History Main / VictorybyEndurance

* This is partially how Po defeats Tai Lung in ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda''. As Po's excessive body fat makes him immune to Tai Lung's [[TheParalyzer nerve attack]], all Tai Lung can do is hope to defeat him conventionally. However, Po's fatness and life spent as TheKlutz building up a resistance to damage cause all of Tai Lung's attacks to keep bouncing off him. By the end of their battle, Tai Lung has tired himself out to such a point that he can't escape from Po's Wuxi Finger Hold before the latter uses it to banish him to the Spirit Realm.

* ''Franchise/StarWars'': In ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'', this is how Obi-Wan defeats Anakin/Darth Vader (and leaves him so badly wounded he's left as the DarkLordOnLifeSupport we know from the original trilogy). The two of them duel for nearly ten minutes throughout the mining facility on Mustafar, with Obi-Wan [[StoneWall constantly retreating and blocking]] until Anakin makes a serious lapse in judgement and tries an ill-planned leap over Obi-Wan, which results in AnArmAndALeg and ManOnFire.
** This is, in fact, one of the major tenets of Obi-Wan's [[FantasticFightingStyle lightsaber style]], Form III (Soresu). The tight defensive moves are meant to force more aggressive opponents to exhaust themselves, allowing the Soresu user to take them out more easily. Obi-Wan dedicated himself to becoming a master of Soresu specifically because his own mentor, Qui-Gon Jinn, was killed by Darth Maul after exhausting himself fighting an extended battle with the highly acrobatic Form IV (Ataru) form. Obi-Wan is so proficient in this style that in the novelization of ''Literature/RevengeOfTheSith'', Mace Windu calls him not ''a'' master of the form, but ''the'' master, which was why he was sent to defeat General Grievous.
** This is also how, in ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'' Qui-Gon is beaten by Maul. Even without Kenobi to assist him, they seem more or less evenly matched, as Maul and Qui-Gon knock eachother down once each in the final battle, and Qui-Gon does fine (albeit he quickly tires due to having hiked a long way while Maul took a speeder). However, while both use exhaustive and aggressive fighting styles [[AllThereInTheManual called Ataru and Juyo for Jinn and Maul respectively]] and were very fit individuals, Maul was 22 years old while Qui-Gon was 48 in Canon and [[OldMaster 60 years old]] in Legends. Thus, [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome after an initially even exchange, Qui-Gon runs out of gas much faster than Maul does.]]

** This is, in fact, one of the major tenets of Obi-Wan's [[FantasticFightingStyle lightsaber style]], Soresu. The tight defensive moves are meant to force more aggressive opponents to exhaust themselves, allowing the Soresu user to take them out more easily. Obi-Wan dedicated himself to becoming a master of Soresu specifically because his own mentor, Qui-Gon Jinn, was killed by Darth Maul after exhausting himself fighting an extended battle with the highly acrobatic Ataru form. Obi-Wan is so proficient in this style that the other Jedi see him as not just ''a'' master of the form, but ''the'' master, which was why he was sent to defeat General Grievous.

** PlayedForLaughs in ''Anime/DragonBallSuperSuperHero'', as after Vegeta determines that [[InvincibleVillain Jiren's secret]] is his energy conservation, he tries to apply the principle in his sparring match with Goku and [[ThrowTheDogABone finally beats him as Goku collapsed first]] while Broly and Lemo [[AudienceSurrogate look on with manly tears of joy]].

* This was how ComicBook/{{Bane}} defeated Franchise/{{Batman}} in the ''Comicbook/{{Knightfall}}'' story arc: waiting until Batman had a normally inconvenient bout of the flu, Bane unleashed a mob of super-criminals from Arkham Asylum and waited for Batman to tire himself out trying to put them all back behind bars in the space of a few days with no sleep. Having already deduced Batman's SecretIdentity, Bane shows up at Wayne Manor after Bruce Wayne has practically collapsed in exhaustion and then breaks his spine.
* During ''the Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul'', Batman fights the Sensei, who has centuries of fighting experience and martial arts training. At the start of the fight, the Sensei dominates the battle and horribly injures Batman while commenting, "I am very old, it's true. I am an evil old man, and my stamina is not what it was. I can only keep this up for less than two minutes. Fortunately, I need only one to break you." As they fight, Batman just keeps attacking despite not even touching the Sensei. However, as the fight progresses, the Sensei is visibly beginning to sweat and fatigue. Batman realizes that despite his [[AgeWithoutYouth centuries of life, the Sensei is physically still an old man]] and as long as he can protect himself from anything lethal, he can outlast the Sensei. At the end of the fight, the Sensei, breathing heavily and clearly exhausted, can only defend himself from a horribly beaten and injured Batman. With a desperate scream he yells to Batman, "What are you doing?" Batman's response? [[IronicEcho "Lasting longer]] [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome than a minute."]]
* Played with in Marvel Two-in-One Annual #7, where the alien Elder known as the Champion of the Universe defeats all of Earth's heroes in a boxing match, but [[ComicBook/FantasticFour The Thing]] manages to keep getting up and coming back for more after getting beaten down round after round. He doesn't win, but he manages to [[WowingCthulhu impress the Champion]] enough that he declares him a [[WorthyOpponent worthy adversary]] and decides to leave the Earth in peace.

* In Italian ''ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse'' this is the key to defeat Magica without having a witch on your side previously trapped the place with counter-witch traps: while [[OneManArmy she has enough firepower to bulldoze through counter-mecha defenses]] or engage a BadassSanta in direct combat on Christmas Eve (thus when he's at his strongest) and win ''easily'' she is relatively poor in her magical reserves, thus if one pressures her long enough she'll tire and become vulnerable. Problem is she's ''really'' powerful, and the only one among the heroes who can actually fight her that long is Paperinik...
* This is how ComicBook/NormanOsborn [[spoiler:kills Peter Parker in ''Comicbook/UltimateSpiderMan''. After battling several other threats alongside ''ComicBook/TheUltimates'' (including taking a bullet for ''ComicBook/CaptainAmerica''), Peter tries to hobble home and receive medical attention. But when he gets there, his loved ones are being harassed by the Green Goblin and several others from Spider-Man's RoguesGallery. Peter (and his family/allies) fight back valiantly, but Peter eventually succumbs to his injuries. (He came back later.)]]
* An annual issue of ''Comicbook/ThePunisherMAX'' had a story in which a mook barely escapes from Frank, and his mental condition gradually worsens as he seeks help everywhere. Frank barely appears at all except at the end, allowing the mook to tire himself out all by himself.

* In ''Comicbook/{{Superman}}: Ending Battle'', Manchester Black sends waves and waves of villains after the hero. After they are defeated, Bizarro, Mongul, Master Jailer, and Silver Banshee try to finish Superman off now that he's exhausted. In the ensuing fight, Superman also uses this against Mongul, dodging and blocking his attacks and refueling on sunlight until Mongul gets tired.
* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'' [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Vol 1]]: In the Silver Age Wonder Woman actually loses a fight to a robotic duplicate when she starts seeing double due to her lack of food and sleep while the robot is still going strong.

* ''[=BattleBots=]''' trans-Atlantic counterpart, ''Series/RobotWars'', is no stranger to this either, with a number of robots winning by simply absorbing blows until their opponent breaks down. Bigger Brother in Series 5 reached the Grand Final by doing this twice in a row: it beat the undefeated two-time champion Chaos 2 by simply exhausting its limited CO² supply and then [[FlippingHelpless flipping it over]], then beat Hypno-Disc by tanking its hits until [[CastFromHitPoints it began to slow down]] and then simply pushing it down the Pit of Oblivion. Sadly, its opponent in the Grand Final was Razer, against whom this tactic simply wouldn't work - Bigger Brother still went the distance, but in a [[CurbStompBattle painfully one-sided battle]] that it lost on points.

* ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'':
** Ash tries this tactic during his rematch with Brawly and fails. When Brawly's Hariyama uses Arm Thrust (a series of consecutive palm strikes), Ash tells his Corphish to endure the strikes until Hariyama gets tired. After about a minute, Ash and his friends are [[OhCrap shocked]] to find Hariyama isn't even slowing down. Brawly explains he gave Hariyama training to build up his endurance. Ash is forced to change tactics.
** In ''Journeys'', Ash's Riolu outlasted a battle against a tough Galarian Farfetch'd by determination alone. The Farfetch'd was impressed enough by this victory that it offered to join Ash's team.

* This is the core of the Literature/{{Foundation}} strategy in the Foundation-Korell war. It is implied the Foundation probably could curb-stomp the Korell forces if they really wanted to, but that would have the undesirable side-effects of making it easier for Korell's leadership to inspire anti-Foundation hatred in Korell's populace, and more importantly, risk drawing the attention of the Galactic Empire back to the Rim[[note]]the Mayor of Terminus at the time of the war had previously found evidence that the governor of the closest Imperial sector was using Korell as a proxy in the scheming for his imperial ambitions, and as part of that was providing a limited supply of atomic weaponry and ships.[[/note]], so the Foundation simply adopts a defensively-oriented strategy, denying Korell any major victories ''or'' population-unifying enemy orbital bombardments, and waits for Korell's economy to collapse without Foundation trade (Korell had become dependent on Foundation-provided nucleics, while nothing Korell provided to the Foundation couldn't be acquired from other trading partners). Three years later the war ended as "one of the least fought in galactic history".

** Yhwach tricked Yamamoto into taking on a Yhwach double. After Yamamoto wore himself down killing the double (which was an Sternritter 'Y' using his "The Yourself" power), Yhwach himself stepped in and killed him.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': In "The Homer They Fall", Homer learns he has Homer Simpson Syndrome ("ohh, why me!?") where his brain is surrounded by 1/8 inch more cushioning fluid than usual, making him the perfect boxer. He just waits for the other guy to tire himself out punching him, at which point Homer can just push the other guy down -- [[CherryTapping with force insufficient to kill a fly]] -- for a KO. This unfortunately proved insufficient when Homer went up against a Mike Tyson {{expy}}...
* ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'': In [[Recap/SpongeBobSquarePantsS3E3TheBullyJustOneBite "The Bully"]], [=SpongeBob=] survives Flats The Flounder's pounding by being [[NoSell straight up immune to his punches]] due to being a malleable sponge. Flats simply keeps punching him all day long until he finally collapses from exhaustion.
* ''WesternAnimation/SuperFriends'': In "Invasion of the Space Dolls" the Earth gets invaded by living alien dolls with lasers and mind control beams, but they run on batteries and need to periodically replace them. The Wonder Twins figure this out, so they go to their supply of batteries and replace them with dead batteries. They then confront the dolls and evade their blasts until they run low on power, defeating them.
* ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'': In the short ''WesternAnimation/TheCatConcerto'', it's actually Jerry taking the brunt of the punishment. Jerry nonetheless manages to score a victory by tricking Tom into playing the final notes of Music/FranzLiszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 repeatedly until he finally tires himself out.

** This was presented as a possible way [[Franchise/SailorMoon Sailor Galaxia]] could have beaten [[Franchise/DragonBall Beerus]]. Though Beerus is a god, he as a finite pool of ki and can get tired, while Galaxia's Sapphire Crystal gives her an infinite supply of power. Fortunately, Beerus was powerful enough to kill her before she could outlast him.

* ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'': In [[Recap/SpongeBobSquarePantsS3E3TheBullyJustOneBite "The Bully"]], Spongebob survives Flats The Flounder's pounding by being [[NoSell straight up immune to his punches]] due to being a malleable sponge. Flats simply keeps punching him all day long until he finally collapses from exhaustion.

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[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]

* As a general example, this is the premise behind a mill deck in collectible card games. Rather than directly defeating the opponent, a mill deck causes the opponent to run out of resources, usually by depleting the opponent's deck, which is an [[InstantWinCondition Instant Loss Condition]] for many card games.

** [[ArcVillain Gekko Moriah]] invokes this himself once Oars goes down, unleashing his [[ClippedWingAngel Shadow Asgard]] despite the strain of absorbing and controlling 1000 shadows with his current injuries all to buy the last few minutes for the sun to rise, which, for anyone who has their shadow stolen by him, is a death sentence by disintegration and most of the Straw Hats (Luffy, Zoro, Sanji and Robin) had lost theirs to him. The final "battle" comes down to whether or not they can take him down and release the shadows before they all die, which they do by the skin of their teeth, as in ''they were already burning away in the sunlight by the time it happened''.

* ''Manga/RurouniKenshin'': Sanosuke notes this trope in his first fight with Kenshin, stating that it's not the better swordsman who wins, but the one who is left standing (which Kenshin throws back in his face). [[spoiler:This tactic is also used by during the fight with Shishio, which ends with Shishio [[ManOnFire combusting.]]]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': In "The Homer They Fall", Homer learns he has Homer Simpson Syndrome ("ohh, why me!?") where his brain is surrounded by 1/8 inch more cushioning fluid than usual, making him the perfect boxer. He just waits for the other guy to tire himself out punching him, at which point Homer can just push the other guy down -- [[FakeSkill with force insufficient to kill a fly]] -- for a KO. [[NoSell This unfortunately proved insufficient]] when Homer went up against a Mike Tyson {{expy}}...

* ''WesternAnimation/ClassicDisneyShorts'': In ''A Knight for a Day'', the ersatz knight Cedric manages to beat Sir Cumfrence this way, hiding in his armor until his opponent wears himself out trying to bust it open.