Times where Worf Had the Flu in Western Animation.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender
- Word of God has this as something that came into play during the formation of the Book One finale: giving Zuko injuries from both his ship exploding, and hypothermia from his near drowning experience in icy water, plus powering up Katara with a full moon that increases the power of her water-bending. Consequently, Katara managed to win her fight with him despite his much greater experience, and incapacitated him. However, when the sun rose, Zuko one-hit-KO'd Katara. During the third round, it was night again, they were in a freakin' snow storm (plenty of water to bend) and Zuko was half-frozen to death. The next time Zuko and Katara had a real fight he more than held his own against her.
- Zuko is similarly handicapped by being unable to use any of his Firebending in his fight-to-a-draw against Jet in Book Two. Doing so would have exposed his identity, which, after an earlier incident in the season where he'd shown his firebending in a fight to defend a town and was then immediately thrown out of said town, caused him to hold back with Jet. Towards the end of the fight he gains a clear advantage once he grabs some real swords, but the guards intervene at that point.
- This applies in the Grand Finale, in the final duel between Zuko and Azula. Compared to their past battles, Zuko has gained insights into Firebending long lost to his people and was more emotionally centered than he had previously been in his life, whereas Azula is in the middle of a Villainous Breakdown. Just before going into battle against her he mentions that he doesn't need Katara's help anymore because Azula is slipping and thus he can reliably defeat her on his own. He loses, but Azula is only able to win by firing a lightning bolt at Katara, causing him to take the blow for her.
- Team Avatar tries to use this trope to their advantage, by attacking the Fire Nation during an eclipse, (which temporarily prevents firebenders using their powers,) with the intention of beating Fire Lord Ozai while he's powerless. Their plan doesn't work, because the Fire Nation had forewarning about it and prepared accordingly, and Azula manages to be a formidable opponent even without her firebending. However, it plays a big part in Zuko's Calling the Old Man Out as he wouldn't stand a chance against Ozai in a firebending battle but is more than a match for him with his swords.
- Ben of Ben 10 is in possession of the Omnitrix, one of the greatest and most powerful inventions in the entire universe, and almost every important Big Bad is after it in one way or another. The biggest Running Gag in the franchise is that the Omnitrix can't just transform Ben into the right alien to solve problems with ease, due to a combination of inexperience with the current model of the watch note and just plain Rule of Funny, leaving Ben to take care of things with a different alien or, in cases where the watch hasn't recharged yet, as a regular human.
- DuckTales (2017): Scrooge has temporarily thrown out his back on a number of occasions when he needed to be sidelined so another character can save the day. The most noteworthy being the "Rumble for Ragnarok!" episode where Scrooge is sidelined for the majority of the episode so we can see the kids scramble to fill his shoes in preventing Ragnarok.
- In the Jackie Chan Adventures episode "Re-Enter the J-Team", the J-Team are participating in a martial arts tournament as part of an undercover investigation of tournament host and suspected jewel thief Bartholomew Chang. This trope causes all but Tohru to lose their initial fights: Viper isn’t used to having to wear a judo gi with wide sleeves since she normally wears tight spandex suits and the sleeves restrict her movement too much. El Toro is mainly used to fighting inside pro wrestling rings, thus when he tries to rebound off the ropes, he ends up losing by Ring Out. And Jackie has trouble with breaking stones with his bare hands, causing him to break his own hands. When they have to fight their opponents from the tournament again later on, these restrictions are not in place (Tohru and Viper held up a rope for El Toro to spring off of) and they do manage to win. (Well, except for Jackie. Since his hands were still broken, El Toro and Tohru had to step in to take down his opponent.)
- Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous has Yasmina "Yaz" Fadoula, a teenage champion athlete who has a rather nasty fall on concrete while escaping a Mosasaur which results in a Twisted Ankle. She spends the next few episodes hobbling at a snail's pace (the other Campers are amazed that she can even walk on it at all), which is not great when you are stranded on a dinosaur island. By the midway point of Season 2, she is showing a semblance of healing, and by Season 3 she has recuperated enough to be back to her old tricks.
- There are fan theories that state that the reason Superman was so weak in the first season of Justice League is because he was still recovering from the war with Apokolips.
- In Justice League × RWBY: Super Heroes & Huntsmen, Batman is incapacitated by poison throughout most of Part Two. This was actually deliberately done by the villains because they knew that his detective skills would have let the heroes learn what they were up to, and so they knew they had to take him out.
- Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness sees Temutai try to invoke this the second time he faces off with Po, claiming that the last time they fought, he had a head cold. It's very obviously an excuse he made up on the spot.
- This applies to the main character of The Legend of Korra.
- In the first episode, she loses to the Metalbending Police (but since they were police, she held back and wasn't really trying). Later, she loses to some Equalist chi blockers. Korra had no idea they were chi blockers until after they defeated her, though, whereas they had trained to fight benders. Korra struggles inside the pro bending ring, but between being restricted to only waterbending and having limitations on how much she can bend at a time (it's complicated), that's to be expected, and she does still win quite often. In her first fight with Amon, Korra was badly outnumbered, and he got the drop on her anyway. When Tarlok defeats her, he uses a Story-Breaker Power that, as far as Korra knows, is impossible for anyone to even have, and which nobody but Amon can counter at this point. When Amon takes her bending, he uses that same power. Luckily, Korra still manages to win quite a few fights when she isn't at a huge disadvantage.
- Shows up again in Season 3, this time dealing with Lin Beifong; after a physically and emotionally draining acupuncture session, she picks a fight with her half-sister Suyin and barely manages to hold on.
- The good guys are down three people/ two bending masters (Bumi, Kya, and Tenzin) in the climax of Season 3 as they got the crap kicked out of them and are still too hurt to fight.
- In an earlier battle with the Red Lotus, Lord Zuko is not only hampered by being in his late eighties — he's also fighting at midnight, in the middle of an intense blizzard, making his firebending far weaker than it should be. He still manages to last the longest out of all the good guys, when the rest were master Waterbenders.
- In Season 4, Korra is once again hit with this. Turns out the reason she's weaker than before is because she still has a bit of metallic poison in her body. It's been there for years. After she works up the mental fortitude to bend it out herself, she is able to enter the Avatar state again, only to have that derailed by lingering mental trauma. By the time she's back to 100%, the villain has powered up to the tune of a taller-than-buildings Humongous Mecha. That said, when the two fight man-to-man again, it's clear that Korra is the more powerful of the two.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- The second season finale when Queen Chrysalis manages to defeat Princess Celestia in a straight up fight. Chrysalis had gotten a major power up feeding off of Shining Armor's love for Princess Cadence. Not only does she visibly struggle against Celestia's power at first, even Chrysalis is outright shocked she won. In addition, it's been noted said fight took place in a room crowded with the very citizens Celestia was trying to protect, meaning in all likelihood, she may have been holding back so as not to harm them and may have beaten Chrysalis otherwise.note
- In "The Crystal Empire", Shining Armor has his horn cursed by Sombra and is unable to use magic, leaving Cadance to maintain the barrier spell on her own, which she becomes exhausted from.
- In "Equestria Games", the Anti-Magic field set up to prevent cheating also prevents the unicorns from using their magic to stop the falling ice cloud.
- Then in the Season 6 finale "To Where and Back Again", Queen Chrysalis has managed to, in only a few hours, kidnap the entire Royal Family and Elements of Harmony and taken them to her hive to keep captive there in cocoons until her invasion of Equestria is complete. This is suspected to be thanks to the Anti-Magic field generated by her throne as since it blocks all magic but that of the Changelings, she could kidnap them with little resistance and prevent them from escaping from their cocoons on their own, along with giving her a Home Field Advantage against anyone who tried to rescue them.
- In Season 7 Episode 10, we learn that Celestia is apparently Willfully Weak, with her potential Nightmare Moon equivalent, Daybreaker, being who she is if she stopped holding back and caring about what others thought.
- In the movie all three Princesses are petrified with the Storm King's Obsidian Orbs. Cadence blocks the first one with her shield — only to discover that the orb's gas was able to seep through before any of them could do anything about it. Celestia realises they can't defend themselves and tries to get Luna to find help instead of fighting — but both are hit with the orbs before they can. Twilight only escapes the last one when Rainbow Dash pulls her out of the way at the last second. It's also shown that the Storm Guards have Anti-Magic armor that deflects Twilight's magic.
- Samurai Jack; in the two parter episode "The Scotsman Saves Jack", Jack has had his mind wiped and thinks he's a laid-back Surfer Dude named Brent Worthington. "Brent" lacks all of Jack's fighting skill and bravery, so ends up getting smacked around or fainting at the sight of villains and monsters Jack would normally have no trouble defeating.
- In the Star vs. the Forces of Evil episode "Brittney's Party", Marco is unable to help Star fight Ludo's minions because Brittney's holding her birthday party on a moving bus, and Marco gets carsick easily.
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars: "Lair of Grievous": Before he duels Kit Fisto (a duel that seemed to be going Kit's way before the MagnaGuards interrupted), Grievous's medical droid warned him that he wasn't fully repaired and was "in no condition to fight".
- In the previous Clone Wars cartoon Grievous repeatedly Invoked this: not being a Force user, he's been instructed by Dooku to always make sure he has "fear, surprise and intimidation" on his side before fighting the strongest Jedi and retreat otherwise. Thus his introduction has him face six Jedi, killing three and leaving the others wounded and traumatized, after thoroughly wiping out their army and taking multiple steps to scare them to throw them off their game, and every time he appears he takes care to be as intimidating as possible and try and get his Jedi opponents tired by his Magna Guards while also riding on the reputation he built by killing Jedi... But when he faces Mace Windu his opponent is not intimidated at all, and Grievous is crippled in an instant
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- In the previous Clone Wars cartoon Grievous repeatedly Invoked this: not being a Force user, he's been instructed by Dooku to always make sure he has "fear, surprise and intimidation" on his side before fighting the strongest Jedi and retreat otherwise. Thus his introduction has him face six Jedi, killing three and leaving the others wounded and traumatized, after thoroughly wiping out their army and taking multiple steps to scare them to throw them off their game, and every time he appears he takes care to be as intimidating as possible and try and get his Jedi opponents tired by his Magna Guards while also riding on the reputation he built by killing Jedi... But when he faces Mace Windu his opponent is not intimidated at all, and Grievous is crippled in an instant
- The first episode of Transformers: Animated sees the main Autobots kill Megatron… after he'd been severely damaged by a bomb planted on him by Starscream. When they have a rematch after he comes back to life fifty years later, he puts up a much better fight.
- In The Venture Bros., Dermot "claims" that the only reason Dean beat him up in a Wimp Fight was because he was sick at the time. Did we mention throughout that entire episode Dermot "claimed" that his hands were registered as lethal weapons?
- In the X-Men: The Animated Series Grand Finale, "Graduation Day", Xavier is seen coughing as he debates with Henry Peter Gyrich. Beast explains that Xavier’s health had taken a hit due to preparing for the Human/Mutant Relations Summit. Thus, when Gyrich attacks Xavier with a weapon that causes his powers to go out of control, it harms him a lot more than it should have.
