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Some fighters are so badass that they don't even have to look. They can beat you with their back to you.
There might come a point during a fight when one or both combatants suddenly feel the need to close the distance between them and fight each other with their backs against one another. Usually has a lot of spinning.
Sometimes, to show how much stronger their kung fu is, one fighter turns around condescendingly to expose their weak spot. The other, incensed by this, runs up and starts throwing everything they have at them. However, their attacks are all avoided or parried easily, usually with a single hand, and without even looking.
Similarly, for a finishing move in a sword fight, the user can thrust their sword under their shoulder, stabbing the opponent in the process. Characters with super regeneration have even been known to stab the enemy through themselves. This displays how badass they are, in that they have no problem with being so close to their dying enemy. In a Single Stroke Battle, started and finished as his opponent charged him, the victor can sheathe his sword and walk away, paying no mind to the lifeless body of the person he defeated in seconds as it falls to the ground.
Compare Offhand Backhand, In The Back.
Example:
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Comic Books
- Batman and his various protégés are rather fond of this one, to the point where it almost seems as though thugs are less likely to hit him if their attack comes from behind.
- In an EXTREMELY hilarious example in 1990s animated series, Batman actually got Decked by The Creeper while the latter was trying to hit up Harley Quinn, and was sent across the room, without the Creeper even acknowledging his presence.
- In a Star Wars Expanded Universe comic, Vader fights a clone or copy of Darth Maul, and in order to win stabs himself through the torso to get at Maul, who's behind him at the time. It's an attempt at symbolism through the trope, because the Dark Side Adepts who provided his opponent say he is unworthy as a Sith, as he doesn't hate purely enough - they say that his love for Padme is still there and weakens him. After he's defeated their champion, said champion asks in his last breath who or what he can hate so much to defeat him. Vader's answer? "Myself."
- There's a moment in Episode I when Darth Maul finds himself with his back to the two Jedi, and flips his double-bladed lightsaber back and forth to perfectly deflect both their attacks in quick succession.
- In an early X Wing Series comic, agent Winter dodges a Stab The Scorpion moment and fires behind herself without looking
 ◊ to hit the creature sneaking up on her. A little later she splashes another one in the face with the equivalent of scalding coffee, but she turned around◊ to do it.
- In DC Comics' Identity Crisis, this occurs in what this troper considers one of the most ridiculous scenes in the history of superhero comics. Deathstroke manages to skewer the Flash on his sword with a blind strike behind him, despite the fact that the Flash at that point is moving so much faster than Deathstroke that the villain must have looked like an inanimate statue to the villain. I'm serious, this scene forces me to recite Bellisario'sMaxim over and over again just to get my blood pressure down.
- To make it worse, the Flash (Wally West, at this point) has literally been fighting Deathstroke since he was a child.
- And of course Gwen Di Marco finishes off a mook of the week in just such a way in the intro sequence to GalaxyQuest the series.
Film
- Legolas drops Wormtongue's final henchman with a casual backhand blow in Jackson's The Two Towers.
- Done by accident in Robin Hood : Men in Tights.
- Archibald Cunningham in Rob Roy will occasionally step past his opponents, blocking their final shot over his shoulder, and then arrogantly saunter away before re-engaging. This exposes one of his Fatal Flaws: overconfidence, and nearly gets him killed in his very first scene when Guthrie makes to backstab him after their duel.
- The Avengers movie. While Mrs. Peel is swordfighting with Steed, she briefly turns her back to him but continues to block his blows over her shoulder.
- The almost-final scene in The Matrix. Doubly Badass because the rest of the film was pretty much establishing how awesome the Agents were, and triply Badass because Neo (NOT Mr. Anderson) looked utterly bored while doing it.
- Elizabeth does a backward under-shoulder thrust with two swords in Pirates Of The Caribbean : Dead Mans Chest, impaling two of Davy Jones' men behind her.
- Ash in Army Of Darkness kills his first deadite with an over-the-shoulder boomstick shot.
- In The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across The Eighth Dimension, John Bigboote knocks a guy out with a solid punch while standing perfectly still, without even turning or looking in his direction.
Literature
- Sandy Mitchell's Warhammer 40000: Ciaphas Cain novel The Traitor's Hand sees Cain catch a glimpse of a cultist trying to attack him from behind, elbow the cultist ineffectually and then use his chainsword for an under-the-armpit stab.
- Battle Royale, at least in the book, has Kiriyama pull one of these. When Inaba Mizuho tries to sneak up on him from behind and stab him, he points his gun behind him, shoots her, and walks off without even looking at her once.
- Technically, he does something similar with Sho, who thought he was stalking Kiriyama without having been noticed. Instead, Kiriyama leads him into a trap that gets his collar detonated, with Sho not realizing Kiriyama even knew he was there until the very end.
- Pierson's Puppeteers from Larry Niven's Known Space are naturally evolved masters of this art.
Live Action TV
- There are many cases of characters turning their back on an enemy after delivering the finishing blow but not seeing the consequences. This almost never backfires. The Power Rangers are particularly guilty of this.
- In Firefly, Atherton Wing does this to a sorely outmatched Mal who tries to attack and gets stabbed. Despite this Wing later gets distracted and loses.
- River also pulls this one a couple of times in the famous Maidenhead bar fight in Serenity
- A variant of this is done in a season 3 episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Fencing, Giles is reading, his head turned away from his opponent. Of course, his opponent is Wesley.
Manga & Anime
- In the two-part Samurai Champloo episode, "Elegy of Entrapment (Verse 1 and 2)", both Jin and Mugen fight a blind jumonji-yari expert with their backs against each other at one point. However, she holds back and lets Mugen kill her, since she lost her reason for living.
- Various promotional posters and clips for Naruto Shippuuden displayed Sasuke (with his new
katana chokutō) and Naruto (kunai) locked in this position.
- In Trigun, an encounter between the hero Vash and the villain Brilliant Dynamite Neon, ends with BDN having his back turned towards Vash while firing a surprise gun underneath his shoulder.
- In an extreme example, Ranma Saotome defeats rival Ryouga while asleep, without ever consciously being aware that he was in a fight.
- Another example is when Ryoga is able to counter any attack thrown at him in two episodes/chapters, even when completely unguarded, shackled to steel prison balls, (which admittedly wouldn't be heavy for him anyway) and with his back turned. This is, however, completely justified in that a Martial Arts Calligraphy master has given him "the mark of the battling gods", which amps his fighting abilities to ultra high levels but is also an immensely embarrassing doodle that can only be removed if someone defeats him.
- In a one-shot manga by Tsugumi Ohba, famous for Death Note. The main character has made a reputation for always fighting with his back facing the enemy. The reason? If people recognized who he was everyone would be constantly looking for a fight. And thats just too troublesome.
- In D.Gray-Man, General Cross Marian is so Bad Ass that he can one-shot three Akuma that try to jump him from behind at once, without looking. Do not mess with Cross.
- Balalaika from Black Lagoon also gets in on this in the Washamine Arc. When the leader of the Washamine Clan tries to kill her by drawing a sword and attempting to kill her from behind he finds himself having been stabbed instead and with a knife at his throat. She throws in a Pre Mortem One Liner before killing him, which she asks Rock to translate.
- In the first season of Slayers, Gourry pulls this off while alone and searching for Lina after she gets kidnapped by Zelgadis. Accidentally disturbing a huge Beastmen in the form of a cat-man with horns and sabre fangs, he turns his back to it upon realising it isn't Lina and, after effortlessly dodging its blows, reaches back with one hand and breaks a fang clean out of its mouth with a single flick of the finger. Said Beastman promptly decides to beat a hasty retreat.
- Done by Teana during the final battle of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS. Expecting the ambush-happy cyborg Dido to attack from behind, Teana blindly blocks Dido's Twin Swords with her own daggers, then guides an energy bullet to Dido's head while she's staring in shock.
- Anyone noticed that in Suzumiya Haruhi, Yuki defeated Asakura with her back turned to her? The fact that she kept her stoic attitude despite being pierced through by metal spears and energy lances doesn't exactly lower the awesomeness.
- In Tsukihime, Nrvnqsr's back literally sends Shiki flying without the former even realizing it.
- Rosette does this in the very first chapter of Chrono Crusade, shooting a humoungous demon while in the middle of conversation without bothering even to turn around and then nonchalantly chiding it for interrupting.
- In Zatch Bell, Tia and Megumi were amazed to see that Kiyo cast Zaker on Maruss and his book holder without even turning around to face them.
Video Games
- Lara does this to Larson in the original Tomb Raider.
- The blind warrior Voldo, in the later Soul Calibur/Soul Edge games, is the only fighter in the series who can fulfill this trope. He has a full array of moves he can use with his back to an opponent, including throws, and, unlike every other member of the cast, can block attacks directed at his back (at least, as a normal part of his gameplay. Other CPU-controlled characters who shouldn't be able to do this can in Soul Calibur III).
- Another fighter, Yoshimitsu, is a kind of... undead cyborg alien samurai... thing. Anywho, one of his attacks is turning his back to his opponant, and stabbing his sword through his gut (which does also hurt him). The attack has a very short range, justified in that it is hilarious every time it is pulled off.
- The most badass verson? Yoshimitsu in the Tekken series and his same-named ancestor in the Soul Calibur games. Why is it the most badass? Well, the move's English names are Suicide and Turning Suicide ...
- The series also has several characters who enter a different series of moves based on having their back turned. Keep in mind that with Feng Wei (Kempo), such techniques do exist.
- In the Dead Or Alive fighting game series, several of Ayane's most powerful attacks require her to have her back turned towards her opponent before they can be executed.
- In the same series, Brad Wong has a whole slew of attacks that are only effective when his back is turned, or even when he's laying down. This is more the result of his fighting style: Drunken Boxing, than badass-ness.
- Street Fighter's Akuma does this after successfully pulling off his one-hit-KO special attack, Shun Goku Satsu. His back glows with the symbol for what amounts to "GODLIKE" for good measure.
- Tachibana Ukyo fights like this all the time. He's pretty good at it, too.
- Part of SSJ4 Gogeta's ultimate move in DragonballZ Budokai 3
- Practically all of the characters in Capcom's fighting games back away in a defensive retreat, but Dio/Shadowdio of Jojos Bizarre Adventure will turn his back on his opponent to casually saunter away. Many of his special moves include the back-turning animation, crossing his arms over his chest before unleashing the power.
- Inverted in many shooting games. Due to The Computer Is A Cheating Bastard and/or poor programming in many games it is possible for enemies to shoot at you despite facing the opposite way.
- Especially frustrating example: Halo 2, where the Jackal Snipers do this. It doesn't help that the beam kills no matter where it hits, and richochets off of walls.
- Played straight in that the player can do it too, but it takes serious practice to get the angle right (mis-firing can result in shooting yourself in the head, several Youtube videos give a good example).
- ZOE Commander in Ace Combat 2 and Mobius One from the Gauntlet of Ace Combat Zero fly birds that can fire missiles backwards at the presumably tailgating player. They aren't the only ones, though. Truth In Television: Some AAMs, like the Python 4/5 and AA-11/R-73, have 360-degree targeting capability.
- In the King Of Fighters series, one of the characters, K' has a backward walking animation which is just him turning around and walking the opposite way.
- Similar to the above example, in Melty Blood Act Cadenza onwards, Kishima Kouma's backward walk is just turning around and walking away. He doesn't even look directly at his opponent when he guards.
- The Eternal Fighter Zero character Unknown, takes this trope even further by having her default standing animation face away from the players and her opponent.
- In Gradius V, a few bosses, most notably the third boss in the boss rush of Stage 2, can fly behind your ship and attack you. Unless you have a tail gun or directional aiming, our only hope is to dodge until they fly back in front of you.
- In Devil May Cry 4 Nero impales the final boss with a sword held backhand while facing away..
- While Shen Long's backward stance doesn't give him a lot of options and is mostly for comboing into moves that you can't perform facing forward. However, his backwards punch is abnormally fast and hilarious to spam. It works great against human players who don't see it coming.
Webcomics
- Szark from Dominic Deegan does a lot of things from behind.
- The author tries quite hard to let you never, ever forget this. This editor is curious whether Szark could write a letter, have a sandwich or do his laundry without either someone making a cheap Double Entendre or mentioning that he just might play for the other team.
- In this Sluggy Freelance strip, Torg stabs the zombie in front of him with one hand while tasering the zombie coming up behind him with the other.
Western Animation
- Taking a peg from its Watanabe inspiration, the Sword Fight that occured between Zuko and Jet on Avatar The Last Airbender come to a close with the two fighting with backs against each other. With the camera doing plenty of spins for them.
- King Bumi had what may be the most over-the-top example ever when he uses earthbending to pull this off against eight tanks at once.
Music
- The Moonwalker version of "Smooth Criminal" has Michael Jackson shooting down the bad guys from behind while grooving and flirting with the ladies.
Real Life
- In Karate, it is a valid tactic to present your back to an opponent, goading him into attacking, then countering with a reverse kick.
- Valid, if risky. From that position, there's really only one move to throw- a straight kick out behind you- which makes it very obvious where your attack is coming from. Use with caution.
- Genki Sudo, a retired Mixed Martial Arts fighter, would often turn his back to opponents in the ring, as well as do the robot.
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