Basic Trope: A styleless brawler can defeat opponents trained in formal martial arts.
- Straight: Rocky, a street brawler, can defeat the karate-trained Miyagi.
- Exaggerated:
- "Southpaw" Rocky, a man who just punches with his left hand until his opponent falls over, can defeat Miyagi-sensei, a karate Old Master with decades of experience.
- Rocky, a Working-Class Hero and copy-cat of Hank Hill, faces off against Miyagi, a Goku rip-off in full "glowy god-mode", and pummels him right into a nine-month coma.
- Downplayed: Rocky defeats Miyagi, but it's a close battle and that ends with Rocky calling Miyagi a Worthy Opponent.
- Justified:
- The martial arts style Miyagi uses is more of a combat sport than a system for a life-or-death battle.
- Rocky is a Combat Pragmatist, while Miyagi is constrained by rules and honour.
- Rocky's stylelessness comes from Confusion Fu, which falls outside Miyagi's paradigms, so the latter Didn't See That Coming.
- Rocky is physically superior to Miyagi to the point where his moves have no effect while Rocky's punches send him flying.
- Rocky is used to fighting full-force and receiving full-force hits because he had to fight for self-defense, while Miyagi is only used to sparring with people that aren't seriously trying to hurt him. While Rocky isn't particularly stronger or faster, he has more real-life experience than Miyagi.
- Rocky is Nigh-Invulnerable. Unless Miyagi or any friends of his brought along a rocket launcher or know any kind of armor-piercing Ki Manipulation, they are screwed.
- Rocky is much more brutal. There's only so many times even a 500-Dan Ultraviolet Belt in Heavenly Dragon-Style Ju-Jitsu like Miyagi can take getting his nutsack used as a punching bag and grappling point and his head being banged against every hard surface in the room before he calls it quits.
- Miyagi "trains" at a McDojo that only sets its students up for Cool, but Inefficient choreographed exhibition matches and can't actually fight for real. Rocky next goes up against Himura, who labors at an authentic dojo that does realistic full-contact training, and things turn out rather differently.
- Inverted: Miyagi Curb Stomps a group of hardened street brawlers.
- Subverted:
- Miyagi has a Heroic Second Wind and defeats Rocky.
- Miyagi was easily defeated by Rocky, but his Old Master wipes the floor with Rocky.
- Rocky wins with his style less street fighting style... That turned out to be Krav Maga.
- Double Subverted:
- But it wasn't enough and Rocky gets back up and is the final victor.
- But after all is said and done, Miyagi's Old Master gives his student a lecture about the utility of knowing how to throw a proper jab and praises Rocky's skill.
- The first thing you learn in Krav Maga is how to the throw a proper jab — an attack that is more effective the more you master it, that you can reliably use at any time, and that can be highly devastating alone or in a combo.
- Parodied:
- By wildly flailing with his arms and legs, Rocky Curb Stomps a group of experienced black belts.
- Rocky 'learns' how to fight on the street by getting beaten up. The next day, he wins against a black belt.
- Rocky literally punch out Cthulhu and defeated him
- Zig Zagged:
- Sometimes Rocky wins and sometimes Miyagi does. Style and formal training or the lack thereof alone doesn't decide fights.
- It's not that style or the lack thereof is the determinant of victory, but which style. Still high on victory after demolishing a few karateka, Rocky don't hesitate to challenge the next "little yellow man" he encounters. Unfortunately, the man in question is Muay Thai-using Prawit, and Rocky promptly gets flattened in a barrage of elbow and knee strikes.
- It's not that style or the lack thereof is the determinant of victory, but skill, physical ability and experience. After seeing Rocky's success, Creed The Rival tries taking on a martial artist too, but his inferior preparation leads to defeat instead.
- Averted:
- Rocky knows Mortal Kombat.
- Rocky never engages any martial artist in combat, and thus their combat styles cannot be compared.
- Miyagi is a better fighter and manages to pummel Rocky.
- Enforced:
- The author has something against most martial-arts training.
- The author just really wants to write a story in which the Stock Shōnen Hero "du jour" gets his teeth caved in, and doesn't cares about making it happen in a "cool" fight.
- Lampshaded: "Spare yourself the embarrassment Miyagi-san, Rocky's one of those hot shot street brawlers that are almost impossible to beat. Just say "there's no honor in this fight" and move on."
- Invoked: As a sort of martial-arts Rock Beats Laser, Rocky drops straight into boxing when Miyagi attempts karate, in the hope that his heavy slugs will overwhelm its seemingly lackluster defences.
- Exploited: "I bet $100 on Rocky!"
- Defied:
- Miyagi makes a point to train in self-defence and immediate take-downs over the sport-based martial arts, and has similar technique and power to Rocky: it's just the latter discovered them the hard way.
- Miyagi learned how to fight in a karate dojo, but he also practices on the street. Rocky's advantage of Confusion Fu, surprise feints, and dirty shots doesn't give him an edge over someone who's seen it all before.
- Miyagi is a super-ultra-mega-hyper-superior fighter and Rocky wouldn't be able to hurt him with a nuke, let alone a pitiful little left hook. The term "Curb-Stomp Battle" is doesn't really fits — mostly because it implies that it was possible for Rocky to fight back in any way, shape or form, if only so he can say he didn't went down like a complete bitch.
- Discussed: "This fight is like seeing breakdancer in a dance-off against a Russian ballerina. And the breakdancer is winning."
- Conversed: "You know, if Rocky and Miyagi were scientists, Rocky would be the Mad Scientist who never set foot in academics while Miyagi would be the sane one."
- Implied: Rocky beats Miyagi. While it's never outright stated that Rocky is the better fighter or why he won, seeing the two fight, it's obvious that Rocky's less-flashy punches connected more often than Miyagi's fancy flips and kicks.
- Deconstructed:
- Rocky's ability to beat any trained martial artist leads to most schools and traditions frantically studying his "style" and methods to try and stop him and his ilk from making them irrelevant. Soon Rocky is faced with waves of formally trained martial artists who, thanks to their dedication and organization, have literally deconstructed his style and take him apart.
- For every Rocky that successfully masters the art of artless brawling through life-and-death street fighting, there are hundreds of punks who were beaten, maimed, or even killed without any idea of what they're doing. Meanwhile, Miyagi's dojo can train anyone to a high level of skill with minimal injuries.
- While Rocky's "style" may work with martial artists, it works far less well when he meets Mia, who carries a gun. Boom.
- Reconstructed:
- The act of merely ingraining combat responses without also incorporating creativity and intuition is what causes formally trained martial artists to be outperformed by Rocky. Rocky can beat any preformulated strategy or technique because he's too adaptable and unpredictable to outfox.
- And yet, Rocky survived everything the streets tossed at him fair and square, and leant what the streets wanted to teach him (and The Spartan Way is the only way the streets teach someone anything), and as a result Rocky can still beat the stuffing out of Miyagi's students, a hundred at a time, and shrug off the Miyagi Style's alleged Dangerous Forbidden Technique even if gets applied to him by those hundred students at the very same time. And because one of his now-departed friends is one of those punks... well... better for Miyagi's students not to needle him with that, don't you think?
- Rocky briefly distracts Mia, telling her that he swears he saw something going behind her, before socking her in the face with a clean left straight.
- Played For Laughs: Miyagi starts off doing a lot of gymnastics and spin-kicks, only for Rocky to stand perfectly still, wait for him to somersault over, and lay him out with one punch.
- Played For Drama:
- Miyagi is an Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy who performs a lot of flashy moves while Rocky is Retired Badass boxer who sets out to teach him not to be a bully. Miyagi's bouncy movements symbolize his impatience and brutality while Rocky's meat-and-potatoes style signifies his stern discipline, allowing him to win the day.
- Rocky is an uber-brutal bully that has fame of being an Implacable Man. Miyagi is a Kid Samurai Bully Hunter that tries to show him that he's not welcome. Unfortunately, Rocky can deliver a hell of a lot more damage that he can take and the result is Miyagi having to run for his life. When the inevitable rematch ensues, Miyagi is either going to have to use a tactic that will sully his honor or one of his friends is gonna have to do that for him...
- After everyone sees how useless Miyagi's style is, they abandon his dojo and start learning how to fight on the street. Lots of people are killed or maimed after picking fights with the wrong people.
- Rocky is a beefy brawler from out of town who's come to "debunk" traditional martial arts as nothing more than dancing and slapping. The other dojos have fallen and now the heavy burden of upholding the honor of the art has fallen squarely on Miyagi's shoulders.
- Played for Horror : Rocky is a Jason Voorhees-style super-strong Nigh-Invulnerable zombie. Miyagi is his Victim of the Week. There is no need for anything fancy when you can rip someone's head off and send it flying the length of a football field with a casual bitch slap, let alone fisticuffs. Miyagi finds this out the hard way.
- Plotted A Good Waste: Miyagi is demonstrated repeatedly to be a super-duper-ultra-hyper martial artist Stock Shōnen Hero looking for a Worthy Opponent, and the grand fight between him and Rocky the Working-Class Hero is foreshadowed far and wide. And then they meet right in the middle of Rocky's climactic Roaring Rampage of Revenge and Rocky punches him in the face so hard that he performs a Neck Snap and carries on without slowing down. In a more "stock" Shonen series it probably would have been a greater final fight and all, but "Rocky" is a homage to media of The '70s, and Sam Peckinpah-sama probably wouldn't have cared for big martial arts brawls...
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