NOTICE: This is a Recap page, so all spoilers will be left unmarked, per wiki policy. Read ahead only with caution! You Have Been Warned.
Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were raised by a warrior rat in the sewers of New York City to be the world's most fearsome fighting team. Their greatest asset in battle is their family-bonded teamwork, but on their own, which turtle is deadliest?
Leonardo: Leonardo is the leader of the team. He is smart and strategic with a strong sense of honor. His weapons are two ninjaken swords, designed with a 2 foot long blade for quick offensive moves. It is the only weapon of the TMNT specifically made for killing.
In many continuities he is the one who ultimately defeats Shredder, though not without help. He is a master swordsman and is strong both mentally and physically, but if his plans go wrong he tends to lose concentration and gets sloppy.
Donatello: Donatello is the brains of the bunch, and has managed to be a good operator of human and alien technology with no formal education. It can be inferred that he learned his skills by tinkering, which is just time he could have spent training.
He is equipped with an oak bo staff which is 6 feet long, giving it the longest reach of the Turtles' weapons. Despite his time spent with technology, Donatello has nevertheless proven himself to be a proficient warrior.
Michelangelo: Michelangelo is the youngest of the turtles. He is lazy, undisciplined, and easily distracted. Instead of training, he spends his free time playing video games, watching TV, reading comic books, and eating pizza. His weapons are nunchucks, which aren't exactly weapons at all (they were originally farming tools). Wiz and Boomstick judge them to be overcomplicated as weapons ("But in the end a baseball bat will give you the same effect and more with much less effort.") but note they are good for strangling. They loathe Michelangelo for blundering his way to victories he doesn't really deserve.
Raphael: He's cool but crude (more like psychotic, according to Boomstick). Sure to throw the first punch, he is the most vicious of the team. He's constanly butting heads with the other team members and challenging Leonardo's leadership.
His weapons are twin sai (dagger-like truncheons), defensive anti-sword weapons that trap and control weaponry of opposing foes. Offensively, they are for stabbing, not slicing.
Raphael is certainly not a strategist, preferring to rush in with no plan and just overpower enemies. He spends most of his time honing his skills and it is likely that he is the strongest turtle. He is naturally hot-headed and in one comic even became Shredder himself.
After an ad for Game Fly, IT'S TIME FOR A DEATH BATTLE!
It is night in the Big Apple. The streets are quiet, but the sewers below are about to erupt in violence as the four turtles ready their weapons.
FIGHT!
Leonardo goes for Michelangelo while Donatello goes for Raphael. Michelangelo is easily killed by Leonardo, while Raphael gets pummeled by Donatello due to the bo staff's superior reach. He knocks Raphel away and soon finds himself fighting Leonardo.
In a fit of rage Raphael gets up and plows through the fight between the other two brothers, knocking them both to the ground. Raphael finishes off Donatello by stabbing him about 2 dozen times.
Raphael and Leonardo leap at each other and seem evenly matched until Raphael knocks Leonardo into the water of the sewer. They get into a sai-sword lock, which ends in Leonardo's swords breaking. Raphael's stabs Leonardo in the chest with his sai, but Raphael's neck is stabbed by what is left of one of Leonardo's swords.
K.O.!
The hosts conclude that it was strategy that won the day. He knows the strengths and weaknesses of his brothers inside and out. His biggest threat was Raphael and his anti-sword sai, so Leonardo went for the weakest of the group (Michelangelo) first. Meanwhile Raphael was beaten up a little by Donatello, and by the time Raphael killed Donatello, Leonardo was in shape for the final duel.
To avoid fan rage as Raphael beat Leonardo in a movie, Wiz offers 4 reasons:1. Raphael winning the fight was what the plot of the film called for.2. Leonardo decimated Raphel in the fist fighting segment of their battle.3. Leonardo didn't want to fight at all. If he wanted to he would have performed better.4. The movie didn't make a whole lot of sense to begin with, so it's no valid source.
- Boomstick: Looks like Leo got the point of this battle!
Wiz: The winner is Leonardo!
The TMNT Battle Royale contains examples of:
- Awesome, but Impractical: The most charitable thing that the hosts have to say about Michelangelo's nunchucks is that they look cool. They otherwise lambast them as highly ineffectual compared to a real flail or even a plain baseball bat.
- Blood Is Squicker in Water: For the final blow, the two remaining Turtles fall into the sewer's water. Raphael, who was stabbed in the neck, falls beneath the surface and turns the water red.
- Boring, but Practical: Leonardo and Donatello are both praised for their weapons, which aren't exotic like Michelangelo or Raphael's, but are straightforward to use and have superior reach and flexibility.
- Creator's Pest: Wiz and Boomstick blatantly hate on Michelangelo, deriding him as an idiot and declaring his weapon to be stupid. They ridicule Splinter for giving the most complicated weapon to, quote, "the retard of the group". Boomstick even ends Michelangelo's analysis section by noting in a questioning manner that he's probably not going to win, with Wiz replying that he better not.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: While the battle royale as a whole is not totally lopsided, one combatant was woefully outmatched: Michelangelo is the worst Turtle in terms of both combat skills and choice of weapon. In the animation, he barely lasts 10 seconds before getting slashed to bits. The other Turtles have their own unique strengths that make analyzing them more interesting.
- Mythology Gag: During the fight, Donatello jumps on some convenient crates and starts smacking Raphael on the head. In the 1989 NES game, Donatello was considered the best turtle to play, and Raphael the worst, due to their respective weapon ranges. In particular, Donatello could make certain areas effortless by hopping up high and attacking downwards at enemies that were simply unable to reach him.
- Scissors Cuts Rock: Although Raphael's weapons are specifically designed to counter swords, the katana-wielding Leonardo ultimately manages to overcome this by letting Donatello wear him out while he focuses on Michelangelo, the weakest target.
- Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: If you ignore Michelangelo, who's by far the weakest of the group, the turtles all have their own advantages that let them counter each other:
- Leonardo has the best weapons of the bunch and is The Strategist. His deeper knowledge of his brothers' strengths and weaknesses ultimately lead him to victory.
- Raphael's sai are specifically designed to counter swords, which might have given him the edge against Leonardo if this was a straight fight.
- Donatello's staff has the longest range of all the Turtles' weapons. This gave him the edge against Raphael, who had the shortest weapon and only killed Donatello by letting Leonardo draw his attention.
- Wrecked Weapon: Raphael wields sai, which are meant to catch and destroy swords. He manages to shatter Leonardo's katanas with them, but this doesn't stop Leonardo from stabbing him with the remaining half of his weapon.
