History Main / WimpFight

* In ''VideoGame/{{Bully}}'', this is the fighting style of the Nerds. Goes without saying that they're the weakest enemies in the game.

* In a [[http://www.floatinghandsstudios.com/xmen2.html Floating Hands Studios]] ''ComicBook/XMen'' parody, one of these culminates... between Emma Frost and Dark Phoenix!

* ''Webcomic/{{Rebloom}}'': When the Cookies of Darkness try to get White Lily Cookie's dark magic back, Strawberry Crepe Cookie and Custard Cookie III's "fight" consists entirely of childish arguing.
* Most of the characters in ''WebVideo/StupidMarioBrothers'' such as UPS, Fed Ex, Luigi, and Kamek fight using this. Kamek even referred to it as Slap Combat.

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* In ''Webcomic/ScandinaviaAndTheWorld'' this is [[http://satwcomic.com/epic-battle what happens]] when America and Sweden try to encourage Canada and Denmark to have a fight.

* In ''Webcomic/Uprooted2022'', Act 4's "Plan B: Violence" is just Zip engaging in a slap fight with a Peashooter.

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* ''Literature/BridgetJones'' gives us an absurd slappy kickfight between two middle-class British twats in the middle of uptown London. They gloriously fail to do anything other than humiliate themselves.

'''GayBestFriend:''' ''FIGHT!''

See also CombatBreakdown, when an initially-skillful fight devolves into this after going on for too long. A {{Catfight}} can be this, but isn't if the women involved are {{Action Girl}}s. A DesignatedGirlFight, however, is never this trope, as by definition, at least one combatant is an ActionGirl.

** Subverted in episode 22 of ''Anime/DigimonAdventure''. Patamon and [=PicoDevimon=] are both Child-level Digimon and neither of them are particularly powerful, but the fight itself is impressively choreographed and the environment plays a big role in the fight.

* Early on in ''Manga/FairyTail'', Lucy's first real fight against Sherry is basically this. Both have magic that involves using summoned creatures (and Sherry can turn Lucy's against her) but once both of them are out of magic it basically becomes the two indirect mages pathetically pummeling at each other, until Lucy finally gets a good hit in, being a slightly better fighter, though not much. 400 chapters later Lucy fights a similar gimmicky villain, but once the tricks are out and it turns into a fist fight again, she clobbers her opponent in one punch, showing how she grew as a fighter.

* Early in ''Manga/MissKobayashisDragonMaid'', Kanna tries to kill Kobayashi so Tohru can return to their original world...except that since she's a young dragon (currently in the form of a elementary school-age human) and low on mana, her "murder attempt" consists of ineffectively batting Kobayashi with her fists, stopping for breath, and then starting again.

* Porco's and Curtis' post-air-duel boxing match in ''Anime/PorcoRosso'' quickly devolves into this: by the end of six rounds both men are so tired they don't even try to block each other's punches. It's essentially the "dramatic" version of the trope described above... except still PlayedForLaughs.

* ''[[Fanfic/TheManyDatesOfDannyFenton After Many Dates: Danny and Kim]]'': Ron and Tucker's fight over the latter having badmouthed Bueno Nacho consists on them "slapping each other weakly like two children on the playground".

* Most of the characters in ''WebVideo/StupidMarioBrothers'' such as UPS, Fed Ex, Luigi and Kamek fight using this. Kamek even referred to it as Slap Combat.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Brave}}'': Young Macintosh and Wee Dingwall fight one-another in such a way during the throne room brawl, and it's especially comical given how much of a jock with a penchant for immaturity the former prince is.

* The grand battle at the climax of the ''WesternAnimation/{{The Lion King|1994}}'' can be interpreted as a [[FridgeLogic glorified sissy fight]]. Scar has been established as very lacking in brawn and fighting skills, which is why he schemes and lets others do his dirty work; he also appears to be middle-aged or older for lions, out of his prime. Simba is malnourished from surviving only on bugs all his life, and has never been in a fight in his carefree "Hakuna Matata" life except for very briefly with Nala, which he lost when she pinned him. He struggles and almost loses against Scar, only "winning" essentially by getting lucky and kicking him off of Pride Rock instead of actually winning by skill. The lionesses and the hyenas are also not at their best, being malnourished from lack of prey. The hyenas are shown to be generally incompetent and very stupid, and the main hyena trio and some others lose to Pumbaa, one of the {{Plucky Comic Relief}}s, and Rafiki, an ''elderly'' baboon, in a really humiliating way. So, most of the characters in this fight are not in their best condition. Who knows what could have happened if they were.

* ''Literature/BridgetJones'' Gives us an absurd slappy kickfight between two middle class British twats in the middle of uptown London. They gloriously fail to do anything other than humiliate themselves.

* There's a dead-serious example in ''Film/{{Chinatown}}'', where Hollis Mulwray is held under water in a backyard fish pond and drowned by [[spoiler:Noah Cross]]. Both men are pretty physically weak, especially [[spoiler:Cross]] (who is, after all, [[spoiler:a feeble old man]]), but in the end it's [[spoiler:Cross]] who triumphs, as he is the aggressor and has the superior position. Even so, Jake Gittes's detective work establishes that the fight was pretty inconclusive for a while: both men's eyeglasses fell off in the struggle.
* A RunningGag in ''Film/TheCocoanuts'' is for [[Creator/MarxBrothers Chico and Harpo]] to get into an argument and suddenly fight each other. This consists of blatantly-telegraphed windmill punches and half-hearted [[GroinAttack kicks to the nethers,]] all with the effectiveness of wet tissue paper.

* In the second act climax of ''Film/KidsInTheHallBrainCandy'', the wimpy Dr. Cooper and the effete Don Roritor engage in an childish brawl. First, Cooper slaps Roritor's accusatory finger out of his face about twenty times in a row. Finally the pair awkwardly grapple and push each other for a few moments. When they finally break away, they're humorously flustered and gasping for breath, as if they'd been through a war. In a later scene, Roritor wears an outlandish full-arm splint for his injured finger.

* The final version of the [[SwordFight duel]] between the Samurai and the bandit in ''Film/{{Rashomon}}''. As portrayed by the Woodcutter, they are both cowardly and ineffective, and only engage in the fight at all after being shamed by the Samurai's wife. At one point they are reduced to crawling around on the ground (Not wrestling, ''crawling'') and literally throwing dirt at one another. As with the other three tellings of the story the implication is that this is not a wholly accurate representation, as each person recounting their tale wanted to portray themselves in the best possible light.

* In ''Film/TheWildHunt'', the [=LARPers=] don't actually know how to sword fight. Their in-game duels are just childish flailing, often followed by arguing. This is all subverted in the end, when things [[LetsGetDangerous get dangerous]].

* The catacomb fight between George and Joplin of ''Lierature/LockwoodAndCo'' (two unathletic academics, one of whom has [[spoiler:broken his glasses]]) isn't actually shown on-page, but another character who saw it describes it as like "watching two schoolgirls squabble over a scented pencil".
* Near the end of ''Literature/{{Lolita}}'', a pair of middle-age perverts engage in a deadly version of this.

* In the ''Literature/TheInfiniteAndTheDivine'', the first physical clash between Orikan the Diviner and Trazyn the Infinite is noted to barely avoid being this only by virtue of both having had their mind transferred to [[SkeleBot9000 extremely strong and durable bodies millenia ago]] and that the sight of an old spindly nerd fighting a hunchback librarian would have been comical otherwise.

* In ''Series/FreshMeat'', Howard gets into an argument with a big, tough-looking bloke over [[SeriousBusiness a library geology textbook]]. He agrees to meet outside the library for to fight it out, but manages to get it put off a week... and spends the week desperately trying to learn how to fight, beginning with finding out whether you keep your thumb in or out when making a fist. The fight finally comes along... and it's over in five seconds when the other bloke dislocates his thumb, and Howard takes him to hospital. Turns out he didn't know how to make a fist either.

** Joffrey's so called fight with Arya. As described by Robert: "You let a little girl disarm you?"

* In ''Series/NewTricks'', Gerry and Brian get into one of these fights after an argument about whether one gets paid more than the other spirals a bit out of control. Sandra and Jack, who walk in on them partway through, are greatly amused, particularly when they sheepishly try to pass it off as tripping over a chair once they realize they've been caught out.

-->'''Austin:''' ''[checks strength contest results]'' a 4 and a 1... it's the saddest slap fight in the history of mankind. They land zero blows and deal ''negative damage.''

* Same can be said for the so called "brawls" in basketball and baseball; generally speaking in baseball, a player will charge someone, get tackled before or after he puts the player he was targeting in a bearhug, a dogpile happens, a whole bunch of people mill around while the more agitated players make a show of needing to be held back but making no effort to actually break lose, before both teams go back to their dugouts with zero punches thrown, while in basketball, the players will just grab at each other before teammates and refs pull them apart, if a punch is thrown, it'll be a sucker punch that sees the puncher then run the length of the court to avoid actually having to fight.
* Pretty much any "fight" in soccer matches is embarrassing. Generally players square up to each other and are dragged apart by team mates/officials before anything major can happen. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFLeTm46CqQ Sometimes even when they're on the same team.]]

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragonsFifthEdition'': Unlike previous editions, in Fifth Edition it's possible to deal zero damage with a successful attack if your strength or dexterity score is low enough (perviously, any successful attack would deal a minimum of one point of damage regardless of the damage roll). Unarmed strike damage in 5E is 1+your strength modifier unless you have a feat, class, or racial ability that increases it. That means that a pair of characters with strength scores of 9 (which is a modifier of -1) or lower can get into a fist fight and be completely unable to injure each other.

* ''VideoGame/TotallyAccurateBattleSimulator'' (and its equally goofy BattleRoyaleGame spinoff ''Totally Accurate Battlegrounds'') feature characters who look like googly-eyed ''WesternAnimation/{{Gumby}}'' knockoffs. Lacking thing such as fingers, manual dexterity, or basic competence, the wobbly modeling-clay humanoids will often resort to very clumsy combat options if they run out of weapons or are otherwise unarmed. It's not uncommon for battles to come down to two or more procedurally-generated idiots attempting to awkwardly slap the other one senseless. This goes double for ''Battlegrounds'', where weapon diversity is high and makes finding compatible ammunition difficult. This deliberately force players to deal with melee combat, often reduced to undignified noodle-armed flailing if they can't find a proper melee weapon in time.

** In a Pokemon parody arc, the first rival battle where both trainers have only their starting pokemon, and know nothing stronger than tackle is portrayed this way. "Gracemander" and "Shellgrace" (representing Charmander and Squirtle respectively) are shown [[http://www.egscomics.com/egsnp/gam-05 childishly flailing at each other.]]

* The 2009 Halloween story line on ''Website/GaiaOnline'' featured a huge war between two gods. By the end, they had both lost all divinity and were nothing more than mortals, and all their followers had abandoned them, leaving the two pathetically struggling to kill each other in the middle of an empty battlefield.

* ''WebVideo/EpicNPCMan'': The short [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJT23BvjWMM "Temporary Power"]] leads to a sissy slap-fight between Greg the NPC and the Adventurer when the later refuses to let go of the temporary secret weapon. Mocked by the closed captioning, which reads "**masculine fighting sounds**" when this happens.

* In ''Wither Skeleton Encounter'' by Creator/SlamacowCreations, Slamacow and the skeleton resort to the classing arm flailing slap fight after both of them end up dropping their swords into lava.

* In ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe'' and ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe2'', arguments between Gru's Minions tend to degenerate into slap-fights, or childish brawls at worst.