Solid Snake is the Legendary Soldier, and the man who makes the impossible, possible. His real name is David, and he is a clone "son" of Big Boss, the man known to be the greatest soldier of the 20th century. His genes were programmed before he was born to make him a superior, naturally skilled soldier (called soldier genes) and this also makes him a lot more predisposed to fighting than anybody else (fighting is literally in his blood).
Somehow, David was already a Green Beret at 14. Year One tells us that Bruce didn't even leave Gotham until he was 13, so I doubt he was hard special forces material just a year later. Natural skill isn't everything, but it's a factor in Snake's favor. And on top of that, this also means that David actually has an even longer history of combat training than Bruce does.
He was later recruited into High-Tech Special Forces Unit FOXHOUND, which is the small, clandestine unit of elite soldiers founded and run by Big Boss himself. FOXHOUND operatives were trained to be like the modern ninja. The unit's existence was a secret and their members were legends in the black ops world. In FOXHOUND, David was trained by many people in many different skills and arts, but most notably, he was the only disciple of Big Boss himself. Big Boss personally taught David his own style of Close Quarters Combat, which is a style that Big Boss actually invented back when he was a secret agent in the Cold War, alongside his own mentor. Big Boss's mentor was the woman credited with winning WWII, and is known as the mother of special forces, so this chain of passing and refining skills goes back over 100 years.
It's difficult to explain hours of lore in just a couple paragraphs, but to give you an idea of how big a deal Big Boss's fighting style is, only three or four other people in the world have ever mastered it, and none of them have ever lost a H2H fight.
So when you look at him from a conceptual point of view, Solid Snake is a fighter with the natural inclination and talent of someone like Bane, combined with having the very best possible training, like Bruce. At his peak, which is right before the accelerated aging, his military career stretched across nearly three decades.
The difference between Snake and Batman is that Snake was trained more like an MMA fighter instead of a martial artist. Meaning that Snake was not trained to fight, he was just trained how to end fights, and making this distinction is imperative when comparing the two. Most of the time, he disposes of his enemies in just one or two moves.
The above gif is a demonstration of CQC efficacy. Snake always uses the minimum amount of movements and force necessary in order to incapacitate his opponents. Even when he suffered accelerated aging and was only six months away from death, he was still manhandling younger, nanomachine-enhanced soldiers with ease, not only in the above gif but throughout the whole game.
Well it looks like he is manhandling them, but in reality, none of Snake's movements are using much force at all. Metal Gear is absurdly detailed when it comes to this stuff. Every bit where the untrained eye might perceive Snake as just manhandling them, is actually just a slight shift of leverage or weight, or a subtle leg reap, or a joint-lock, or the strike was actually aimed to a vital point. Naomi, who is pretty much the best doctor in the world, said that Snake shouldn't even be capable of standing given how broken down his body was, whereas even the canon fodder were all enhanced soldiers at this point in the timeline.
So make no mistake about it, Old Snake was basically fighting metahumans relative to himself. Going from a surrounded position, to disarming and flooring all four of them in just a couple seconds, with nothing but pure skill and training, is a tremendous feat.
Honestly I could make a whole post on that one gif, talking about Snake's footwork and his weapons handling. But I'll just let the feat speak for itself.
This doesn't just go for fodder, it goes for named characters as well. Like I said, no master of CQC has ever lost a H2H fight, nor have they ever even struggled to fight, outside of fighting other CQC users. Snake's opponent can be a massive metahuman, or the most skilled assassin in the world. Oftentimes they are one in the same. And he just puts them down like they are not even a threat. Here are some demonstrations, and not just from Solid Snake, but from his rivals as well (in order to establish consistency):
I'd love to see this kind of efficacy on Batman's part. He's a great martial artist with the pressure points and the fancy stuff, but Snake knows martial skills. That's why he's more about joint locks and submissions and throws, as in, the shit that actually gets the job done. There's no pussyfooting with Snake, Batman can sometimes let a fight prolong where Snake would have ended it in an instant, like all the above. If Snake can get Batman in the hold that restrained Vamp, and there's no reason he wouldn't because Vamp outclasses Batman across the board, then it is very unlikely that Batman could escape before Snake simply cracks his neck. Snake's combat training was much more focused than Batman's, so even though Batman probably knows how to do a lot of tricks that Snake doesn't know about, when it comes to a fight between the two of them, David will aim to dislocate Bruce's shoulder within the opening moments of the match.
You say Batman is a great martial artist but isn't that good for martial skill. Which is incorrect by all means, as I'll show later. For now tho, 'd like to see Snake dealing with Batman's fighting style. Bruce has his own unique style, he's fused every discipline he mastered into one unique fighting style.
This mean Bruce will be fighting with savate, then suddenly karate, then unexpectedly judo and ju-jitsu and etc. Ultimately this means Bruce has an unpredictable fighting style that's using a ton of martial arts, switching and using other MAs every other seconds. The unpredictability increases when you consider how many martial arts and styles Bruce mastered:
I would like to see Snake deal with this lvl of unpredictability.
Solid Snake is the Legendary Soldier, and the man who makes the impossible, possible. His real name is David, and he is a clone "son" of Big Boss, the man known to be the greatest soldier of the 20th century. His genes were programmed before he was born to make him a superior, naturally skilled soldier (called soldier genes) and this also makes him a lot more predisposed to fighting than anybody else (fighting is literally in his blood).
Somehow, David was already a Green Beret at 14. Year One tells us that Bruce didn't even leave Gotham until he was 13, so I doubt he was hard special forces material just a year later. Natural skill isn't everything, but it's a factor in Snake's favor. And on top of that, this also means that David actually has an even longer history of combat training than Bruce does.
Natural skill isn't a factor when its unquantifiable. As for more training, quality>quantity. For instance, Bruce has been trained by Wildcat (who's been stated/inferred to be the best boxer in DC) in boxing.
He's even been trained by Richard Dragon, a top tier fighter in the top 5 of DC. Richard Dragon has actually mastered every fighting discipline and beat Lady Shiva.
Then there's when Bats trained under Master Kirgi, someone who has bullshit tier skill to the point he created the vibrating palm technique which allows you to phase your hand to KO an opponent.
He was later recruited into High-Tech Special Forces Unit FOXHOUND, which is the small, clandestine unit of elite soldiers founded and run by Big Boss himself. FOXHOUND operatives were trained to be like the modern ninja. The unit's existence was a secret and their members were legends in the black ops world. In FOXHOUND, David was trained by many people in many different skills and arts,
Batman too has been trained by extremely skilled martial artists and fighters. Except I would argue Bruce's mentors have been more skilled than Snake's
but most notably, he was the only disciple of Big Boss himself. Big Boss personally taught David his own style of Close Quarters Combat, which is a style that Big Boss actually invented back when he was a secret agent in the Cold War, alongside his own mentor. Big Boss's mentor was the woman credited with winning WWII, and is known as the mother of special forces, so this chain of passing and refining skills goes back over 100 years.
I generally don't trust wikis but if this Metal Gear wiki is true then CQC is a combat style that allows alternation between armed and H2H combat. Since this is a pure H2H battle, CQC isn't gonna be much useful.
It's difficult to explain hours of lore in just a couple paragraphs, but to give you an idea of how big a deal Big Boss's fighting style is, only three or four other people in the world have ever mastered it,
Well is CQC even a well known style for so many people to get the chance to master it? Even then, to make this so impressive I need a comparison to see if these people are anywhere close to Bruce skill wise.
and none of them have ever lost a H2H fight.
Makes CQC a good accolade depending on how skilled their opponent is.
So when you look at him from a conceptual point of view, Solid Snake is a fighter with the natural inclination and talent of someone like Bane, combined with having the very best possible training, like Bruce. At his peak, which is right before the accelerated aging, his military career stretched across nearly three decades.
I don't see how Snake's training is better than Batmans. Bruce has been trained by some of the very best fighters in the DCU, even characters who have lol/BS tier of skill like Master Kirgi.
The difference between Snake and Batman is that Snake was trained more like an MMA fighter instead of a martial artist. Meaning that Snake was not trained to fight, he was just trained how to end fights, and making this distinction is imperative when comparing the two. Most of the time, he disposes of his enemies in just one or two moves.
This doesn't make much sense. He's been trained to fight to end the fight, AKA to win. It isn't very logical for Bruce, with all those martial arts and whatever, to keep fighting like an idiot instead of just ending the fight. And Bruce too disposes of a foe in two moves, like how he did Vs. Monsoon and KG Beast. Both KG Beast and Moonson are better than fodder, Moonson due to his size and KG Beast due to the fact he's been trained to become the perfect killing machine, tanked getting his face shoved in concrete and has mastered several martial arts.
The above gif is a demonstration of CQC efficacy. Snake always uses the minimum amount of movements and force necessary in order to incapacitate his opponents. Even when he suffered accelerated aging and was only six months away from death, he was still manhandling younger, nanomachine-enhanced soldiers with ease, not only in the above gif but throughout the whole game.
Well it looks like he is manhandling them, but in reality, none of Snake's movements are using much force at all. Metal Gear is absurdly detailed when it comes to this stuff. Every bit where the untrained eye might perceive Snake as just manhandling them, is actually just a slight shift of leverage or weight, or a subtle leg reap, or a joint-lock, or the strike was actually aimed to a vital point. Naomi, who is pretty much the best doctor in the world, said that Snake shouldn't even be capable of standing given how broken down his body was, whereas even the canon fodder were all enhanced soldiers at this point in the timeline.
So make no mistake about it, Old Snake was basically fighting metahumans relative to himself. Going from a surrounded position, to disarming and flooring all four of them in just a couple seconds, with nothing but pure skill and training, is a tremendous feat.
Honestly I could make a whole post on that one gif, talking about Snake's footwork and his weapons handling. But I'll just let the feat speak for itself.
Here's the thing though. There, he had access to armed combat such as that gun. Here, its pure H2H. It's a great display of CQC. And even then, Batman beat KG Beast easy just using technique and such. Anyway, time to show some of Batman's best skill feats. In this instance, he was fighting his rematch with Prometheus who had his central nervous system installed with the skills of DC's top 30 martial artists. And what happened? Batman still stomped him. You can see Bruce getting Prometheus off balance, for getting a clean hit on his face, using Prometheus' weapon against him then using that one moment when Prometheus was stunned to take him down. Bruce wasn't fighting like in a lot of fights between comic characters where the characters are skilled but don't show any skill - Bruce was using very deliberate, specific moves in sync to beat Prometheus.
Colonel Volgin - A Russian mutant supersoldier who can eat up rockets, and also punches much harder than rockets. Also he has some level of superhuman speed, and he's also a great soldier, although probably not a master. Big Boss (in disguise) and The Boss (his mentor, mother of special forces) are both able to go from having a gun shoved into their face, to turning the gun around and incapacitating Volgin within one or two perfectly smooth attacks.
I don't see how you can apply feats from the Boss to Solid Snake. Sure, its the same style but doesn't mean they are as efficient. And Batman took down a superior foe in Prometheus. Prometheus had a disorienting strobe effect that disorganizes thoughts, a nightstick with electrical attacks, multi building busting explosives that can be launched from his gauntlets mid combat, endorphins to help with pain tolerance, and the combined skills of DC's top 30 martial artists. Overall, he is more dangerous and way more skilled than Volgin. I mean, this is a decent feat but its more of a feat you use against physical monsters with top tier stats but Batman isn't just a physical monster, he's also a top tier fighter.
Quiet - A metahuman assassin with incredible feats of agility, strength and skill. She was probably the number 2 deadliest assassin in the world at this point. Ahab (or Venom Snake) disarms her and locks her up with no problem
Batman has done similar in beating Lady Shiva quickly without much trouble, Shiva being a top tier mercenary. I consider Lady Shiva to be above Quiet due to Shiva's feats of stomping Katanna, stomping Killer Croc, briefly one-shotting Nightwing, etc.
Now you might say "CIB, Shiva matched Batman back in Death Of The Family. How can you think this feat is consistent?" The thing is, Batman has improved since the Death Of Family. He actually got some new training from Lady Shiva herself, and Ra's has commented that Bruce has gotten faster.
So I don't think the new fight between Bruce and Shiva is loebforce or anything.
Senator Armstrong - This guy just had utterly ridiculous physicals, not only was he speedblitzing Raiden but he was also impervious to any and all damage. Raiden could not inflict a speck of pain on this guy and his iron skin, but he was still able to overwhelm him using CQC taught to him by Solid Snake.
Again, that's not a feat for Snake. Sure, he taught CQC to Raiden but that doesn't mean Raiden isn't more skilled. The apprentice can surpass the master
Vamp - A Cyborg Ninja-tier metahuman. Also the most skilled assassin in the world at this point in the timeline. To him, steel is like paper, bullets are slow, and reading the muscles of human beings comes effortlessly. He fought Old Snake, who was able to toss him around and capture him with CQC and not much difficulty.
Pretty impressive feat. However this restraining tactic won't work with Batman. Because, while being a top tier assassin is impressive, Bruce still has his feats of stomping Prometheus and beating Shiva quickly. So I don't think Snake can outskill Bruce to the point he can use restraining tactic. Moreover, does Vamp really have strength feats above Batman? Batman has had feats like overpowering Killer Croc (even tho Croc treats steal like tissue paper) and casually holding down Hawkgirl.
Overall Bruce seems to be decently more skilled by a good margin. He's easily outskilled characters more skilled than or at least on par with Snake, has had better quality training and has an unpredictable fighting style.
==========================================================================================================================================
It seems Batman is more skilled by a SOLID margin. He has an unpredictable fighting style, beaten characters more skilled or on par with Snake, and yes has top tier martial skills.
I've divided my post into five sections for organization:
The term Martial Arts literally just means 'fighting arts.' Every style that the narration in those scans states Batman has learned, was designed as a sport. To this day, karate, savate, judo, and jujutsu all remain primarily, sports. Meaning they are designed to be competitive, and have rules, limitations, and they are meant to be flashy in a way. And I'm pretty sure Tao is a mental discipline. Point is, Martial Arts aren't really about incapacitating an opponent with as much efficiency as is possible.
All of them are efficient in at least one aspect of fighting, but every single one of them is incomplete. A judo guy can't stop a muay thai guy from kicking out his legs in a few seconds, but if a muay thai guy does that to a sambo guy who actually knows how to operate on the ground, he'll regret it. It's basically an infinite loop as far as Martial Arts go because none of them have everything, and believe it or not, the idea of mixing Martial Arts to create a more efficient system for serious fighting didn't really exist until the early 90s. That's when each part of the world was finally connected enough to share their knowledge, and the Gracie Brothers brought Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to the United States, and then the UFC came out, etc.
That's what I call Martial Skills, or 'fighting skills' as opposed to arts. So when you talk about how Bruce has learned karate, savate, judo, jujutsu, and others to create his own fighting style, that obviously means he has serious Martial Skills, but every single MMA fighter has learned some karate, savate, judo, jujutsu, and others to create their own fighting style. What makes Bruce unique is simply the inhuman extent to which he took it.
Now here is what's cool. Since the lore of the DCU states that Bruce was already traveling the world before all of this, that retroactively makes him the first person in the world who had this idea (or at least the first person with the drive and the means to actually do it) and therefore, the pioneer of Mixed-Martial Arts and modern combat training. Why does Metal Gear beat this? Because Big Boss and his mentor did the same thing, not just before anyone in the real world and not just before Bruce, but they did it before Bruce was even born, by decades. So Bruce developed Martial Skills on his own after collecting every Martial Art, but Big Boss did the same, and then he had 50 years to refine it and perfect it before he passed it on to Solid Snake.
That's why in Metal Gear Solid 4, we see (mostly hear) Old Snake and Otacon talking about how the CQC that Big Boss developed in the 50s was "way ahead of its time" and how nobody was using it yet, until the files were declassified, which is what led to the creation of modern special forces and MMA.
I give Bruce credit for actually having the drive to collect all this knowledge and mix it on his own, but the fact is, David having somebody do that for him and then receiving only the fruits of it all, makes him a machine of close quarters efficiency. His training would have been much more streamlined, much more specialized, and much more advanced. It means he wasted almost zero time learning useless, antiquated Martial Arts skills that never get used in a fight. His martial skills are the culmination of 100 years of specialization to create the most perfect combat style possible.
So to be clear, I never said that Batman doesn't have martial skills. Just that his martial skills aren't as good as Solid Snake's. The truth is, if Batman learned over 100 different Martial Arts, that's just a lot of redundancy. All it means is he learned the same few dozens of kicks over and over again, because every style overlaps eventually. There's just not that much raw knowledge in existence.
If we were to translate Metal Gear's lore over to DC, Solid Snake would be a full potential Nightwing, since Nightwing is only in his 20s and he can already keep up with Batman and Deathstroke. Imagine Nightwing when he is as old as Batman is. That's how skilled Solid Snake is.
He kept up with Ahab and Gray Fox when he was in his 20s, and in MGS4 when he's was as old and experienced as Bruce Wayne typically is, the only way to challenge him was for his rivals to do the fusion dance and combine all of their skills and drives into one, and then attack Snake when he was in the body of a 70 year old, all at the same time. That's Liquid Ocelot (more info on him in the "Rivals" section). That is what it took in order to push Snake to his limits.
It would be like if Bane and David Cain fused to create David Bane, and then David Bane fought the old Bruce Wayne from Batman Beyond. Do you have proof that Bruce could win under such ridiculously overwhelming circumstances? If not, Bruce is inferior.
Even Batman writers aren't as indulgent and reverent for their own series as Hideo Kojima is.
You mentioned Wildcat, Richard Dragon, and Kirgi as Batman's greatest masters. Let's talk about each of them.
Kirgi was just a traditional martial artist. He never gave the indication he was skilled in more then just his style. He developed hax pressure point techniques but that's the difference between Martial Arts and Martial Skills. How many times has Batman actually used the vibrating hand in a fight against somebody skilled, or even used any pressure points at all? It's just an art technique, not an efficient one. If Batman tries that pressure point fanciness with Solid Snake, he'll just break his fingers. End of story.
Wildcat was the best boxer ever but boxing was all he taught Bruce. Don't bother posting sources mentioning that Ted Grant also knows styles like judo and krav maga, I am aware of them but both of your scans indicate that Ted and Bruce only ever trained at boxing. Notable, but not super serious. Snake has the skills of a great boxer, as well as a lot of skills that are kryptonite to boxers.
Demonstration:
This one exchange demonstrates Snake's ability to utterly shut down the boxing of somebody way more experienced and knowledgable than he is AND stronger than he is, by using a mastery over the most relevant elements of boxing, muay thai, judo, savate, and others still. (More info on Liquid Ocelot under "Rivals" section).
The final mentor you mentioned is Richard Dragon. But the scans you posted only show Bruce Wayne challenging Dragon to one sparring match, after he'd already become Batman, and it's not like he even did well because Dragon called him a talented amateur. Then Bruce "told all his friends," which included Catwoman, and a fully grown Dick Grayson and Connor Hawke, indicating that this actually takes place pretty currently. It's a very cool scene, mostly for Dragon, but don't try and play it off as something it isn't. Richard Dragon didn't train Bruce.
Now let's look at David's teachers.
There's Master Miller, or Kazuhira, a half-Japanese soldier who received his training from the Japan Self-Defense Forces, which is some ELITE shit. In a nutshell since Japan's constitution forbids war, they have only one military force that exists solely to defend from invaders, so as you can imagine, their training is some of the most specialized in the world. Furthermore, Kazuhira's skills were said to be "unmatched" within the JSDF, so much so that the reason he left is because it wasn't challenging him anymore.
Kazuhira was Big Boss's partner and best friend for years, but while Big Boss was in a coma, Kazuhira spent a decade alone and on the run, doing the dirtiest mercenary work that any nation had to offer. He helped build and ran two of the most powerful militaries ever, where he trained a lot of the soldiers, and then he became a leader in FOXHOUND. Kaz is so sick that he doesn't need legs, his right arm, or eyes to be one of the best soldiers in the world.
Watch 0:08 - 0:36
Kaz somehow sensed Quiet, when she was invisible and just standing around doing nothing, while neither Ahab (Venom Snake) or Revolver Ocelot detected her.
Honestly Kaz is short on raw feats, but he has the statements and implications to be a rival with Ahab and Revolver Ocelot.
Yes that's just a child, but child soldiers in Metal Gear are strangely overpowered. That little guy disarmed Ahab earlier.
Kazuhira taught Solid Snake many things including CQB, which is sort of a totally unarmed offshoot of CQC.
Master Miller's training also increased David's senses, spatial awareness, instincts, and a ton of other specific, relevant elements. So imo, Master Miller of the JSDF and FOXHOUND, is leaving Kirgi the pressure point man in the dust.
If we compared Gray Fox to Wildcat, Gray Fox is a lot more than just an amazing boxer. He's a master ninja, samurai, assassin, soldier, survivalist, psychopath, etc. An argument can be made that he is the number 1 or number 2 fighter in the entire Metal Gear series, outside of Snakes. In his youth, I'd compare him to Cassandra Cain, because both of them withstood inhuman conditioning in order to learn move reading, move mimicry, and gain enhanced reflexes.
Watch 0:41 - 2:06
FYI That's Big Boss when he was young talking, not Solid Snake.
But by the time he was an older man and mentoring the young Solid Snake, Gray Fox was more like a Slade Wilson figure. He was extremely wise, experienced, and everybody in FOXHOUND looked up to him.
And years later when Snake and Gray Fox regrettably found themselves on opposite sides of a conflict, they fought to the death in hand-to-hand combat. It was by defeating Gray Fox that Snake took his title of the greatest mercenary in the world (excluding Big Boss because everybody thought he was dead)
And Bruce wasn't even with Wildcat that long. Snake and Gray Fox were best friends for years.
Gray Fox combat training kicks the shit out of boxing with Wildcat.
The one who needs no explanation. He's the legend. The bar that everybody else is measured against, at least for the Metal Gear universe.
Richard Dragon is great, but he has like, two feats. Big Boss is the guy with a whole trilogy of games where he solos Russia with a machinegun, kills the X-Men of WWII, boxes with an electric supersoldier and takes down fighting mechs the size of Godzilla, as well as actual dragons and monsters. He is every bit as skilled and reputable as Richard Dragon is, and more.
After all, mastering all the martial arts is one thing, but creating your own from scratch (and making it the best one) is something else entirely. And to top it all off, he is also regarded as the number 1 best leader and trainer in the whole series, with nobody coming close, besides... Solid Snake.
Big Boss training Snake for years, to the point where he reacts instinctively to attacks, is >>> Bruce sparring with Dragon one time.
Add onto all of this that David is more talented than Bruce is due to his gene mods.
You explained Prometheus very well. I believe that Snake has an enemy who surpasses Prometheus though. Like I said before, Liquid Ocelot is the fusion of Liquid Snake and Revolver Ocelot.
To put Liquid in a nutshell, he is Solid Snake's twin brother. Remember everything I said about how Snake is extraordinarily talented, because he is a clone and was genetically modified to have the best genes for being a skilled soldier? Well between all the soldier genes that make great soldiers, David was actually the catalyst to receive all of the inferior soldier genes. That was so his brother Eli would receive only the creme de la creme of soldier genes, and would become the greatest warrior in history.
Remember how I said that David was a Green Beret at 14? That's with shitty soldier genes. Eli could humiliate Diamond Dogs when he was 12. (Diamond Dogs are Ahab's soldiers, they know CQC and outclass every other special forces by a lot)
Eli was a child soldier his whole life, trained in SAS later and fought as a mercenary around the world, and then became the leader of FOXHOUND to replace Big Boss. There's an old interview with the creator of the games, Hideo Kojima, where he says that Liquid was actually superior to Big Boss by that point.
When Liquid finally fought Snake, he could move FTE, his strikes all dealt twice as much damage as Snake's did, and he could eat missiles, bullets, and multistory falls and literally come out with scratches.
Solid Snake and Liquid Snake had a climactic, shirtless fist fight atop the head of the destroyed Metal Gear REX while fighter jets carrying a nuclear payload raced towards the island, with Solid Snake winning and narrowly escaping, despite having the inferior genes. This is because of Solid Snake's better training and better experience, and his heroic determination, proving that Snake can even beat enemies vastly more talented and with more experience than him.
Boss fight 7:05 - 9:15
Cutscene finish 9:15 - 10:40
Cool feat right? Imo Liquid is very relatable to Bane, with both being dark shadows of the hero, their inhuman stats, talent, and violent fighting experience since childhood, and Bane is usually more of a threat to Batman than Prometheus (he's never gotten stomped like Prometheus got stomped).
Then there's Revolver Ocelot. This guy is more of a Taskmaster type. He's another prodigy, son of the Boss, trained since birth by an Illuminati-like organization to be the ultimate spy. By his late teens he was already a highly ranked leader in both the CIA, GRU, and KGB all at once and triple-crossing each of them. So that is an insane amount of talent and training, all around the world. But the reason he is a Taskmaster type is because he mastered CQC just through observation. He mastered it well enough to rival a young Big Boss after only a few days.
There's a lot of good shit in that fight. Really precise strikes aimed at vitals, numerous joint locks and joint lock reversals, slams, high kicks, elbows, knees, ground game, dirty fighting. The only significant thing that they are lacking imo are leg kicks, but this is still CQC in a relatively primitive form. You can see how young Big Boss is, and Ocelot is barely out of his teens. Afterwards, he had 50 years of nonstop war experience to refine CQC on his own, which makes him similar to David Cain like I said before, as far as being way more experienced than the hero.
So Liquid and Ocelot, these are both some pretty OP dudes, who, like I said, can each rival Solid Snake any day of the week.
Then after Liquid died, Ocelot merged their minds together, so they became Liquid Ocelot.
What is Prometheus' best feat? It was stomping Batman in their first encounter. Liquid Ocelot has the same feat of stomping Snake. However, Liquid Ocelot's defeating Snake is more effortless, brutal, and impressive. LO started off completely emptyhanded while Snake had a rifle, a sidearm, and a knife. LO flicked his cigar at Snake, then disarmed each of Snake's weapons one by one and beat him to his knees, before the cigar could hit the ground.
Watch 2:16 - 2:38
If you think the weapons were too much of a factor, H2H didn't really change the result. Watch 2:06:00 - 2:07:24. Also take note on David's sheer determination despite how much he suffers. We'll get fully into damage soak later.
To me, Liquid Ocelot is coming out a bit superior to Prometheus. Both on-paper, and ESPECIALLY in actual feats and record (Prom is great on paper but he's also a jobber, I'd put him below guys like Bane who really rival Batman). Mostly it's the idea that that whole exchange happened before the cigar hit the ground. That is some plain freakish fighting skill from LO, since he's not supposed to be enhanced.
And allow me to question the circumstances behind Bruce's defeat of Prometheus. IIRC, their first fight involved a totally unprepared Batman versus a fully confident Prometheus. It was basically an ambush. The second fight, took place after Prometheus had failed and his plan was foiled, and it was already all over. Now Batman was the heavily motivated one, against a Prometheus who was somewhat freaking out. Circumstantial advantages gave them each an edge during their win fights.
What about the circumstances behind Old Snake beating Liquid Ocelot? The circumstances were that Old Snake's body was broken. He was getting older by the day, and regularly receiving near fatal injuries during the war without anywhere near adequate time to heal (you can see that he's full of burns for instance). Liquid Ocelot was 100% prime and 100% confident because he had thought he'd won the war. Later on we find out that he was wrong, but he himself never finds out because by then Old Snake had already beaten him to death.
Cutscene fight 1:18 - 4:50
Boss battle 5:35 - 14:00
Furthermore, like how you pointed out that a few of the feats I've presented involved weapons, I should point out that Batman beating Prometheus involved a weapon. Old Snake killing Liquid Ocelot was 100% hand-to-hand.
I have to point out the circumstantial advantage to Bruce in that scene. It's a really good feat overall, and kudos to you for reminding me because I had actually forgotten that Batman had this win over Shiva. But first of all, he's wearing full-body ballistics armor and has titanium gauntlets with kevlar-enforced knuckles. It's no wonder that he KOd Shiva in one punch, I don't see such a thing as a fair test of skill between them, and he also doesn't have those things fighting Snake now.
More importantly, Shiva was probably under mind control from Grodd in that story. A lot of people have always speculated that the villains were all weaker in that scene. Meanwhile, Bruce's own narration confirms that he was about as motivated as he could get, because Shiva almost killed the woman he loves.
The thing about Solid Snake is that his victories always come when he is disadvantaged. He had already fought and barely killed a dozen bosses, including mechs and some of the best warriors in the world, not to mention he'd been set on fire, by the time he confronted Gray Fox and they fought barehanded to the death. Snake still won.
Five years later, Gray Fox was revived... as the first Cyborg Ninja. The evolution of warfare, a superior soldier to humans in every way. A Cyborg Ninja could perform feats of skill and power that human beings were just not capable of, and nobody could stand in there way... except for Solid Snake.
First of all, the Cyborg Ninja slaughtered a whole unit of supersoldiers all with the genes of Big Boss (0:00 - 2:20), so that shows how the very best humans genetically possible fair.
But then, Solid Snake comes along and uses H2H to beat the Ninja while he's using his sword like it's nothing! (4:48 - 5:50)
Snake beats the Ninja in H2H 5:00 - 7:25
Snake beats the Ninja while he's invisible 7:25 - 8:08
Snake's repeated blows at last start to break the Ninja down. He starts glitching and randomly teleporting while throwing oneshot strikes. Snake telegraphs the teleports and beats him further 8:08 - 10:15
Cutscene finish 10:15 - 11:00
So while Batman had ever advantage over Shiva, including physicals, gauntlets, armor, and mindset, Snake was disadvantaged to the Ninja in all those same ways, by a ridiculous proportion. So without even directly needing to compare Gray Fox and Lady Shiva, David's feat is looking more impressive than Bruce's.
I generally don't trust wikis but if this Metal Gear wiki is true then CQC is a combat style that allows alternation between armed and H2H combat. Since this is a pure H2H battle, CQC isn't gonna be much useful.
Good point. CQC is a system designed for combat in a military setting. So a lot of it has to do with weapons. But a lot of it is also unarmed. I admit, the gif I posted where Old Snake defeated four next-gen soldiers revolved a lot around weapons. Snake started off emptyhanded with everybody else armed, but somehow ended the battle with a knife, pistol, and a rifle, and nobody else armed. That doesn't make the feat irrelevant, but it is a detractor.
However, the other gifs I posted were all purely unarmed feats. So everything that I said in my first post and up till now remains relevant, aside from Old Snake vs 4 soldiers.
Well is CQC even a well known style for so many people to get the chance to master it? Even then, to make this so impressive I need a comparison to see if these people are anywhere close to Bruce skill wise.
I did post comparisons. I posted feats of Big Boss, The Boss, Raiden, and Ahab all using CQC against overpowered metahumans. I've just now posted feats of Liquid Snake, Revolver Ocelot, and their fusion.
I don't see how Snake's training is better than Batmans. Bruce has been trained by some of the very best fighters in the DCU, even characters who have lol/BS tier of skill like Master Kirgi.
Solid Snake himself has BS tier skill when he manhandled and restrained Vamp while Vamp has Cyborg level strength (solid metal is like paper).
Vamp as well has BS tier skill straight out of wuxia including muscle reading, shadow binding, and running on water and floating on the surface of water. He's not even top tier in Metal Gear.
Gray Fox has BS tier skill including muscle reading and instant move copying (both stated in the video above) and the fact that he was a little boy with no training, killing "dozens" of armed men alone.
Big Boss has BS tier skill with his ability to oneshot a metahuman who eats rockets by using super judo.
Etc.
Difference between them and Kirgi is that their hax are all extremely relevant to serious fights. Kirgi's fancy tricks were used to win a fight once.
I don't see how you can apply feats from the Boss to Solid Snake. Sure, its the same style but doesn't mean they are as efficient.
Again, that's not a feat for Snake. Sure, he taught CQC to Raiden but that doesn't mean Raiden isn't more skilled. The apprentice can surpass the master
Again, I posted those feats to show consistency. You are starting from scratch on Metal Gear, so I need to give you some context. I can't just say "Snake beat this character" without explaining why these other characters are impressive. You even asked me to show you a comparison of how skilled the other CQC masters were.
Moreover, does Vamp really have strength feats above Batman? Batman has had feats like overpowering Killer Croc (even tho Croc treats steal like tissue paper) and casually holding down Hawkgirl.
Of course he does. Vamp is an actual metahuman. Batman was obviously restraining Hawkgirl with an arm lock, which would be more impressive if she were actually fighting back, but either way it says nothing of strength. I feel like Bruce was using a lot of skill to break Croc's jaws in that second scan too, because obviously Killer Croc is a massive amount physically stronger than Batman. Implying anything else would be silly.
Log in to comment