History Main / CombatBreakDown

** Even in the final part of the trilogy, ''Film/TheMatrixRevolutions'' had Neo and Smith engaging in an aerial battle above the city, [[KungFuSonicBoom creating massive shockwaves]], with Smith gaining the upper hand when he gives Neo one hell of a MeteorMove sending them crashing back to earth, and after much [[NietzscheWannabe monologuing]], the battle is reduced to a slightly high-powered version of GoodOldFisticuffs in a six-foot crater.

* ''Fanfic/SonOfTheSannin'': The final battle of the Fourth Ninja War arc begins as Naruto and Hinata versus Madara Uchiha, who combine their chakras to create the Golden Avatar of Kalika to fight Madara's Susanoo. The battle escalates in the following chapter with Madara powering up his Susanoo with the chakra of the tailed beasts, while the rest of the Konoha 15 join [[AllYourPowersCombined with their own respective powers and abilities]] so the Avatar of Kalika can fight on even grounds. The battle escalates to the point they even go out of Earth's atmosphere, and the explosion of a giant meteor Madara created with Chibaku Tenseis sends both sides back to Earth, crashlanding in the Valley of the End. By then, both the Konoha 15 and Madara are running on fumes, and it takes the combined efforts of everyone to finally bring Madara down for good.

* ''Anime/BlueSubmarineNo6:'' [[spoiler:Mayumi and Hayami having just killed Zorndijk, and the Blue Fleet having already destroyed his entire empire, his son Verg goes out in murderous rage against Hayami and they both end up in a ''very'' brutal fight.]] Not really a fight ''per se''. Hiyami is just letting Verg beat the crap out of him because Zorndyke said that humanity needed to learn to talk out its problems. It was more like a voluntary NoHoldsBarredBeatdown, with Hiyami as the beaten and Verg as the beater.

* ''Series/GameOfThrones''. [[spoiler:Brienne vs The Hound]]. It starts out sword-to-sword; by the end, it's degenerated into a series of groin attacks, ear-biting, rock-bludgeoning, and repeated face-punching.

* ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'': after all the superpowered Servant battles and crazy powers, the final battle of the Heaven's Feel route is between [[spoiler:Shirou and Kirei]]. No powers or other abilities are in play here, just two men at the last of their strength beating the ever-living tar out of each other.

** Competitive Pokemon, especially [[BashBrothers Doubles]], is this trope left and right. A common strategy is using a two-Pokemon setup to create a brokenly powerful Pokemon, such as attacking your own Pokemon with a weak, super-effective move to give their stats a huge boost using the Weakness Policy, and then [[SquashMatch tear through the entire enemy team one after another]]... but if these broken Pokemon are focussed down and their teammates are switched into less-than-ideal situations, these kinds of setups become much more difficult to accomplish. In the worst cases, [[DisasterDominoes all the attacking Pokemon are taken down]] and the team is left with only [[SupportClass support Pokemon]] - though sometimes support Pokemon pack a single attacking move or a status condition, that can [[DownToTheLastPlay still pull out a victory]].

** This is essentially how Luffy won the final round of his fight with Crocodile. The first round had Luffy brutally [[CurbStompBattle curb-stomped]] thanks to Crocodile's devil fruit powers. The second round had Luffy get some hits in thanks to learning about Crocodile's weakness to water but ended with Luffy being dried out. The third round is when the breakdown of the fight occurs -- seeing Luffy show up to fight him ''again'' after seemingly having been killed ''twice'' triggers Crocodile's VillainousBreakdown, which translates to how he fights Luffy. Rather than use his [[StoryBreakerPower broken devil fruit powers]] to kill his opponent, he instead takes off the protective casing on his poison hook and tries to match Luffy physically, degenerating the battle into a pure brawl. Crocodile is ''not'' a physical fighter, his Warlord title be damned, and even at that point in the series, very few people could hope to match Luffy [[CharlesAtlasSuperpower in a physical contest]]. By the time he starts deciding to use his sand powers again, Luffy had built up enough steam to plow through it and finish off Crocodile with a brutal Gum Gum Storm.

** Jack's first battle against Aku's minions begins with him in full armor riding atop a six-legged horse creature, shooting diamond-tipped arrows and attacking with lances and booby traps. It ends with him dismounted, naked from the waist up, covered in oil, and armed only with his sword and sheer rage.

When a fight lasts a long time, often a ''very'' long time, things can get a bit... [[ImprovisedWeapon different]]. Elaborate sword duels can turn into {{bar brawl}}s. A gunfight or mechafight becomes [[GoodOldFisticuffs a fistfight]]. A long-range [[PowersDoTheFighting exchange of sorcery or powers]] becomes an up-close and personal NoHoldsBarredBeatdown. {{Improvised Weapon}}s start appearing. Things get [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown bru]][[ManBitesMan tal]], or just plain [[GroinAttack sil]][[WimpFight ly]], or even sad.

* In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'', [[spoiler:the final battle between Old Snake and Ocelot starts as an over-the-top cutscene brawl before entering into a three-stage fight (each stage reminiscent of the previous three ''Metal Gear Solid'' games), and eventually degenerates into two exhausted old men slugging it out with each other]].

* ''Film/GunpowderMilkshake'': Sam's two fights against the "Boneheads". While in the first everyone is fit and healthy, they begin the second with everyone disabled to some extent. Sam's arms are paralysed, forcing her to fight by [[SpectacularSpinning spinning wildly]] and hoping to hit something. Of her three opponents, one is in a wheelchair, the second on crutches, and the third has an arm in a sling.

* ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'': An interesting variant occurs when the team battles the [[RealityWarper nigh-omnipotent]] [[AristocratsAreEvil Marquis of Death]]. They manage to exhaust his reality - warping powers by pitting him against a past version of himself, who has the same powers, but is not quite as strong. Once the Marquis wins, he is exhausted enough for the team (helped by a machine Reed Richards created to merge all 4 of them with countless alternate reality versions of themselves) to take him down. Although before going down fully, he still survives a Planck Temperature blast from the merged Human Torch which could potentially damage the multiverse.

* The FinalBattle of ''Anime/{{Scryed}}'' starts out as a fight between alter-powers which continuously escalates as Kazuma and Ryuhou use higher tiers of their alters. Once they've hit the strongest form of their alters, they quickly start breaking away each other's PowerArmor and then gradually break down to a simple (though brutal) slugfest. The final clash is each using the last of their energy (and their own blood) to form a tiny fragment of their base alter-power and swinging at each other.

* The FinalBattle of ''Anime/{{Scryed}}'' starts out as a fight between alter-powers and then gradually breaks down to a simple (though brutal) slugfest.

* Used in ''[[http://www.fimfiction.net/story/109581/1/i-did-not-want-to-die/i-did-not-want-to-die I Did Not Want To Die]]''. The protagonist starts out with an [[CoolGuns M4A1]] carbine and in the end resorts to unarmed punches.

* Present in practically every fight of ''Fanfic/PokeWars'' so far. The only exception was Pikachu vs. Sandslash, since (despite everything) it was just a spar.
* Happens in ''Fanfic/RacerAndTheGeek'' during the battle of Hill 20. The fight gets ''DESPERATE''.

When a fight lasts a long time, often a ''very'' long time, things can get a bit... [[ImprovisedWeapon different]]. Elaborate sword duels can turn into {{bar brawl}}s. A gunfight or mechafight becomes [[GoodOldFisticuffs a fistfight]]. A long range [[PowersDoTheFighting exchange of sorcery or powers]] becomes an up-close and personal NoHoldsBarredBeatdown. {{Improvised Weapon}}s start appearing. Things get [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown bru]][[ManBitesMan tal]], or just plain [[GroinAttack sil]][[WimpFight ly]], or even sad.

* Revy and Roberta's first duel in ''Manga/BlackLagoon'' begins with a car chase across the city, then becomes a deadly game of hide-and-go-seek at the docks, then finally ends up as a no holds barred fist fight that lasts ''all night''. [[spoiler:Roberta wins, just.]]
* Most fights in ''Manga/BladeOfTheImmortal'' are bloody, messy and... rather clumsy looking affairs. {{Clean Cut}}s are few and far between.

* In the ''Manga/DesertPunk'' anime, the titular hero and his rival, both {{Gadgeteer Genius}}es have a duel that lasts an entire day- but it results in truly EpicFail as they abandon their usual tactics and have a BlastOut with shotguns, the handguns, followed by running out of ammo and throwing rocks at each other. Eventually, they run out of loose rocks, and flip rubber bands at each other. The watching townspeople get bored and go home, and eventually [[CrossCounter they punch each other out]].

** Before that, in the original ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'', Amuro and Char systematically destroy each others mobile suits, going from the full suits, to fighters, to a gunfight, to swords... at which point it is interrupted.
** In a most memorable scene from ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED'', Athrun and Kira duke it out in a free for all death match that made them both forget that their Gundams had any kind of specialty in mind and just go at it against each other. Involved lost limbs, broken cockpits and bashed heads. Eventually would have ended in Athrun's victory had he not ran out of power to fire the Scylla cannon after grabbing Kira. Of course this also results in him winning anyway since he self destructs the Gundam to attempt to kill Kira.

* ''Manga/MajesticPrince'': Episode 18's battle with Klein. By the end of the fight every one of Team Rabbits' mechs have been rendered inoperational.
* ''Anime/MegaloBox'': The match between Aragaki and Joe eventually devolves into the fourth round being little but both men jabbing each other in the face, unable to make telling blows; Joe being too tired and [[spoiler:Aragaki's mind and leg protheses both giving up on him]].
* In ''Anime/MetalFightBeyblade: Metal Masters'', this is how Gingka's fight with Kyoya plays out. It starts with them fiercely attacking each other with all their strongest special moves, but ends with them so exhausted that their beyblades barely manage to touch each other before they fall over and Gingka and Kyoya pass out.

** This is how the battle between Madara and Hashirama ultimately went. It started with them throwing their most powerful and impressive techniques at each other. It ended with [[spoiler:a battered and exhausted Hashirama tricking an equally-exhausted Madara with a clone technique -- one of the simplest tricks in a ninja's arsenal -- and impaling him in the back with a sword, which was only possible because Madara couldn't even maintain his Sharingan to see through the deception]].

** This is essentially how Luffy won the final round of his fight with Crocodile. The first round had Luffy brutally [[CurbStompBattle curb-stomped]] thanks to Crocodile's devil fruit powers. The second round had Luffy get some hits in thanks to learning about Crocodile's weakness to water, but ended with Luffy being dried out. The third round is when the breakdown of the fight occurs -- seeing Luffy show up to fight him ''again'' after seemingly having been killed ''twice'' triggers Crocodile's VillainousBreakdown, which translates to how he fights Luffy. Rather than use his [[StoryBreakerPower broken devil fruit powers]] to kill his opponent, he instead takes off the protective casing on his poison hook and tries to match Luffy physically, degenerating the battle into a pure brawl. Crocodile is ''not'' a physical fighter, his Warlord title be damned, and even at that point in the series, very few people could hope to match Luffy [[CharlesAtlasSuperpower in a physical contest]]. By the time he starts deciding to use his sand powers again, Luffy had built up enough steam to plow through it and finish off Crocodile with a brutal Gum Gum Storm.

* ''Anime/Persona4TheGoldenAnimation'' has [[spoiler:the battle between Yu and Adachi. While Adachi has only one Persona, it's the incredibly powerful Magatsu-Izanagi, which takes ''all'' of Yu's Personas to bring down. In the end, neither has any Personas to summon, and the fight degenerates to a one-on-one brawl between Yu and Adachi, with Yu eventually managing to knock Adachi to the ground and pummel him]].

* The FinalBattle of ''Anime/{{Scryed}}'' starts out as a fight between alter-powers and then gradually breaks down to a simple (though brutal) slug fest.
* In ''Manga/SoulEater'', after all the anti-magic, enchanted weaponry, suicidal spirit-attacks and what-have-you the protagonists throw at the BigBad fail to even scratch him, [[spoiler:he is finally defeated with a perfectly ordinary fist to the face]].

* At the conclusion of ''ComicBook/SupermanUpUpAndAway'', Superman has been battling Luthor, who is in a giant Kryptonian battleship equipped with Kryptonite. Superman slowly destroys the ship, but loses his powers to the Kryptonite. Luthor dons his protective suit and starts to get out, just as they plough into the ocean. The two wash up on the island, with Superman depowered and Luthor's armour shorted out, and proceed to beat each other unconscious in a fist fight.

* The final fight against [[spoiler:Mega Latios and Michael]] in the ''Fanfic/{{Ancienverse}}'' starts off with throwing powerful attacks, but becomes little more than a glorified fist fight by the end.
* Luna and Junior's fight in ''Fanfic/TheBridge''. By the end, Luna only has use of one wing and can't fly while Junior is injured so badly he's not healing normally. Both are also battered and bloody. The final attack isn't even some big fancy move, just Luna bucking Junior really hard in the face.

* ''Fanfic/ManifestDestiny'': The Third Recon Team experiences this at Italica. Starting with their top of the line weaponry, then gradually wears down as ammo and supplies run low, personnel become injured and incapacitated, and as the bandits began to overrun their positions. Emerson was down to his M45 pistol before [[BigDamnHeroes they were saved by the Marines and JSDF forces]].

* ''Fanfic/StormsOverhead'': The duel against [[spoiler:Karin]] which begins as a massive speed-based magic and iron dust battle turns into this as it slowly devolves into a slower and more brutal close quarters combat.

* Happens to Sgt. Calhoun in ''WesternAnimation/WreckItRalph'' during the movie climax against [[spoiler:Cybugs in Sugar Rush]]. She is using her rifle at the beginning, but thanks to the enemies' numbers she rather quickly runs of ammo and needs to resort to her pistol. She eventually runs out of ammo for that as well, since when she and her pals are cornered on a bridge, she prepares her knife as a last resort.

* ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier'' has the first fight between the titular characters. The Winter Soldier starts the fight with an assault rifle that he quickly drops in favor of a sub-machine gun. He's forced to use a handgun, Captain America's shield, and two different knives until he's down to his holdout pistol. In the second fight, he's reduced to his bare fists.

** The Bride's battles with both Vernita and Elle degenerates rather rapidly, with all combatants resorting to [[CombatPragmatism dirty tactics]] and [[ImprovisedWeapon Improvised Weapons]] within minutes.

* In ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'', Obi-Wan and Grievous start out their fight on Utapau with a lightsaber duel. After the clone army storms the base, however, both of them lose their lightsabers in the ensuing frenzy, and after a chase scene they resume their fight with their fists as well as an electrostaff and blaster that they grapple over.
* PlayedForLaughs in ''Film/RobinHoodMenInTights'' with Robin and Little John's fight over the creek. It starts off as a staff fight, only for them to repeatedly snap each others' staves in half, throw away one stick, and continue fighting. By the end it's essentially become a game of Pencil Pop.

* The ending of ''Film/TalladegaNightsTheBalladOfRickyBobby'' uses this idea, although substituting auto racing for actual combat. Near the end of an aggressive and hard-fought race there's a spectacular crash that destroys all the cars. But Ricky and Jean are so determined to beat each other that they both get out of their cars and start running. [[spoiler:Ricky wins, barely, but both of them are officially disqualified for leaving their cars.]]

* The duel between Raghunath Rao and Rana Sanga in the back story of the ''Literature/BelisariusSeries'' was this. It started with both combatants on horseback, moved to fighting on foot, went to wrestling when both combatants were disarmed and eventually ended with both of them on the ground, too exhausted to move and debating philosophy. Since both of them fit the CulturedBadass trope, even the debating was admitted to be quite impressive as well.

* One climactic fight in the ''Jerusalem Delivered'' takes place between two knights who end up closer than a sword's length and resort to shield bashing, headbutting and eventually wrestling.

** During the intense battle aboard the station in "Severed Dreams", Garibaldi tries to set up station security at a chokepoint to repel incoming boarders. However, the recently-recruited Narns charge forward, unused to such tactics, forcing everyone else to do the same, and the firefight quickly breaks down into a massive melee.

* ''Series/GameOfThrones''. [[spoiler:Brienne vs The Hound]]. It starts out sword-to-sword; by the end it's degenerated into a series of groin attacks, ear-biting, rock-bludgeoning, and repeated face-punching.

** The final battle between ''Series/KamenRiderKuuga'' and [[BigBad N-Daguva-Zeba]] progresses thusly: Kuuga [[SuperMode Ultimate Form]] vs. Daguva, brutally assaulting each other until they shatter each other's {{Transformation Trinket}}s and revert to their human forms, still punching each other. However it starts and ends as a fistfight, albeit initially one between two super-powered beings.

* ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'': In the second-half of the pilot, ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Battle At the Binary Stars]]'', a large fleet engagement starts with both sides mixing it up with great intensity. As the battle damage piles up on both sides, the overall pace of the fight drags down, as illustrated by a late scene of ''Shenzhou'', a hole blown clean through her saucer, limping past a disabled Klingon warship, one of her phasers pecking away slowly rather than the rapid-fire they were using earlier. [[spoiler:The battle ends with both ''Shenzhou'' and the Klingon flagship ''Sarcophagus'' disabled, with a small Federation boarding party fighting hand-to-hand with several of the Klingons, ending with Captain Georgiou's death at T'Kuvma's hands and T'Kuvma's at Commander Burnham's.]]
* Several of the Terminator duels in ''Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles'' start out with both combatants shooting at each other. Considering that [[MadeOfIron doesn't work too often]] against Terminators, the battles rapidly devolve into environmentally-destructive fisticuffs.
* In ''Series/{{Vikings}}'' when Ragnar and Rollo confront each other after Rollo has betrayed the Norse and married into the family of the French Emperor, it begins as a sword fight between two highly capable combatants, but after each man manages to disarm the other, it turns into a violent, sloppy fistfight as the two brothers take out all their long suppressed anger and resentment on each other. By the end both men are so battered that only adrenaline is keeping them on their feet.

** In older editions, this will often happen to SquishyWizard type characters, particularly at lower levels: when they're out of [[VancianMagic spell slots]], their viable combat options often degenerate to plinking away with crossbow bolts, which casters aren't often proficient with. 3.5th Edition added magical "reserve feats" that allowed mages to use damaging or non-damaging magical effects so long as they kept a particular spell slot un-"fired," which while not as dramatic as proper spellcasting, was at least better to mundane weaponry. Later editions have given spellcasters unlimited usage of cantrips, the weakest spells available, and 5th Edition has buffed cantrips to the point that they scale with character level, making them reliable and viable attack options.

** First Edition, as a successor to ''D&D'' 3.5 Edition in light of 4th Edition's controversial status, tries to fix this by giving all SquishyWizard type characters some combat effective ability to use when not casting their leveled spells on top of their woefully weak cantrips. For example, Witches have Hexes which can be nearly as good as leveled spells, specialist Wizards might have nice powers like Blinding Ray or Diviner's Fortune to blind enemies or buff allies, and Clerics have reusable domain powers.

*** Starfinder just gives the Squishy Wizard types guns just as good as everyone else's and makes them almost as capable of shooting them as everyone else. Those characters won't steal the Soldier's or Operative's spotlight in a firefight, but they will not be ineffective either.

* ''VideoGame/AsurasWrath'': The last battle of the game begins with [[spoiler:two gods capable of becoming planet sized, throwing and destroying planets, meteors, and small stars, causing supernova, warping reality, firing laser beams at each other, and stopping time, and ends with them grappling and punching each other to death after all their godly strength has been exhausted]].

* ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'': Units that take large amounts of damage move at a crawl. In some games, power plants production is reduced if they're damaged.

* ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar'': Squads that have their [[MoraleMechanic Morale Meter]] reduced to zero become horribly inefficient at fighting, losing accuracy, damage and armor, and it drops as long as the squad takes damage. If you somehow get two squads to suffer this, it leads to this trope. Some squads are immune to morale damage, mostly thanks to being complete fanatics, possessed by daemons, missing chunks of their brain, or being more afraid of the commissar than the enemy.

* Throughout ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' series (at least until ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' did away with BreakableWeapons), this could happen to your weapon in combat. At that point, you're left with a lesser backup weapon, your spells, or even your ''[[EmergencyWeapon fists]]''. Notably, this can happen to [=NPCs=] as well, though it is much more rare as their weapons typically start at full condition and fights rarely last long enough for the weapon to break.

* Competing online with other players in ''Fight Night: Champion'' for many rounds can result in this, as both players will have reduced stamina by that point. Even more so when there are two players that have been spamming punches and wasting stamina.

* This is the best way to describe the final battle between Ellie and Abby in ''VideoGame/TheLastOfUsPartII''. [[spoiler:Ellie goes out to California to hunt down Abby, the woman responsible for killing Joel in the beginning of the game and also killing her friend Jesse while she, Dina and Tommy were in Seattle. By the time she finds Abby, she's lost a lot of muscle mass from not only being used as a slave to the Rattlers, but has been left for dead crucified along with her partner, Lev. Even though Ellie lets her down and Abby has just as much reason to want to kill her for murdering her friends, she's forced into a tired final battle when Ellie points her knife at Lev, making her settle the score. What follows is a knockdown, drag-out brawl that leaves both girls a bloody, broken mess along with Ellie [[{{Fingore}} losing her left pinkie and ring fingers after Abby bites them off]]. The only reason Ellie doesn't kill her is cause she's finally able to let go of her hatred of her as she recalls her final conversation with Joel, allowing Abby and Lev to leave.]]
* Breakable weapons in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' mean that boss fights often become this, as you devolve from hitting the thing with a Royal Claymore and shooting three bomb arrows at a time, to just wailing on it with the weapons that dropped from those mooks you killed earlier. In a pinch, players might even resort to throwing their endless supply of comparatively-weak bombs.
* A common outcome in ''VideoGame/MechWarrior'' games and its adjacent tactical games ''VideoGame/MechCommander'' and ''VideoGame/BattleTech2018''. You will generally start with 'Mechs containing full combat loads and fresh armor, but as missions progres you will start expending valuable ammunition or losing precious armor (or worse yet, components and internal structure). In worst case scenarios, you may start losing 'Mechs and pilots. Many of the games in these series will not let you repair or reload mid-battle, so by the end of a mission you will probably be down to your last few salvos and sporting several armor breaches or the occasional lost limb. In recognition of this fact, most stock 'Mech designs intall a RangedEmergencyWeapon by default, typically a basic laser or two, but [[TemptingFate some players remove these under the impression they won't need them]]. In such instances, god help you in the cases here you have to play missions back-to-back, surviving on whatever you finished with in the earlier mission, such as the "Siegebreaker" DLC missions in ''Battletech''.

** Competitive Pokemon, especially [[BashBrothers Doubles]], is this trope left and right. A common strategy is using a two-Pokemon setup to create a brokenly-powerful Pokemon, such as attacking your own Pokemon with a weak, super-effective move to give their stats a huge boost using the Weakness Policy, and then [[SquashMatch tear through the entire enemy team one after another]]... but if these broken Pokemon are focussed down and their teammates are switched into less-than-ideal situations, these kinds of setups become much more difficult to accomplish. In the worst cases, [[DisasterDominoes all the attacking Pokemon are taken down]] and the team is left with only [[SupportClass support Pokemon]] - though sometimes support Pokemon pack a single attacking move, or a status condition, that can [[DownToTheLastPlay still pull out a victory]].

** If you run out of dedicated food items, you have the option of wasting your effect-causing berries, seeds and elixirs, or letting your hunger run down and eat into your health until you can find something to eat off the floor. Either way, it's a pretty bad time.
** Orbs are precious. You can't pack many since they're inventory-filling, rare and expensive, but if you run out of them and enter a Monster House, prepare for hundreds of turns of agony as you're forced to pick off each Pokemon one by one.

* ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'': one particular level ends with DuelBoss battle between Sanger and Wodan. Both of their machines get severely damaged in the cutscene beforehand, and you have three turns to defeat Wodan before the level ends anyways. To get the BraggingRightsReward, you will have to throw ''everything'' at Wodan, and by fight's end, Sanger's machine will be stripped of pretty much all energy, Spirit, and be on its last legs.

* ''Videogame/WeWhoAreAboutToDie:'' The Stamina system, combined with BreakableWeapons and armor, can lead to this during protracted fights. Sure, you ''start'' with professional combatants skillfully swinging sharpened blades, parrying and blocking with ease and with gleaming armor to stop what their guards couldn't. But as everything shatters and injuries pile on, you can end with two half-naked, heavily injured and utterly exhausted men smashing random crap the crowds throw at them into each other's faces hoping against hope the other man dies first.

** Franchise/{{Terminator}} vs. Franchise/RoboCop sees the time-traveling assassin go through all of his human weapons, before eventually losing his skin and resorting to his futuristic {{plasma|Cannon}} rifle. That's enough to take out [=RoboCop=]'s extra weapons and jet pack, but the T-800 still winds up blown in half. Even then, it is able to detonate it's hydrogen fuel cells. Unfortunately for it, [=RoboCop=] launched it far enough away to be out of the blast range.
** ComicBook/{{Deadpool}} vs. ComicBook/{{Deathstroke}} starts out with [[GunFu a lot of guns and fancy acrobatics]] but eventually devolves into a brutal swordfight amid the ruins of a 50 car pile up.

** [[WebAnimation/RedVsBlue Agent Carolina vs. The Meta]] starts off with the two {{Super Soldier}}s fighting each other using hand-to-hand combat combined with their high-tech arsenal. The fight goes into a bit of a stalemate due to [[TheJuggernaut Meta]] absorbing blow after blow and [[LightningBruiser Carolina]] [[SuperSpeed moving too fast to get a proper hit on]]. Then, Carolina [[DesperationAttack tries using all of her armor enhancements to get the upper hand]] only for the Meta to activate his [[TimeStandsStill Temporal Distortion Unit]] to freeze her in her tracks and follows it up with slamming her into a wall with his [[GrenadeLauncher Brute Shot]]. This leaves Carolina bleeding from the chest and Church focusing his efforts on using the [[HealThyself Healing Unit]] to tend to her wound. Carolina retrieves her pistol and unloads the clip in Meta, who finally starts to slow down from the multiple injuries he has sustained over the fight, [[{{Determinator}} however he still continues to advance on Carolina]]. He then throws his Brute Shot at her, slashing her across the chest, and is just about to pummel her to death when Church distracts Meta in order to give Carolina enough time to blast The Meta's head off with his own Brute Shot.

** Downplayed and Subverted in VideoGame/{{Wario}} vs. [[Franchise/{{Kirby}} King Dedede]] as the two start off in their [[SuperMode Super Modes]] (Wario-Man and Masked Dedede) before they lose those forms and start relying on their other powerups and wackier abilities just to one up each other where things start to escalate from there.
** ComicBook/{{Batman}} vs. ComicBook/IronMan bends the rules of the show a little to give the two combatants their most powerful suit of PoweredArmor, rather than limit them to their normal arsenal. Both Batman's Hellbat and Iron Man's Godbuster armor are around the same power level, making them able to face off against {{Physical God}}s like Darkseid and Galactus, so that alone wasn't enough to decide the fight, and both suits get destroyed: Iron Man gets blown through several buildings by the Hellbat's ChestBlaster, causing his Godbuster to fall apart, but before Batman can deal the finishing blow, Iron Man hacks his suit, then hits him with Sol's Hammer (a KillSat powered by a DysonSphere), damaging both their armors to the point where they're forced to abandon them. As a result, the fight ends with the two billionaires fighting hand-to-hand, allowing peak-human martial arts expert Bruce to dominate... until Tony reveals that [[YouAreAlreadyDead he implanted him with a self-destructing nano-armor all the way back at the start of the fight]]. That's still quite a huge step down from a suit of armor that can stand up to some of the Marvel multiverse's most powerful beings.

* The ending conflict in the Empire of Blood arc from ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'' drags on like this, with the Vector Legion hammering away again and again at the Order, forcing them to improvise over and over. Near the end, you see most of them lying near dead in the desert heat before their back-up arrives. The final attack of the battle is delivered by Haley, propping her bow with her legs as one of her arms was broken by Tarquin.

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'': In "Who Would Win?", an argument between Finn and Jake escalates into an all-out fight, with the two brothers facing off against each other with Finn's sword-fighting skills against Jake's shape-shifting powers. The two prove to be evently matched, and the battle ends with the two of them growing increasingly exhausted, reduced to awkwardly grappling with each other and [[CombatPragmatist pulling cheap tricks]] before collapsing in exhaustion.
* In the final episode of the ''Battletech'' cartoon has [[TheCaptain Adam Steiner]] (our protagonist) and [[DragonInChief Nicolai Malthus]] going against each other in Fresh [[HumongousMecha BattleMechs]] in a duel of sorts for the planet [[DoomedHometown Somerset]]. Nicolai Malthus wins the mech duel, but then loses his own mech to a cliff face after Adam [[FallingIntoTheCockpit jumps into his cockpit]]; the ensuing struggle sending the mech out of control. Steiner and Malthus end up duking it out man-to-man on the remains of Malthus's mech.
* ''WesternAnimation/BobsBurgers'': In "Burger Wars", a fist-fight between Bob and his SitcomArchNemesis Jimmy Pesto ends with Bob and Jimmy awkwardly grappling with each other, exhausted.
* ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory''. When Dexter and Mandark's dads throw down (ironic considering Mandark's father is a peace loving hippie), it starts out as a flat-out fist fight, then degrades into a wrestling match. Then they start throwing food and stray animals at each other. Then they just jump into their cars and ram each other for the rest of the day. The episode ends with Mandark and Dexter arguing over whose ''mom'' is tougher.

** Jack's first battle against Aku's minions begins with him in full armor riding atop a six legged horse creature, shooting diamond tipped arrows and attacking with lances and booby traps. It ends with him dismounted, naked from the waist up, covered in oil, and armed only with his sword and sheer rage.

** During the battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War, Joshua Chamberlain's 20th Maine regiment had to hold a vital hill on the flank of the Union Army. They repelled several enemy attacks, but ran out of bullets. In desperation, Chamberlain ordered a bayonet charge, which saved the Union Army and got him the Medal of Honor. Several battles in that war had soldiers ''throwing rocks at each other.''

** Standard procedure during mass aerial combat. Faced with too many aircraft moving too quickly for a human to properly track, combat breaks down rapidly into smaller and smaller fights. The stories of pilots who began the fight as part of a large formation, then looked around at the end and saw a whole bunch of empty sky are numerous, while one of the best ways to score kills is to realize somebody doesn't think you're part of their fight and kill them before they realize you are.
** The Cruiser Night Action of Friday, November 13th, 1942 during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. Think of the big guns on a WWII cruiser. Think of the even-huger guns on a battleship. Now imagine dozens of those ships firing those huge guns into each other while their hulls scrape together, antiaircraft gunners spray their counterparts from a few feet away, and men getting cut down by shrapnel from their own gun's hit on an enemy ship. A U.S. Navy officer who survived the battle later compared it to "a barroom brawl after the lights had been shot out".
** The Battle of Stalingrad started as a battle between armies trying to outflank each other on the steppe and breakthroughs could shift the front lines hundreds of kilometers and encircle tens of thousands of soldiers. As the fighting moved into the city, the two forces experienced massive attrition. By November 1942, the two armies were so undermanned and exhausted that a major attack now involved only a few hundred men and the capture of a single building was seen as a signficant victory. The Soviet defenders were on their last legs and were almost out of food and amunition but the German units were now too weak to finish the Soviets off. The Germans neeed another month to finish the conquest of the city but never got the time as new Soviet armies launched Operation Uranus which ended any chance of a German victory at Stalingrad and destroyed the German forces fighting there.
** Far different than most of the honorable sword-on-sword fights you see in films set in Medieval Europe, most fights were far more [[CombatPragmatist vicious and simple]]. Knights would ram people with horses, use multiple weapons, punch, kick, use sword as hammers while holding it backwards, etc... Backstabbing and double teaming opponents was also very common. One of the standard strategies for dealing with a fully-armored knight was basically to [[https://i.imgur.com/L9sVXic.png wrestle him to the ground and then draw a knife and try to shove it through one of the weak points in his armor]]... which was likely his [[EyeScream eye]], neck, armpit, or [[GroinAttack crotch.]]

* Also, Mixed Martial Arts bouts also tend to go this way. The first round can be fast paced and exciting, but after 10 minutes of trying (and mostly succeeding) in beating the crap out of each other, the fighters noticeably slow down in the final round.

* Long and/or grueling boxing matches often follow this trope. A fight may start with the fighters moving very quickly and fluidly, throwing pinpoint combinations that show their skill as boxers. After a half hour or so of hitting a guy in the face and getting hit back, the two fighters may be reduced to a tired wrestling with each other and occasionally throwing sloppy, exhausted punches that don't much resemble what was being done in the first round when the fighters were fresh. Factor in the possibility for injuries to the hands, face, eyes, and even other areas such as the back, knees, and shoulders, and it's not surprising when this trope is played straight during a fight.
** [[UsefulNotes/MuhammadAli Muhammad Ali]]'s famous "rope-a-dope" technique was essentially based around letting his opponent stay on offense the whole time so he reaches this point faster, while using the elasticity of the ring's ropes to help absorb the force of their blows, then capitalizing on it with a burst of aggression he doesn't have the energy to defend against, typically leading to a knock-out blow. Most famously, Ali used this strategy against George Foreman at the Rumble in the Jungle to negate Foreman's superior punching strength. He combined this with [[IShallTauntYou taunting Foreman during the fight]] to provoke him into [[BlindedByRage throwing reckless haymakers that would use up even more energy and would be easier to at least partially dodge]].
** The Thrilla in Manila, the third and final fight between arch rivals Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, featured some high-level boxing. Towards the end, however, Frazier’s eyes became swollen shut from Ali's punches so that he couldn’t even see what he was swinging at, and the referee had to help him find his corner at the end of the round. Meanwhile, Ali became so exhausted from the marathon battle that he could only throw a few punches each round. Indeed, he’d been pushed so far beyond the limits of his body that he felt like he was ''dying''. With the boxers in their corners after the fourteenth round, Ali told his cornermen to cut his gloves off, but his trainer Angelo Dundee refused to let him quit. It was the opposite in the other corner, where Frazier was begging his second Eddie Futch to [[ICanStillFight let him keep fighting]], to no avail: determined to save his fighter from further damage, Futch signalled corner retirement to the referee. Ali briefly celebrated his victory by walking around the ring before [[PostVictoryCollapse collapsing on his stool]], after which he was rushed to the hospital and treated for dehydration.

* World War One (at least on the Western Front in France) was a large scale version. Instead of Napoleonic style field battles of manoeuvre and tactics it rapidly became two entrenched armies simply throwing artillery fire and masses of men at each other's defences in brute force attempts to break through.

* This trope is both played straight and subverted ''Film/KillBill''.

** The final battle between ''Series/KamenRiderKuuga'' and [[BigBad N-Daguba-Zeba]] progresses thusly: Kuuga [[SuperMode Ultimate Form]] vs. Daguba, brutally assaulting each other until they shatter each other's {{Transformation Trinket}}s and revert to their human forms, still punching each other. However it starts and ends as a fistfight, albeit initially one between two super-powered beings.

* ''VideoGame/AsurasWrath'': The last battle of the game begins with [[spoiler:two gods capable of becoming planet sized, warping reality, firing laser beams at each other, and stopping time, and ends with them grappling and punching each other to death after all their godly strength has been exhausted]].

* In ''VideoGame/Tekken7'', [[spoiler:the final battle between Kazuya and Heihachi starts out epic and flashy, with Kazuya turning into his True Devil form and Heihachi refusing to stay down no matter how many hits he takes. By the end of the battle, both men are exhausted and at their limit, reduced to slugging it out until Heihachi finally falls and dies]].

* ''Literature/XWingSeries'': In ''Starfighters of Adumar'', Wes Janson participates in a blastsword duel only to purposely turn it into a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown -- knowing that he can't beat the other guy in a fair duel, he [[YouFightLikeACow goads him]] into making a wild swing, disarms him, then puts up his fists. The other guy tries to punch back, but he's not trained in GoodOldFisticuffs. Wes Janson then promptly just punches the guy until he is one hit from dropping... then, as a finishing blow... SLAPS him.
* In ''Literature/MachineMan'', the final fight between [[spoiler:ManInTheMachine Dr. Charles Neumann and crazed {{cyborg}} Carl]] sees them deal a ''great'' deal of damage to each other before [[spoiler:Neumann blasts Carl to smithereens with his {{BFG}} ArmCannon]].
* Derfel, the narrator from ''Literature/TheWarlordChronicles'' lampshades this several times, and notes it as being almost inevitable in any proper early Middle Ages battle that features both sides using a shield wall, which is essentially a StoneWall tactic. The start of the battle may have plenty of {{Boisterous Bruiser}}s [[BadassBoast taunting]] [[TrashTalk the enemy]], wizards chanting, and [[TheBerserker berserkers]] making charges at the enemy lines, but after more than a few minutes of battle, you have a bunch of exhausted men weighed down by their own armor and weapons whose swords have been blunted by the impact on shields and armor, whose spears have snapped, and are reduced to leaning against one another and just trying to muster up the energy for the occasional attempt to stab an enemy soldier. Now imagine a few hours of doing that...

* ''Literature/BookOfSwords'': Baron Doon goes three rounds against [[InfinityPlusOneSword Shieldbreaker]], which is shown in-universe to always defeat armed opponents. He keeps dropping his sundered weapons and grabbing new ones.

* In Literature/SerbianEpicPoetry, duels often start with both combatants using spears, then they go through maces and swords in some order, before ending up using their bare hands (and, on at least one occasion, teeth).
* The duel between Raghunath Rao and Rana Sanga in the back story of the ''Literature/BelisariusSeries'' was this. It started with both combatants on horseback, moved to fighting on foot, went to wrestling when both combatants were disarmed and eventually ended with both of them on the ground, too exhausted to move and debating philosophy. Since both of them fit the CulturedBadass trope, even the debating was admitted to be quite impressive as well.
* The fights in ''Literature/EdenGreen'' are improvisational and brutal, with the needle-infected humans often creating weapons from their own bodies. In the final battle, [[spoiler:Eden and her best friend finally drop all pretense and wail on each other without mercy]].
* ''Literature/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone'': Having been goaded into accepting Malfoy's challenge to a WizardsDuel, but having very little idea how to go about fighting one, Harry is concerned about what happens if the (very few) combat spells he knows don't work. Ron immediately suggests a sensible alternative: [[MundaneSolution "Drop your wand and punch him on the nose."]]
* In R.S. Belcher's ''Nightwise,'' the climactic battle between Laytham Ballard and Dusan Slorzack begins with a masterful WizardsDuel, with each spell being perfectly countered by the opponent; as the fight continues, the spells become less and less artful, until the two are just hammering each other with raw blasts of kinetic energy. Then Laytham surprises Slorzack by charging up to him and sucker-punching him in the face, then trying to strangle him; [[spoiler:Slorzack retaliates by grabbing a gun and shooting Laytham in the guts.]]

* Several of the Terminator duels in ''Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles'' start out with both combatants shooting at each other. Considering that [[MadeOfIron doesn't work too often]] against Terminators, the battles rapidly devolve into environmentally-destructive fisticuffs.
* ''Series/TheMonkees'' episode "Fairy Tale" climaxed with a battle between [[FarmBoy Peter]] [[IdiotHero Tork]] and [[BlackKnight Knight]] [[EvilChancellor Harold]]. They fought with swords and somehow lost them, they continued fighting with daggers, and then Harold said, "You know, I'm really a non-violent sort." Peter replied, "That's very refreshing," and they put away their daggers and arm-wrestled.

* In ''{{Series/Firefly}}'' Mal starts fighting Atherton Wing in a swordfight. As he's never touched a sword before, this goes poorly. But when things get down to the punching, he has a definite advantage.
* ''Series/GameOfThrones''. [[spoiler:Brienne vs The Hound]]. It starts out sword-to-sword; by the end it's degenerated into a series of groin attacks, ear-biting, rock-bludgeoning, and repeated face-punching.
* ''Series/Daredevil2015'' has the end of the second episode, when Matt goes to take on roughly a dozen thugs having already suffered a thorough beating with only the barest minimum of patching up. He ''starts'' flinging them through doors and jumping off walls, but by the end is reduced to bodily knocking them down and hitting until they stop hitting back. It's a mark of his sheer bloody-mindedness that he still wins. It's especially evident because the fight scene is shot [[TheOner all in one take]] and nobody [[TapOnTheHead goes down after a single hit]], instead [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome they keep getting back up again but with their punches getting sloppier, weaker, and less accurate]] as the fight drags on.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E1TheMagiciansApprentice The war on Skaro]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E4GenesisOfTheDaleks that led to the Daleks' creation]] is an extremely large scale example, as it went on for so long that both sides began running out of resources to power their more advanced weapons and resorted to using gunpowder-based weapons, bows and arrows, etc.
** The Last Great Time War was a universal-sized conflict that spanned through all of time and space. It involved apocalyptic threats on the regular, agents and soldiers weaponizing paradoxes, people dying and being resurrected in endless cycles, etc. On the last day of the Time War, as depicted in ''[[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor The Day of the Doctor]]'', the conflict had devolved into the Daleks attacking the Time Lords with more conventional warfare (albeit with trillions of troops armed with weapons capable of exploding entire planets). The Time Lords claim that all of their doomsday devices except for the Moment (which is ultimately used by the Doctor to end the conflict for good [[spoiler:or so he thought]]) were already used up, resulting in this trope.
* The big Mutai fight in the ''Series/BabylonFive'' episode "TKO" starts off as a gritty pugilistic battle and eventually devolves into a clumsy back-and-forth punch trade at the end as the fighters both approach their limits.
** During the intense battle aboard the station in "Severed Dreams", Garibaldi tries to set up station security at a chokepoint to repel incoming boarders. However, the recently-recruited Narns charge forward, unused to such tactics, forcing everyone else to do the same, and the firefight quickly breaks down into a massive melee.
* Fairly common in UsefulNotes/RobotCombat competitions like ''{{Series/Battlebots}}''. Contestants show up with sophisticated killing machines that are brimming with weapons. After only minutes of in-ring action, weapons and wheels will break off or be disabled. The battered bots will then resort to ramming each other (if they can) to score points with judges. Sometimes, fights degenerate to the point where bots try to limp around the ring to avoid a technical knockout.
* ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'': In the second-half of the pilot, ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Battle At the Binary Stars]]'', a large fleet engagement starts with both sides mixing it up with great intensity. As the battle damage piles up on both sides, the overall pace of the fight drags down, as illustrated by a late scene of ''Shenzhou'', a hole blown clean through her saucer, limping past a disabled Klingon warship, one of her phasers pecking away slowly rather than the rapid-fire they were using earlier. [[spoiler: The battle ends with both ''Shenzhou'' and the Klingon flagship ''Sarcophagus'' disabled, with a small Federation boarding party fighting hand-to-hand with several of the Klingons, ending with Captain Georgiou's death at T'Kuvma's hands and T'Kuvma's at Commander Burnham's.]]
* Paul and Feyd's knife fight in the ''[[Series/FrankHerbertsDune Dune]]'' miniseries has them throwing punches and kicks after one, then the other, is disarmed, in contrast to the book and the earlier film. Though the climax is the same as they pick up their knives again.

* If you drag a gunfight out for too long in ''VideoGame/DeusEx'', your foes will run out of ammo and try to stab you.
* This is the best way to describe the final battle between Ellie and Abby in ''VideoGame/TheLastOfUsPartII.'' [[spoiler: Ellie goes out to California to hunt down Abby, the woman responsible for killing Joel in the beginning of the game and also killing her friend Jesse while she, Dina and Tommy were in Seattle. By the time she finds Abby, she's lost a lot of muscle mass from not only being used as a slave to the Rattlers, but has been left for dead crucified along with her partner, Lev. Even though Ellie lets her down and Abby has just as much reason to want to kill her for murdering her friends, she's forced into a tired final battle when Ellie points her knife at Lev, making her settle the score. What follows is a knockdown, drag-out brawl that leaves both girls a bloody, broken mess along with Ellie [[{{Fingore}} losing her left pinkie and ring fingers after Abby bites them off]]. The only reason Ellie doesn't kill her is cause she's finally able to let go of her hatred of her as she recalls her final conversation with Joel, allowing Abby and Lev to leave.]]
* In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'', [[spoiler:the final battle between Old Snake and Ocelot starts as an over-the-top cutscene brawl before entering into a three-stage fight (each stage reminiscent of the previous three ''Metal Gear Solid'' games), and eventually degenerates into two exhausted old men slugging it out with each other.]]
* Speaking of ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'', one particular level ends with DuelBoss battle between Sanger and Wodan. Both of their machines get severely damaged in the cutscene beforehand, and you have three turns to defeat Wodan before the level ends anyways. To get the BraggingRightsReward, you will have to throw ''everything'' at Wodan, and by fight's end, Sanger's machine will be stripped of pretty much all energy, Spirit, and be on its last legs.
* ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' requires that you maintain your weapon and armor conditions so that you can equip and use them effectively. A similar effect can be inflicted on enemies, as shooting their weapon enough time will cause it to have a 0% CND rating, making it unusable to them.

* War of the Roses has weapons that break if you parry with them too much - good players duelling will often go through their main weapon and side arm both in a single fight, having to end the fight with daggers.
* ''VideoGame/Battlefield3'' starts with you and the villains engaging in massive battles with guns and tanks and bombs, and ends after a chase through the New York subway system followed by a [[spoiler:PressXToNotDie sequence that ends with you bashing the BigBad in the face with a brick.]]
* ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'': after all the superpowered Servant battles and crazy powers, the final battle of the Heaven's Feel route is between [[spoiler:Shirou and Kirei]]. No powers or other abilities are in play here, just two men at the last of their strength beating the ever-living tar out of each other.

* The Dominion Tower's Climber Mode in ''VideoGame/RuneScape'' can have this effect. Instead of limiting storage access like Endurance Mode, before every fight you get a handicap (Such as lower attack accuracy, no prayers, monsters start out unable to attack, etc). While it starts out rather easy, by the time you get to F15 you'll affected by so many handicaps that you'll constantly be dazed, dropping your weapons, unable to eat, drink or even wear armour while fighting some of the toughest bosses in the game.

* Most fights in ''VideoGame/Condemned2Bloodshot'' become this due to melee weapons breaking. Which often leads to the player using their fists to fight or running around in hope of grabbing a new weapon.
* Competing online with other players in ''Fight Night: Champion'' for many rounds can result in this, as both players will have reduced stamina by that point. Even more so when there are two players that have been spamming punches and wasting stamina.

* ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar'': Squads that have their [[MoraleMechanic Morale Meter]] reduced to zero become horribly inefficient at fighting, losing accuracy, damage and armor, and it drops as long as the squad takes damage. If you somehow get two squads to suffer this, it leads to this trope. Some squads are immune to morale damage, mostly thanks to being complete fanatics, possessed by daemons, missing chunks of their brain, or being more afraid of the commissar than the enemy.
* ''VideoGame/{{Pharaoh}}'': The longer a unit of soldiers remains in combat, the lower its morale drops, until they flee back to their fort. Enemy soldiers don't suffer from this, though they do retreat after a while.
* ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'': Units that take large amounts of damage move at a crawl. In some games, power plants production is reduced if they're damaged.
* ''VideoGame/AsurasWrath'': The last battle of the game begins with [[spoiler:two gods capable of becoming planet sized, warping reality, firing laser beams at each other, and stopping time, and ends with them grappling and punching each other to death after all their godly strength has been exhausted.]]
* ''VideoGame/Tekken7'', [[spoiler:the final battle between Kazuya and Heihachi starts out epic and flashy, with Kazuya turning into his True Devil form and Heihachi refusing to stay down no matter how many hits he takes. By the end of the battle, both men are exhausted and at their limit, reduced to slugging it out until Heihachi finally falls and dies]].
* ''VideoGame/JustShapesAndBeats'': Happens to the BigBad [[spoiler:in his OneWingedAngel form, after the player obtains the EleventhHourSuperpower which makes them invulnerable and gives them the ability to attack. The villain normally keeps using projectile attacks, and later an OrbitingParticleShield. On the [[ClippedWingAngel last third of his health]], he gets so badly damaged that he loses all projectile attacks, and his only attack becomes a futile bid to kill the player by angrily smashing his face into the ground and creating a shockwave]].
* The final battle of ''VideoGame/CrisisCore'' [[spoiler:[[BolivianArmyEnding pits Zack against the entire Shinra Army]]. You can try to beat them, and if you've been leveling yourself by doing plenty of sidequests, you may be even able to survive indefinitely. However, as this is a prequel to ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', Zack is DoomedByCanon to die, thus leading to a climactic showdown between a OneManArmy boasting a [[{{BFS}} massive sword]] and extremely powerful {{Limit Break}}s and a ''literal'' army with thousands of troops eventually devolving into one tired man who can barely swing his sword and the remaining ''three'' members of the army]].
* ''VideoGame/SpiderManPS4:'' [[spoiler:The final boss fight begins with Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus facing each other at full strength, making full use of their gadgets and powers as they leap about on the rooftop of a skyscraper. Then Doc Ock crushes Spidey’s web-shooters, Spider-Man tears off one of Ock’s tentacles, and the fight moves to the side of the skyscraper, forcing the wounded combatants to fight more conservatively lest they fall to their deaths.]]
* While combat encounters tend to end quickly in ''VideoGame/Splatoon2'', they can turn into this if players run out of ink - especially as certain weapons stop you from recovering ink for a time after using them. This is compounded by getting stuck in enemy territory, and thus being unable to recover ink. Using your Special weapon refills your ink tank, but that means you're stuck with whatever your Special is, leading to players desperately throwing rain-bombs or blowing bubbles in their opponents' general directions, among other things.
* Breakable weapons in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' mean that boss fights often become this, as you devolve from hitting the thing with a Royal Claymore and shooting three bomb arrows at a time, to just wailing on it with the weapons that dropped from those mooks you killed earlier. In a pinch, players might even resort to throwing their endless supply of comparatively-weak bombs.
* ''VideoGame/Persona5 [[UpdatedRerelease Royal]]'' has [[spoiler:Joker and Maruki devolve into this after the final fight. Maruki's been thoroughly beaten but still needs to process his negative emotions, and with his Palace and the Metaverse collapsing, both he and the protagonist lose their ability to use their Personas. The end result is a playable sloppy slugfest where both of them punch each other three times before Maruki finally collapses.]]
* ''VideoGame/DarkDevotion'': [[spoiler:The Queen, the game's penultimate boss, starts out as a formidable foe with an arsenal of {{Unblockable Attack}}s that cover much of the screen and are difficult to avoid. Then you knock her out of her throne, and she spends the rest of the fight sprawled on the floor in a pool of her own blood: while she isn't completely helpless, her attacks are much less frequent and cover a much smaller area from that point onward.]]
* ''VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077'': As the final battle drags on, [[spoiler:[[TheHeavy Adam Smasher]] takes on more and more damage, gradually losing weaponry, armor, and even limbs while [[{{Determinator}} still throwing everything he has at you]]. By the end, [[VillainousBreakdown he's basically half-dead, missing both his arms and barely managing to stagger in your direction, desperately firing off his weakest weapon to try and kill you before he finally collapses]]... and given [[ThatOneBoss how brutal the fight is]], you're probably running on fumes yourself.]]
* At the very end of the ''Endwalker'' story in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'', [[spoiler: the [[PlayerCharacter Warrior of Light]] and Zenos have one final fight where the two of them fight beyond their limits. Eventually, they [[BladeLock cross weapons]] and try to overpower each other, only for both of them to be sent flying back and losing their weapons. With both characters exhausted and weaponless, they resort to punching each other with slow but heavy blows as they struggle to stand. The Warrior of Light wins out, but both collapse from their wounds and Zenos eventually dies.]]
* A common outcome in ''VideoGame/MechWarrior'' games and its adjacent tactical games ''VideoGame/MechCommander'' and ''VideoGame/BattleTech2018''. You will generally start with 'Mechs containing full combat loads and fresh armor, but as missions progres you will start expending valuable ammunition or losing precious armor (or worse yet, components and internal structure). In worst case scenarios, you may start losing 'Mechs and pilots. Many of the games in these series will not let you repair or reload mid-battle, so by the end of a mission you will probably be down to your last few salvos and sporting several armor breaches or the occasional lost limb. In recognition of this fact, most stock 'Mech designs intall a RangedEmergencyWeapon by default, typically a basic laser or two, but [[TemptingFate some players remove these under the impression they won't need them]]. In such instances, god help you in the cases here you have to play missions back-to-back, surviving on whatever you finished with in the earlier mission, such as the "Siegebreaker" DLC missions in ''Battletech''.

* The short film [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjXr9Nj5ZbI "PATHS OF HATE"]] follows two fighter pilots in a brutal dogfight, the planes getting damaged and the pilots getting more demon-like as the fight goes on. They end up running out of fuel and ammo, ramming each other, emptying their pistols while parachuting to the ground, and crawling towards each other holding knives.

* Subverted in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-is63goeBgc "Ryan vs. Dorkman 2."]] Both combatants lose their lightsabers and begin to menace each other with fists... and then think better of it and make a mutual dive for their weapons.
* There's a cool one in Issue 13 of the [[http://ideologyofmadness.spookyouthouse.com/archives/category/columns/knights-of-reignsborough Knights of Reignsborough Actual Play podcast.]] The Necropath and Land Mine locked in a brawl underneath a stadium, throwing mental blasts and explosions, respectively, at each other, ending with them both resorting to fists, then a truly amazing EyeScream.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformersTheMovie'' has Optimus Prime and Megatron fighting their ultimate battle to the death, from firing lasers and swinging energy blades to throwing rubble to flat-out just pummeling each other with their fists and feet. As it goes on, they're both clearly exhausted and taking heavy damage with dented armor and destroyed weaponry, and after knocking Megatron off the battlements Optimus can't even stand due to his (fatal) wounds, while Megatron is forced to beg Soundwave to get him to safety.