- I'm Coach Rene Dreifuss.
I'm a mixed martial art and self-defense instructor
at Radical MMA here in New York City.
I'm here to watch superhero fight scenes,
and rank them on the their actual
real world fighting skills.
(intense music)
Okay, it looks, from this screenshot,
that I'm gonna be watching Deadpool.
He's fighting with samurai swords.
There's not a lot of like, real life stuff going on.
Oh, there's a flying aerial kick
that never happened in reality.
That was not real.
Okay, with a kind of Tae Kwon Do kind of movement there.
Okay, so from what I did see, it was all fantasy,
and a little bit of showy Tae Kwon Do.
But I would say very, very minimal here
skills for real world fighting.
Obviously, Deadpool's on the first of the list.
But hasn't really impressed me
with his real fighting skills.
The next clip is Black Widow.
Headbutt, that's a real move.
Another headbutt.
Little acrobatic action there.
And she does some sort of flip.
She had some acrobatic moves
that were very stylized and not realistic.
But she did hit the guy a lot with the headbutts.
In the real world, headbutts are very,
very common and violent.
It's one of the reasons they're illegal in MMA.
That she threw so many headbutts,
ranks her above Deadpool in my book.
Okay, we've got Thor here.
Okay, a lot of lightening bolts here, okay.
This bag of teep, okay.
Threw a hook, the haymaker punch.
Oh, he's got a good punch.
Thor has a real brawling style.
Like, all these haymakers, overhand big haymakers.
That there, very effective.
He also threw a Muay Thai teep,
which is a very push front kick.
Very, very common with Thai, also Karate move.
I would rank him number one, above Black Widow.
Oh, here we go, Batman.
Okay, he eats another punch from Bane.
He actually has a pretty good haymaker.
I would take Bane.
And he catches a punch, which is actually pretty hard.
Okay, the way he's blocking is not realistic.
Ah, nice upper cut.
Ah, he also had a nice teep.
What they portrayed on screen is basically brawling,
kind of like Thor, but not quite as good.
He was much stiffer.
I would probably rank Batman,
just because of the power element, above Black Widow.
Oh, Black Panther.
Attacking him, and he's blocking with a shield.
There's a little trip there, that's a real trip.
Yeah, this is all sword fighting.
So, not so much unarmed.
Okay, he throws, ah, a nice little hook.
It was mostly weapons, just one hook.
Which is actually, it was a pretty good hook.
But in another fight scene,
he actually puts on a really good Jiu-Jitsu triangle.
I would rate him number one so far,
in terms of technique over the other two brawlers
that we saw, Thor and Batman.
It is Wonder Woman up next.
She's mostly using her shield.
And hitting people with it.
And she spins around and does a kick to the leg,
which is a very cinematic move,
but not something so realistic.
She pushes a guy through the--
Ah, flying knee.
A couple moves she did, she did a nice flying knee,
which is a Muay Thai move.
But generally speaking,
it was mostly acrobatic moves, not really fighting.
I would put her on the bottom of the list,
at this point, in terms of fighting skill.
The next movie is Iron Man.
He's throwing a hook.
And throws another haymaker kind of hook.
Firing his blasters.
Can't really see much unarmed fighting technique.
He does a knee.
His backhand slap, he's really fighting with his armor.
What I did see backhand slap, not very technical.
Put him above Deadpool, but again, lower at the list.
The next one is Wolverine.
All right, he's using his claws.
He can hardly judge
because he's using his swords and slashing.
Very feral fighting style.
Oh, nice front kick, all right.
Doesn't really show anything of technical merit,
other than his front kick.
Maybe above Deadpool,
because he has generating power with that feral motion.
All right, next is Spider-Man.
All right, well, threw a hook.
A little bit more like, brawl.
Oh, mounts, yeah, okay, here we go.
Oh, yeah, all right, upper cut.
All right, Spider-Man is hitting
the higher level of the list.
He did do certain things, he threw an upper cut,
a very nice upper cut, some hooks,
and he also went to the mount position,
which is a very dominate position in MMA,
and starting throwing ground and pound from that position.
That is one of the top ways fighters win at MMA.
Because Black Panther put on a really nice finishing hold,
I would still put Black Panther at one, Spider-Man, two.
All right, now we're gonna check out Captain America.
Ah, front kick, nice front kick.
Hit him with the shield.
Ah, well, what a nice round kick.
Okay, a little cinematic stuff
that doesn't really work.
Okay, oh, knee to the face, okay, here we go.
Okay, spun around, spinning back fist.
Did a throw that's not so realistic.
All right, hit a knee, knee, nice knee.
It looks a little bit more like boxing, throws an elbow.
Kicks the knee, oblique kick, front kick.
Okay, totally cinematic, nice takedown.
They drew from a lot more realistic
fighting here for this scene.
He's throwing some boxing,
he definitely threw a lot of front kicks and teeps.
He also threw a kick to the knee, oblique kick to the knee.
And he had some nice elbows.
He threw some beautiful clinch knees from Thai boxing.
I would have to give Captain America
the number one spot on the list.
Because he really showed variety of striking technique.
Great job on Captain America.
He is the top of the list, for sure.
(upbeat music)