does. His mid-round quotes indicate that he's really just looking for one more win so that he can retire. But despite Dan being a very proud and bombastic person, then there are hints that he does recognize deep down that he's... not all that. And he actually can be extremely intelligent; he is incredibly knowledgeable about martial arts - enough so that he can identify that E. Honda's fighting style is extremely counterintuitive to the style that Honda is trying to promote - he just has trouble turning that information into practical success. Also, you can tell just from looking at him that for all of his faults, Dan is legitimately in pretty great shape. Those muscles didn't come out of nowhere.

Another thing that they both have in common is that they've both trained others. Dan has his own (I believe currently inactive) fighting dojo, and Glass Joe took on a student in Gabby Jay, who much like Joe, has a 1-99 fighting record. No prizes at all for guessing who Gabby Jay's one singular win was against.

EDIT: Ooh, Arthur from Ghosts'n'Goblins would be really interesting to see. I know that this isn't a thing that you can really take into account from a VS Debate standpoint, but the extreme difficulty of the game feels like a huge point in his favour, considering that the canon-run for Arthur would be clearing it first time without a single death. It's kind of like, I always wondered how you would treat The Kid from I Wanna Be The Guy, given that he canonically clears the whole game in one try without dying. Would you assume he has an abnormally high amount of luck, or... more or less prerecognition powers?

Edited by Elmo3000 on May 3rd 2024 at 4:20:42 PM

So here is a fight I'm curious about but Edelgard vs. Luccoa.

Arthur vs. Daniel is cool, definently my preferred him. Sad Arthur L, though.

Arthur vs. Sir Daniel Fortesque then.

(Were not using any crossover stuff, so Arthur doesn't get MVC stuff and Daniel doesn't get PSABR)

I do say, this is actually a close match up. Many of their arsenals really do counter each other in many ways. Arthur's fire magic attacks are powerful, but Daniel's Dragon Potion makes him immune to fire (At least hinted at), Daniel can turn Arthur into a Roasted Chicken, but Arthur can turn him into stone with Medusa. Arthur can summon a clone of himself to fight alongside him with other weaponry, Dan can summon the spirits of past warriors to fight alongside him.

Both can conjure up Electricity or Fire as a method of attack, Arthur from upgraded weaponry (depending on his suit of armor, bronze to gold) and Daniel simply from his upgraded weaponry (which stays as is). Both have very limited, but vital, revival potions that would come in handy in this sort of fight. Both have singlehandedly stopped great evil forces from succeeding. I believe thanks to Ghouls and Ghost Resurrection, he keeps his weapons on him, so they both have their weapons on hand.

There's no denying that Arthur has defeated greater foes than Daniel, hell he's defeated a Dimensional altering Hades, but here's the kicker, Arthur is a very, very fragile Knight. One hit from enemies and he loses whatever protection he has, if he has a shield, gone, whatever armor he has, gone next, down to his boxers, at his most vulnerable. Dan once stood inside and exploding building, to the brunt of the explosion while inside said building that spanned a small neighborhood, and was fine, nothing lost, and that was his original armor no less, his upgraded armor when he fused with his different timeline self, he gained an even more powerful armor.

And while this isn't much of a detriment, Many of Arthur's victories over the likes of Hades, usually comes down to him simply having the right Holy Weapon, or else he wasn't even allowed to attempt to try fighting them because they could only die from such weaponry.

Edited by Mrbda241 on May 4th 2024 at 11:24:06 AM

Helldivers vs Xcom.

Who comes out on top and with how many casualties?

X-Com wins by default because the Helldivers weren't allowed to show up because Death Battle forgot to link the fight location to their PSN account.

Shower idea:

I recognize Agent Venom and the Predator, but what's the thing in the middle?

The Arbiter from Halo.

Agent Venom totally takes it if we take comic scaling at face value. Even if we don't and restrict him to his more "rationale" feats, I think he still barely takes it.

Edited by Spirit on May 4th 2024 at 2:36:03 PM

Huh. Didn't recognize him. I'm guessing he's had some major changes in between when I played Halo 2 as a kid and whenever his most recent appearance was.

I think a while back we talked about how Agent Venom (Flash Thompson) vs Katsuki Bakugou was oddly thematic about bullies turned Heroes who regretted their actions against the MC (Peter Parker and Izuku Midoriya), and gained notable character development. Both also have a role model with a Red and Blue Hero (Spider-Man and All Might). Also, both died in a major battle and got revived.

Yeeeep, still the GOAT even though Bakugo deserves no matchups.

"But Bakugo gets better and grows out of his early douchery-"

NO MATCHUPS.

If I may:

• Comic books are weird and writers of them rarely have any sense of scale, nor should they because comic books should be fun and interesting not painstakingly scientifically accurate. Scaling for them while agitating still digests better to me because you usually have on-screen feats for them... and when you don't it's contentious but whatever for sake of argument... Agent Venom fights people in Spider-Man's weight class, and some above, and if Venommon Flash is the same as Venomon Brock, and I have no reason to assume he isn't, he likely scales to that nonsensical SPACE KAMEN RIDER BUSINESS Venom's been involved in for the past decade. Point is you might as well cut Agent Venom out of this completely - he doesn't jive thematically with the other two besides being an alien.
• Arbiter vs Predator works since they're both aliens, and if you use specifically the Predator Concrete Jungle version (Scar?) they're both disgraced alien warriors from cultures that have gone through a civil war, and experiences fighting a parasitic alien species. I like this one, a lot.
• I'm not sure who wins that. Arbiter probably has more of an arsenal to sort through, but he doesn't like scale to the Chief or anything - depending on how you want to interpret Elites vs Spartans. In the games the Chief can tear through Elites like brunch, but in the Halo Legends series the Elites appear to be a match for Spartans. Ignore the TV series where Chief struggled because that series is literally non-canon and the Chief sucks in that series.
  • Does Arbiter get feats from Killer instinct /s
  • would the plasma cutter break through the Arbiter's energy shields?
  • would the Covenant plasma sword be as effective as the lightsaber?
  • Yautja can beat grizzly bears apart, tear through steel, and rip human spines clean out of a person's body... Sanghelli could likely do this too, but they've never had the chance to do so in Halo.

I'd say this is fairer to the Predator than Boba Fett.

Edited by FOFD on May 5th 2024 at 10:03:39 AM

Sailor Mercury vs Tecna

The first Brandon Yates track I've dug in a while.

My preferred for Agent Venom is James Heller, personally. Also a big fan of him vs. Senator Armstrong.

Flash Venom totally scales to Eddie Venom. Probably scales higher considering he uses guns while Eddie doesn't, so hey more options. At best the chemicals Flash used at the start of his stint to pacify Venom might limit him somewhat, but he stopped those about halfway through and they worked together so well that the symbiote can't decide if it likes Eddie or Flash more.

Of course this changes if we count King in Black Eddie Brock, but the comics has been pretty insistent on separating the 2 right now.

King in Black Eddie Brock vs normal Eddie Brock when?

Himiko Toga vs. Mystique

Rexplode vs. Gambit

It's hard to find a proper match up for someone like Cyclops, and it can't be Kano of course. From one look, it appears people have put him up against Aizawa, which is a stomp for Cyclops because Aizawa's quirk only works on another quirk, not mutant genes. Even if it does, Cyclops still has the experience factor on his side, plus Aizawa can only use it for a moment too.