History Main / WorfHadTheFlu

* One scene in Episode 52 of the ''{{Naruto}}'' Shippuden anime (which doesn't appear in the manga) suggests that Naruto and Sakura fared poorly against Sasuke in their first meeting with him after the timeskip because of their wounds from their previous battle (although they do realize that Sasuke has gotten far more powerful). Yamato is also holding back, not wanting to injure Sasuke too much, but just after he decides to get serious, Orochimaru leaves with Sasuke.

** Played with in Sasuke's battle with [[spoiler:Itachi. Not only is Itachi in terrible shape for some reason (basically, using the high level Sharingan techniques means CastFromHitPoints, with the negative that a night at the Inn does NOT fix you right up), he's damn near blind, holding back, ''and was actually trying to [[ILetYouWin let him win]]'' and yet he still utterly dominates Sasuke, who is in top form. Sasuke only survives because Itachi dies at the end]].
*** [[spoiler: You could see it that way. Or you could see it as a dying Itachi trying desperately to draw out Orochimaru--who's been junctioned to Sasuke like a tailed beast--with the intention of sealing him, thus protecting Sasuke from being taken over from within. Like with what is currently happening to Kabuto. It is suspicious how Itachi plans the fight and invites Sasuke to come alone, and doesn't launch another attack after Orochimaru is sealed.]]

** And Chapter 485 seems to be setting this up for the fight between [[spoiler:Naruto]] and [[spoiler:Sasuke]]. [[spoiler:Naruto]] has likely just been inflicted with a life-threatening poison, just before [[spoiler:he]] starts fighting [[spoiler:Sasuke]]. Granted, this is less a case of WorfHadTheFlu and more like leveling the playing field, as [[spoiler:Sasuke is completely exhausted]]. It still counts, however, as [[spoiler:Naruto]] would likely [[CurbstompBattle completely crush]] [[spoiler:Sasuke]] in both a fair fight and with only [[spoiler:Sasuke]] being exhausted with no handicap for [[spoiler:Naruto]], but in this situation, the outcome is thrown up in the air. Subverted because, regardless of who is handicapped and how, it's clear that the villains are going to escape to fight another day.

* Lordgenome of ''{{Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann}}'' [[spoiler: wasn't fighting anywhere close to his real potential during his fight with Simon, and he ''still'' would have won if he had not underestimated Simon's determination. A thousand years of boredom had dulled his edge considerably, as he proved during the final episode.]]
** Even more true considering [[spoiler: that according with his backstory revealed in the [[AllIsThereInTheManual Parallel Works 8]], Lord Genome turns against his own comrades in the name of the Anti-Spiral effectively taking down a LEGION OF SPIRAL WARRIORS all by himself, it's more or less stated that Genome, at the time, have the power to defeat the anti-spirals and end the war if he knew what to do but he was convinced and scarred by the truth of the Spiral Nemesis]].
* Similar to the ''SuperRobotWars'' example further down the page, ''[[MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha Mahou Senki Lyrical Nanoha Force]]'' gives this treatment to [[spoiler: Signum]] by way of depriving her of the equipment needed to fight against the Huckebein. [[spoiler: Signum]] goes into her battle with Cypha lacking the countermeasures necessary to neutralize her opponent's MageKiller abilities, and as a result only manages to hold her own until Cypha [[IAmNotLeftHanded gets serious]].

*** And when Superman fought Muhammad Ali, the aliens behind the LetsYouAndHimFight had made sure it was under red star radiation.

* In ''Knightfall'', Batman begins with an unspecified illness and the plotline is based around how he completely wears himself out by trying to capture all the inmates the DangerouslyGenreSavvy Bane has released from Arkham, positioning himself for the CurbStompBattle Bats will eventually receive.
* DoctorStrange lost to [[IncredibleHulk Hulk]] during World War Hulk because he was channeling the powers of a demon that was too powerful for him to properly control. [[FridgeLogic Why his normal, nearly-universal scale, levels of power wouldn't have been enough to stop Hulk is anyone's guess]].

* Some of the people who watched {{Avatar}} pointed out that even modern-day helicopters would be able to withstand the concussive force of a giant arrow, even point-blank as depicted. Some fans (and [[{{hatedom}} anti-fans]]) have embraced the idea the the smaller craft were ''not'' actually military-grade vehicles, but bargain-basement civilian vehicles with cheap weapon retrofits, as befitting of a corporation looking to maximize profits.

* The IronMan films do this. The first has [[spoiler:Tony's ARC reactor stolen by Obadiah Stane, forcing him to use his original, which doesn't have the output to support the Mk. III armor. The sequel shows that the Mk. VI has high powered lasers that are only good for one use, which Tony uses to slice up some drones before Whiplash shows up.]]

* In ''DaiSentaiGoggleFive'', only going as far as episode 8, Goggle Blue gets ADayInTheLimelight episode... where he got horribly owned solo by the MonsterOfTheWeek because they managed to wound his leg while protecting a woman. Skip ahead several episodes later and then, he's shown to be as good as he gets when he's on a solo fight. [[PapaBear Especially when kids are involved]].

* In ''SuperRobotWars OriginalGeneration Gaiden'', many people seems to come to term that Lamia Loveless was hit with this trope that she accidentally got hit by so many {{Distress Ball}}s. She only got caught by the Bartolls on the first place because she was not in her mecha (the same goes to Kusuha, Arado, Seolla and Latooni), and later on, Juergen managed to 'kill' her because for the same reason, added by the fact that she was just recently and forcefully been plugged out from her cockpit that binds her. She doesn't really have much impact after being rescued, but should you bring her to battle against the Bartolls in Chapter 34, she will express disgust on the Bartolls and show them that in the right conditions, they are no match for her. Unfortunately, however, she could never do it on Juergen (nor that she has any special lines against him when they face off in Free Battle).

* ''In MortalKombat Versus DCUniverse'' the effect that causes the two universes to merge also evens out the power levels of the characters. Or else Liu Kang fighting Superman hand-to-hand would just be silly.

** Lancer gets this too in the ''Fate'' route. His only accomplishments were fighting Archer to a standstill and attempting an instant-kill attack on Saber which failed... until you realise that this was ''before'' Archer was injured, Lancer was ordered to scout his enemies rather than defeat them, and [[spoiler:it took the most powerful Servant in the story to kill him]]. He is notably more BadAss in the ''Unlimited Blade Works'' route.

* In another Meeting between the above two it was a blast of Red Sun Radiation. Spider-Man Does well until the radiation fades just as Superman is about to use a full powered Punch(this is the 1970's Superman.) He stops the punch and the blast of the punch knocks Spider-man Through several buildings.

** ''The'' FateStayNight worf character, Berserker has this crippling him in both Fate and HF. In Fate, he's just finished fighting Archer and has been injured extremely badly, meaning he's not nearly up to his usual ability level for the next fight. In HF, he gets hit by a gamebreaker ability he can't actually fight against [[spoiler:and is turned into Dark Berserker]] before he can truly fight.

* It's ironic this trope is called Worf Had The Flu, considering how often it happens to the Starship ''Enterprise'' itself. The particular example is ''TheWrathOfKhan'' where in the rather puny looking ''Reliant'' sneak attacks the ''Enteprise'' and leaves the ship hobbling along for the rest of the movie and thus prolonging a confrontation that, under normal circumstances, would've resulted in the ''Enteprise'' mopping floors with the ''Reliant'' in under two full minutes.

** The producers didn't bother to come up with a similar tack when the far more advanced ''Enterprise''-D almost gets blown out of space by an even clunkier Bird-Of-Prey in ''StarTrekGenerations''.

* [[SpiderMan Spider-Man]] was suffering from an unspecified illness when the Green Goblin killed Gwen Stacy.
** Early in his superhero career, Spidey is actually beaten and unmasked by Doctor Octopus in front of his friends and family. However, Peter's powers were on the fritz at the time--he had lost his spider-sense and had his strength reduced to that of a normal teenager--and so no one believed that he was actually Spider-Man, but was just dressing up as Spidey in order to distract Doc Ock. Much later, when Peter revealed his secret identity to the world during the events of ''CivilWar'', Doc Ock went ballistic because he had known this information for years and never realized it was the truth.

[[AC:WebOriginal]]

[[AC:Sports]]
* Used as an excuse so many times, especially when it's a massive upset or a loss that is much more lopsided than anticipated. It may or may not involve home court/field/ice advantage and it frequently involves injury and/or fatigue.
* When your [[insert favorite team in [[insert sport here]] here]] loses a game.
* The New Zealand Rugby team was suffering from food poisoning at the final of the 1995 World Cup, to the point where they can be seen throwing up on the sidelines.
* A legend has Auburn University cadets greasing the rails before an opposing football team from Georgia Tech arrived, causing their train to slide past the station, and forcing the team to tire itself out walking back to the stadium.

** Ash's Pikachu gets a taste of this in the very first episode of the Isshu saga. [[spoiler:An encounter with Zekrom, one of Isshu's Legendaries,]] overloads Pikachu's electricity-storing capability and thus renders him unable to use Electric-type attacks. Ash finds this out the hard way when the 'Chu gets trounced in a battle with a trainer who had, mere minutes earlier, received his first Pokémon.

** Ash's Pikachu gets a taste of this in the very first episode of the Isshu saga. [[spoiler:An encounter with Zekrom, one of Isshu's Legendaries]] overloads Pikachu's electricity-storing capability and thus renders him unable to use Electric-type attacks. Ash finds this out the hard way when the 'Chu gets trounced in a battle with a trainer who had, mere minutes earlier, received his first Pokémon.

** Ash's Pikachu gets a taste of this in the very first episode of the Isshu saga. [[spoiler:An encounter with Zekrom, one of Isshu's Legendaries]] overloads Pikachu electricity-storing capability and thus renders him unable to use Electric-type attacks. Ash finds this out the hard way when the 'Chu gets trounced in a battle with a trainer who had, mere minutes earlier, received his first Pokémon.

**** Germany and Japan were in a perfect position to win, until they started invading random superpowers like the USSR and the USA. Even after Hitler's frankly insane attack on Russia they would still have been in good shape if Japan had gone for the Siberian oil fields instead of Pacific ones. The reason the Japanese attacked the US was because they didn't think they had the will to fight back. Which was... a bad move. There was no way Germany and Japan could defeat Great Britain, the USSR, and the USA all at once, at least not without some tech edge. If they had managed to develop the Ural Bomber or the A-Bomb it might have been different.

A type of fandom-based AuthorsSavingThrow, this is the specific rationalization that a character suffering from TheWorfEffect or a CurbStompBattle did so only because something (artificially) undermined their performance. The insinuation, of course, is that it probably wouldn't have happened this way under "normal" circumstances.

* Similar to the ''SuperRobotWars'' example further down the page, ''[[MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha Mahou Senki Lyrical Nanoha Force]]'' gives this treatment to [[spoiler: Signum]] by way of depriving her of her usual equipment. [[spoiler: Signum]] goes into her battle with Cypha lacking the countermeasures necessary to neutralize her opponent's MageKiller abilities, and as a result only manages to hold her own until Cypha [[IAmNotLeftHanded gets serious]].

* This Troper once came around a perosna that tried to justify the ease with wich The Emperor killed three master jedis in StarWars episode 3 saying that when Palpatine screamed at the begining of the battle he emmited a "Force Scream" that disrupted their mastery f the force and apparently made them unable to swing their sabers.

** Luffy's somewhat underwhelming (Haki aside) showings during the Kuja and Marineford battles are at least partially attributed to having to deal with the Kizaru/Kuma/Sentoumaru/Pacifista gangstomp the day before in the previous case and nearly dying against Magellan and being kept running on sheer willpower and hormone doping in the latter case. Of course, a lot of it has to do with the fact that the major players are all Shichibukai class, at least, but the Luffy at Marineford didn't seem to be operating at the same calibur as he did against the likes of Rob Lucci and Gecko Moria, and actually had to be doped ''again'' near the end of the battle.

* When your [[insert favorite team in [[insert sport here]] here]] a sport loses.

** '''''Fate'' route:''' At the start of the route Archer is [[GameBreakingInjury surprised and grievously wounded by Saber]], whose sword ignores his HealingFactor and who he didn't particularly want to fight. He is then sent against Berserker, who can NoSell everything but his most exhausting attacks.