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Comment by yequalsx | Hacker News Reader

I believe you have reached a conclusion that is not justified by what I actually wrote. Nowhere did I imply that the only defense against against her moves is to have more muscle strength.

The point of commenting on muscle strength is that if one is strong enough to muscle out of a person's move then they don't have to be as talented to defend against said moves. Hence the belief that many people have that Ronda would not stand a chance against even a low level pro male fighter.

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I didn't suggest that that is the only defense against her moves, but you seem to be saying that no matter what move / hold someone puts on you, you'd be able to get out of it with mere brute force if only you were 50% stronger. Is that really true?

I don't know about the 50% mark, but at some point it becomes true. When I was in college, one of my friends was big into MMA, to the point of participating in organized fights and maintaining a winning record. He was wresting with another friend (much larger and stronger, but not at all involved in MMA) on one occasion and learned rapidly what raw strength does. The MMA-participating friend was completely outclassed. Everything he tried was basically just beaten with brute strength. He attempted to put the larger guy in an armbar and the larger guy basically just did a bicep curl with him.

You're also underestimating the strength difference between women and men. Pound for pound, an untrained man will be about 50% stronger than an untrained woman. With both trained, the difference approaches 100%.

http://www.exrx.net/Testing/WeightLifting/StrengthStandards....

Edit: Whenever I hear comments about women beating men in physical sports, I think about the Williams sisters both losing to the 203th ranked male tennis player, who supposedly didn't try very hard, and according to some reports spent the morning before drinking and playing golf, and smoked between sets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Sexes_(tennis)#1...

http://www.yourememberthat.com/media/15978/Karsten_Braasch_v...

I seriously doubt that the 203rd ranked male had better technical skills than the Williams sisters. Skill only gets you so far, though.

I recognize that what you are saying sounds totally rational to you. But your position is one that is based on general ideas and (I strongly suspect) no practical experience. If you read the comments you will notice that people with direct experience are very clear on this matter. A woman like Rousey has no chance against a moderately skilled male fighter because strength does matter - a lot.

Grappling fights tend to be a gradual progression. Even in Rousey's first round victories you can see it takes a bit of working back-and-forth to get an arm-bar.

The stronger you are, the more tiny mistakes you can make before you end up in a position where they can't get out.

Perhaps more devastating is that you need less leverage to put them in a compromising position. It can be the difference of grabbing them in a slightly sub-optimal position, then muscling them into the optimal position. where if you were of comparable strength your sub-optimal grab might not be advantageous at all.

I see what you were saying.

In my experience if someone has done a move on you and has it tight then it is very hard to get out of. However, before the hold is tight then muscling out of it is very much a huge concern for a lighter, weaker fighter. A smaller person usually is quicker and more scrappy. Speed is an asset but there is a reason there are weight classes. Larger opponents are much harder to defeat if both people are in equally good shape and have around the same skill set.

I suppose as programmers there is a tendency to put things into a % more muscle or % more bone mass. As an ex NCAA wrestler and combat sport enthusiast I can tell you far more goes into the equation than simple percentages of strength or bone mass.

Allow me to put this in terms you may better understand. The secret lies in the Y chromosome. This small chromosome contains the instructions for making males. The way the bones and joints are positioned give males equal in weight to a women a distinct strength advantage. Take this into account along with the male hormonal profile which is vastly different.

The most powerful thing is the male hormonal profile. Testosterone allows you to hold more muscle and less fat. It gives men that burst of strength and horizontal punching power that puts them in an entirely different league. I'm sure you are thinking of outliers, but I'm talking about a well developed athletic male, not a couch potato.

Now you see some men that seem more or less masculine and the same goes for women. Rowdy is for sure a more masculine women. I'm sure this is genetic as well as from her training. Her hormonal profile and bone structure is more masculine although in comparison to a male fighter not so much.

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