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Ned Plimpton: I'm gonna fight you, Steve—
[Steve hits Ned in the face]
Steve Zissou: You never say, "I'm gonna fight you, Steve." You just smile and act natural, and then you sucker-punch him.

...'CAUSE THE FACE AIN'T LISTENING!!!

So, you've got a guy who thinks fair fights are for suckers, and he's up against some idiot who won't shut up because he's trying to sound all cool and intimidating. Or perhaps he was smart enough to trick the foe into talking too much. The only thing for our Street Smart fighter to do in this case is— *WHAM*

Naturally the opposite to Talking Is a Free Action; many shows where the characters call their attacks have at least one instance where this trope overrides the normal approach. Great way to deliver a Shut Up, Hannibal! Offhand Backhand is a variant of this for extra cool points.

Note that this can be used in an unsympathetic light, usually by a stupid and uninformed person (like, say, a Knight Templar or The Fundamentalist) who has been backed into an ideological corner by someone who challenged their idiotic, benighted ramblings and defeated all of their counterarguments with an effective Kirk Summation; if they really don't want to accept that they have nothing left to stand on, expect the stupid-and-angry character to punch them square in the face, often along with a terse "no one cares", or "shut the fuck up". It's also a great way to establish an unsympathetic character as a violent, thuggish scumbag for all of the same reasons.

Compare Killed Mid-Sentence, the much more extreme version.note  Can overlap with the Fisticuff-Provoking Comment which is similar but timing-insensitive and not about interrupting someone else while they're talking. Sister trope of [Verb] This!. Not to be confused with Talk to the Hand.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Staz gets interrupted in the middle of Shouting Kamehameha in the manga Blood Lad.
  • In The Law of Ueki it's, obviously, Talk to the tree.
  • From the Real Bout High School manga:
    Takasugi: H-How dare you...
    Dragon: Wait, Takasugi. She's good. I'll g—
    (Ryoko smashes his face in with her wooden sword, knocking a few of his teeth out in the process)
    Ryoko: Gotcha!
    Dragon: Awful... I haven't... said...
    • Worth noting that Ryoko isn't a real dirty fighter, as she doesn't exactly think it's dirty to hit someone who's acting like an idiot for no reason (she'd already trounced one of Takasugi's other thugs, so as far as she was concerned, the fight had started already).
  • Revy from Black Lagoon is fond of gunning down blowhards in the middle of their speeches, like that giant Nazi with the specially designed Luger that only he could shoot from the Nazi arc in the first season. In fact, the guy's bragging speech was so long, Revy was calmly reloading her guns while he was talking before popping a round into him.
    • She also shot Rotton The Wizard mid-introduction (who was luckily wearing Kevlar), and during the Fujiyama Gangsta Paradise, drop-kicks the yakuza gunman who tries to duel her.
  • Most protagonists in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure are fond of doing this, but the shining example comes from Stardust Crusaders, when Jotaro prevents DIO from activating a time stop by punching into his skull mid-sentence.
  • Kogoro Mouri/Richard Moore from Case Closed pulls one. When a murderer of the case, a professional judo fighter and policeman as well as a huge 180 cms hulking pile of muscle, rushes at the detective, an amateur who purposely avoided all tournaments because of stage fright, he casually flips him over his shoulder and to the ground. The murderer thinks he's gotten stronger over the years. Nope, in Kogoro's words, the murderer just got weaker.
  • Doraemon: Nobita's Great Adventure in the South Seas have Doraemon and friends teaming up with Captain William Kid (yes, that William Kid from history) in order to infiltrate the villains' underground mines and liberate some slaves. With Kid posing as a Trojan Prisoner and Kid's subordinate, Gonzales, Dressing as the Enemy, Gonzales tries convincing two mooks to let them pass. When Gonzales fails, Kid instead steps forward and knocks out the two guards with a couple of punches.
    Kid: Ok, back to business!
  • In Dragon Ball Z, this is recalled as a common tactic of Gogeta (the Fusion Dance version of Goku/Vegeta).
    • Pulled off much earlier by Goku when he first faces off with the Ginyu Force: Recoome is doing his "You have no chance" song and dance number, and just before he can finish and attack, Goku one-shots him with an elbow to the gut. He tells him, "Sorry, you were so wide open, I couldn't help myself."
    • A little bit later, Recoome's teammate Jeice is talking trash at Goku, declaring that the Ginyu Force will annihilate him. Goku socks him in the nose, and while he's still reeling and screaming in pain, Goku says "You guys just keep leaving yourselves wide open."
      • Parodied all to hell in the abridged series where Goku cuts Jeice off five times mid-sentence and then a sixth in the following episode.
    • Future Trunks obliterates Future Cell while he was busy calling his Kamehameha.
    • Chibi Trunks chides Buu for doing this to him while he and Goten are powering up, telling him that a sucker punch is a move that "only inexperienced fighters do."
    • In Dragon Ball GT, Nuova Shenron repeatedly attacks Goku before he can finish calling his Kamehameha.
    • In Dragon Ball Super, Zamasu's tendency to speechify about how perfect he is and how inferior mortals are leaves him open to this tactic more than once. Both Goku and Vegito have socked him in the face mid-rant.
    • Vegeta uses this several times in the Tournament of Power. Poor Dr. Rota got spanked by two opponents in the tournament, the second time by Vegeta, who was blasting someone that Rota picked a fight with at the worst possible moment.
  • Happens at least once in Sailor Moon. Eudial takes advantage of the long windup for Sailor Moon's attack to counter it with a physical weapon requiring much less lead time. While it doesn't get knocked back at her, it ends up being deflected into that episode's Monster of the Week, killing it.
  • An unspoken version occurs in the first episode of GaoGaiGar, due to the limitations of the victim. The first Zonder is showing off its regeneration abilities, silently boasting with a flash of its eyes — and then has to do it again.
    • Later, the villains have the appalling tactlessness to attack GaoGaiGar in the middle of calling its defence, underlining the seriousness of the situation. PROTECT SHA—*zap* AUUUGH!
    • This scene played out again in the final episode of GaoGaiGar FINAL, during the battle between Guy and Palparepa. He picks himself up, pulls his face back together, and WHAM!!
  • Done quite a few times in One Piece most notably in the "Arlong Arc"'. After forcing Fishman Karate expert Kuroobi to the surface, Sanji angrily declares that he will beat the living daylights out of him. Kuroobi laughs the remark off and begins to list why he is a superior fighter but is immediately kicked in the neck by Sanji. Then pummeled everywhere else. Then kicked through a building.
    • Another funny moment is when Crocodile is talking to Luffy, and Luffy suddenly punches him. Crocodile is made of sand, so Luffy punches away part of his face, but his expression remains fixed. Unfortunately, this only makes Croc angrier, resulting in Luffy's first defeat via hook to the stomach.
    • This has become a Running Gag with Caesar Clown. Any time Caesar attempts to tell his enemies what horrors he's about to do, one of them will deliver a painful blow to him mid-paragraph. Luffy won't even let him speak a sentence.
    • Jack "the Drought" is already unstable as is, but trying to talk things out or negotiate anything with him will make immediate violence a certainty. Violence is not something you want from a guy whose claim to infamy is taking entire countries apart piece by piece when he's having a bad day.
    "I didn't come here to talk."
  • Fullmetal Alchemist:
    • Roy Mustang fries Envy's eyes every time the latter attempts to pause and deliver a Hannibal Lecture.
    • Earlier, Ed tries this on Envy to shut it up about how it caused the Ishvalan Civil War by shooting a child... but while Envy does stop talking, Ed's automail fist barely makes it flinch and Envy just gets pissed before going One-Winged Angel to pound him and Ling.
    • Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) plays with this, though it is never actually carried out. Ed arrives in Central and is informed that his yearly assessment is coming up. After some Hilarity Ensues involving stray cats and dogs, Ed decides he'll take a fight assessment with Mustang. When asked by Al what his strategy is, he responds abruptly: "I told you - a fist in his face!"
    • It gets reversed on him.
      Maes Hughes: Alchemists, get seeeeeet... [takes two steps back, turns around, and runs out of the way] READYANDFIGHT!!
      Ed: Whaaat?!
      Roy: Too slow. *KABOOOM!*
  • In Final Fantasy: Unlimited, Pist manages to repeatedly take advantage of the heroes' excessively long attack montages.
  • Fushigi Yuugi:
    • Occurs during the Tasuki/Tamahome battle:
      Tasuki: I'll fight you with my bare hands, like a man!
      Tamahome: (immediately hits him in the face with a nunchuck; punches; kicks; nunchucks again)
    • Tasuki himself pulls off a Talk to the Fist moment, by hurling a sword at Nakago when he's mid-evil gloat. He hits Soi instead, but it still gets Nakago to shut up, if momentarily.
    • Hotohori also has his in his character novel Suzaku Hi Den, which is shown in Eikouden. The antagonist of said character novel gloats, sneers and laughs evilly... and then Hotohori stabs him from behind.
  • Naruto:
    • Attempted by both the title character and Raikage, who both try to attack Tobi while he's trying to talk to Naruto himself/the people in the Kage summit, but the guy just phases through it the second time, after which he calls the Raikage rude for interrupting him.
    • In the battle between Sakura and Sasori, Sakura, after being saved from Sasori's poison gas, angrily declares that she will force him to tell her where to find Orochimaru (and thus, Sasuke). Sasori nonchalantly shoots some kunai at her, which Chiyo blocks with her puppets, saying that men should listen to women while they are talking.
    • When Orochimaru appears during Itachi & Sasuke's battle in his Yamata no Orochi form and attempted to deliver a smug lecture to both Itachi & Sasuke, Itachi strikes him mid-sentence with the Totsuka sword and seals him in an eternal illusion.
  • An amusing double instance of this in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam in the end. During his losing battle against Haman, Char questions her motives as he's more or less defeated. She remarks her answer will be killing him and she moves to do so. However, Char cuts her off when he opens fire with his vulcans on some open wiring in the ship hangar they're in. The resulting explosion blasts Haman's Qubeley away, allowing Char to fight another day.
  • Ranma ½: Ranma does this fairly frequently, to the point he occasionally greets Tatewaki with a kick to the face to prevent him from talking.
  • In Negima! Magister Negi Magi, mages usually need partners to protect them while chanting spells. Of course, that goes entirely out the window when Negi decides he doesn't like relying on other people after that one fight where he kept getting attacked while trying to chant and learns martial arts so he can defend himself while chanting.
  • A slight variant in Beet the Vandel Buster: At one point, Poala sneaks up behind a Vandel by the name of Ventura and points a gun at his head. Ventura attempts to intimidate her with the usual fare, daring her to shoot, stating she'll pay dearly if she does, etc. She ignores him and fires several rounds halfway through his tough talk (not Killed Mid-Sentence though; he survives because Vandels have hard skin, but it still stuns him and knocks him off the tree branch he was standing on).
  • Episode 23 of Star Driver. Head A.K.A. Tokio Tsunashi approaches Takuto, pretending to be a stranger, asking for directions. Takuto doesn't even let him finish, and punches him right in the face. Just like he said he would when he found his father.
  • Happens in Turn 13 of Code Geass R2, Cornelia and Bartley run into V.V. Cornelia already knows about Geass, so she knifes V.V in the head as a precaution, cutting him off mid-sentence. Unfortunately, this is the part where Cornelia learns about immortals. And he just keeps talking.
  • In the My-HiME manga, Natsuki shoots her mother's Princess earring while she is in the middle of taunting her over her inferiority.
  • From Fairy Tail:
    Ultear: "I'm the head of the Seven Kin of Purgatory. Someone like you is no match for the likes of-"
    Gray: Sucker Punch'd!
    • Natsu does this twice, in chapter 32 and 97:
    Jellal: "Pathetic, (Evil Laugh), how utterly foolish. Now, that's called dying in vain, Simon! The situation hasn't changed one bit! No one can leave this Tower ali—"
    Natsu: (punches him) SHUT UP!!!!
  • In Heart Catch Pretty Cure, Cure Marine smashes her fist in Kumojacky's face as he's telling her to show him her strength.
  • Bleach:
    • When Ichigo faces Renji for the first time, Renji has the upper hand and mocks him, then overconfidently closes his eyes while bragging that Ichigo could never hit him. Ichigo immediately lands a cut to the chin with his sword.
    • Jirōbō Ikkanzaka constantly brags about himself and his powers, causing Uryu to get fed up and shoot him in the arm with an arrow.
    • When Ichigo battles Nnoitra, at one point, Ichigo turns to Nel and tries to assure her that he will protect her and everything will be okay. Nnoitra hits him midsentence and calls him a fool for not paying attention to him.
    • The final battle between Ichigo and Aizen starts with Ichigo saying that the battle will be moved elsewhere. Aizen replies that Ichigo is too weak to make such a demand... or at least tries to, because Ichigo grabs him by the face and drags him several miles outside of town before Aizen even has a chance to react.
    • While Orihime was in the middle of calling her attack, Tsukishima used a Flash Step to get behind her and then impaled her.
    • The Vandenreich establishes themselves as a group of No-Nonsense Nemesis by immediately attacking the Shinigami while they are trying to introduce themselves or call their attacks, leaving several maimed or Killed Mid-Sentence.
    • Omaeda smashes his flail into BG9's face while the latter is talking. Unfortunately, the difference between their powers is so great that BG9 is completely unaffected and keeps talking.
    • Guenael Lee keeps using his powers to disappear from both sight and memory, then reintroducing himself and bragging about his powers. Yachiru starts cutting him off by punching him in the face when he reappears. He angrily calls her a barbarian while Isane scolds her for attacking a stranger, but Yachiru points out her instincts can tell he is an enemy. Besides, since they are deep in enemy territory, any stranger is an enemy.
  • In Gintama, the Big Bad of the Tama Quest arc gloats about the gang being powerless to save Tama and how they can't attack him without harming her as well (Taking her appearance to try to rub it in further), then decides to punctuate his speech with some evil laughter. Everyone is at a loss as to what to do... save for Gintoki, that is. He doesn't bother paying attention to speeches from cliche RPG villains.
    • Said villain tries pulling the same stunt again immediately after, this time choosing to take the appearance of the Leukocyte King's father and receives the same result, but with Shinpachi and Kagura getting in on it, too, because they don't have any qualms about hitting somebody who doesn't look like a friend.
  • Mekakucity Actors: During Episode 12, Possessed!Konoha pulls this on Kido, who was halfway through telling for everyone to run when they sent her flying in a single punch. Oddly, the very same scene makes use of Talking Is a Free Action when Shintaro and Ayano arrive on the scene.
  • In the Hellsing manga and OVA, Schrödinger welcomes Integra aboard the Major's airship. Integra answers by blowing his head off. This isn't Killed Mid-Sentence in this case because Schrödinger has loose ties to reality as it is.
  • In Saint Seiya: Soul of Gold, most of the duels between the Gold Saints and their Asgard counterparts begin with a bit of pre-battle banter. Fafner of Nidhogg has the unfortunate luck of squaring off against the seriously pissed off Aries Mu, who lets him get in maybe one full sentence of dialogue before sending him flying across the room with a psychic blast.
  • Rurouni Kenshin: The first (and only time) Kenshin has ever been interrupted while calling his attacks was when he faced a seriously pissed off Enishi.
  • Onegai My Melody: Kuromi does this to My Melo in Episode 50.
  • In One-Punch Man, Saitama does not give a crap about anyone's backstory or motivations. If anyone tries to give him a Motive Rant or similar speech, he'll either get bored and walk away, or punch them.
  • Immoral Guild: Hitamu Kyan often gets attacked midsentence when she tries to politely introduce herself to her opponent, usually because she tries it on monsters that don't even talk.

    Asian Animation 
  • Happy Heroes: In Season 7 episode 48, Kalo's arms are chained to either side of him, he can't move his legs, and the room he's in cancels out superpowers. All superpowers. So when Caesar gets closer to him to gloat, Kalo headbutts him... hard.

    Comedy 
  • In his stand-up act, Richard Jeni explained that as a New Yorker, he was used to the traditional lead-up to an NYC fist fight, in which the two combatants jaw back and forth and strike postures for several minutes before really getting into it. While visiting the South, though, Jeni ruefully discovered that this trope was the far more common way of announcing that a fight has begun.

    Comic Books 
  • The Goon: Franky does this all the time. "Knife to the eyes!"
  • In Green Lantern: Rebirth, Batman grabs Green Lantern Hal Jordan by the shoulder to stop him from leaving to fight Parallax.
    Batman: We're not done—
    (Hal punches him)
    (Batman falls down)
    Hal Jordan: Right now we are.
  • Judge Dredd demonstrates this trope to Judge Fear, a Judge from an Alternate Universe who was calling his "Gaze into the face of Fear!" attack, as shown here.
  • The "one punch" scene in Justice League International #5.
    Guy Gardner: All bark and no bite? Oh, I bite! I—
    (Batman knocks him out with one punch)
  • Secret Six: Deadshot loves this trope. It's pretty much a guarantee with him that if you take too long to say something, he'll lose interest and blow a hole in you.
  • In Spider-Verse, when the Spider-Armies unite, Superior Spider-Man goes on a rant about how superior he is and how he should be in charge. When he challenges Amazing Spider-Man to fight him for the leader's position, Amazing Spider-Man socks him in the face before he can finish the sentence, musing that even the possibility of permanent facial damage is worth it.
  • Strontium Dog: At the climax of the "Outlaw" arc, a freed Nelson Kreelman starts ranting about how norms are superior to mutants. Before he can start his second speech bubble, all the bounty hunters shoot him to death.
  • Superman:
    • The Killers of Krypton: When Gandelo finally confronts Supergirl and starts taunt her as a "weak, sad and utterly predictable infant", Supergirl cuts her rants off by punching her crystalline face so hard it cracks, as asking if she predicted that.
      Empress Gandelo: Did he break your heart, girl? One more painful loss to add to your grief? Under all of your posturing, you are nothing but a mewling infant crying for love. So weak. So sad. And so utterly predictable.
      Supergirl: In all your infinite wisdom, did you predict this?!
    • In The Hunt for Reactron, Supergirl and Flamebird are trying to solve a case, but their teamwork is strained because they cannot stop bickering...mainly because Kara blames Thara for her father's death, and because she is unable to respect Thara's beliefs. During an argument, Thara finally snaps when Kara says her father got killed because Thara was too busy praying to a figment of her imagination to perform her job, and punches Kara through one wall.
    • In Reign of Doomsday, Supergirl cuts Doomslayer (no, not that one)'s rant off by asking if he has not yet figured out he is not going past her before punching his face.
    • In the Escape from the Phantom Zone crossover, Batgirl cuts Xa-Du's threatening rants by kicking his mouth.
    • The Phantom Zone: When two Kryptonian policemen try to take Faora Hu-Ul into custody, she kicks one of them in the mouth as he is talking.
      Kryptonian Cop: Halt— In the name of— Unngh
      Faora-Hu-Ul: I don't care to be shouted at, lawman! And I don't care to halt, either!
    • The Day the Cheering Stopped: While King Kosmos is complaining that his calculations did not account for a mysterious alien weapon strengthening Superman, the Man of Steel breaks his jaw.
  • In Thor (2014), Thor is approached by the new Loki from Loki: Agent of Asgard, who says that he wants to try to change the story of perpetual rivalry between those who bear their names. Given that Thor is Jane Foster, who had been frequently used as a Damsel in Distress by the old Loki, she responds to his offer by using Mjolnir to knock his block off.
  • Subverted in one issue of Twisted Toyfare Theater, where Captain America keeps attacking the Red Skull while he's trying to surrender.
  • In an Ultimate Marvel comic, an obnoxious little prick (flanked by two huge thugs, of course) comes up to the Punisher in the Rikers cafeteria and starts giving him shit about how he's being released that day and his cousin, a new up-and-coming crime boss, is going to give him a good position, while the Punisher is stuck here with the absolute minimum of comforts (they took away all of his silverware because he kept killing people with it). The little prick makes it clear that obviously, he and his kind have won, while the Punisher has only ruined his own life. Frank doesn't say a word. Instead, he flips his table over, uses it as a battering ram to pin all three of them against the wall, and beats the little bastard's head in with a tray.
  • War of Kings:
    Smasher: Accessing hyper-strength upload from my exospecs.
    Drax: Accessing fist.
  • Rorschach and Nite Owl try to do this to Ozymandias in Watchmen. It doesn't go very well, as Ozymandias is leagues more powerful than Badass Normals Rorschach and Nite Owl have even a hope of standing up against physically.
  • Wonder Woman:
    • Wonder Woman (1942): As Inventa and Torcha's plan to escape Reformation Island falls apart Torcha starts yelling at Wonder Woman about the injustice of it all and how the plane would have worked if they'd followed her lead while standing between Diana and and injured Steve Trevor. Di knocks her out with a fist to the jaw in mid-sentence and runs past her to Steve saying the wardens can listen to her explanation later.
    • Wonder Woman (1987): When Artemis attacks Jason Blood Diana tries to talk the other Amazon down, but while Temi is well aware of Diana's ties to truth she's also an impulsive hothead who has already made up her mind about Jason so she pauses for a second and then just includes Diana in those she's attacking. A couple minutes later Wonder Girl interrupts Temi's (misinformed) tirade about what a monster Jason is by attacking her.

    Fan Works 
  • Deconstructed in Battle Fantasia Project. Making Hannibal Shut Up through force doesn't automatically deal with the seeds of doubt planted, and if the Lecturer's main thrust was of you being a trigger-happy belligerent, why that's doing yourself no favours, Nanoha. Also reaffirmed, however, with the Black★Rock Shooter characters who have resolved their mental issues and thus are unaffected.
  • In NUMB3RS story Blaze Of Glory, Don does this to Danny, his former high school best friend and a corrupt DEA Agent who had drugged Charlie, causing him to overdose, and caused him pain in high school.
  • In Catch Your Breath's crossover spinoff Shell Game, the battle with All For One is basically one long string of these, augmented with Minato's teleportation to make sure the opponent can't get space to breathe. And when it's All Might's fist doing the talking, everybody listens.
  • Chronicles of Harmony's End: Array distracts Discord with a question while simultaneously teleporting behind him. Discord catches him with a whip before he even reappears, and calmly says: "It's rude to teleport when someone's talking to you."
  • Harmony Theory: Applejack cuts off one of Nightmare Umbra's rants this way.
    Nightmare Umbra: Your Efforts Are Pointless. Your Power Is Nothing Next To Mine! I–
    Applejack: Talk too much. [kicks her]
  • The Bridge: During their fight, King Sombra keeps trying to make speeches boasting of his superiority, only for Xenilla or Princess Cadance to attack him.
  • Fate/Harem Antics: Rider lassos Temptress and yanks her down when she starts bragging about herself and posing.
  • Fates Collide: During their fight, Mordred runs Edmond Dantes through with her sword while he was busy demanding she address him by his full title. She says he talks too much.
  • The Good Hunter: Cyril, from his fight with Druella.
    Druella: You're quite strong.
    Cyril: You talk too much. *slashes her in the midriff*
  • In Chapter 8 of Harry Potter And The Rune Stone Path, Harry Potter lets loose an angry rant on what's wrong with the wizarding world when anti-muggleborn bigotry disguised as "budget concerns" delays the acquisition of a critical depetrification potion ingredient. Professor Snape starts to say "He had no right to speak to us like-" but Professor McGonagall, who agrees with Harry, slaps Snape's mouth shut.
  • In Jonathan Joestar, The First JoJo, Heaven Ascension Dio doesn't realize what Jonathan is planning to accomplish by simply charging at him, so he taunts him for a moment before Jonathan swiftly shuts him up with a Hamon-charged strike.
    "Really? This is your plan? No wonder you lost so easily back then, JoJo! you were never on the smart side-!"
    The words were immediately cut off with a satisfying crack.
  • Loved and Lost: During their duel in the climax, Vivian manages to injure Rainbow Dash in the wing, but when she starts making a Motive Rant on Dash's inquiry, she gets so carried on that Dash uses her chance to kick Vivian in the face and knock her unconscious.
  • My Hero Academia: Unchained Predator: When Curator tries to speak in the Slayer's presence, the Slayer whips out his Super Shotgun and blasts Curator's helmet off his face, making it clear that he wants him and the Volcano Thieves dead.
  • The Palaververse: Second Sun: Happens twice, in quick succession:
    “Stand down, sister,” Luna implored. “I would fain avoid battle this -”
    Celestia threw Stiff Strut at her. Luna's entreaty dissolved into a startled yell as the professor hit her with enough force to send the two tumbling backwards amidst a mad thrashing tangle of limbs.
    “You never listen! Don’t talk during your battles!” Celestia shouted. “If I’ve been telling you one thing for all these years -”
    She never finished her sentence. The other Celestia came at her in a blur, slamming into her side and lifting her off her hooves with mountain-shattering force.
  • In Sugar Plums Ume will frequently end fights by hitting her opponent the moment they stop to monologue.
  • Shadows over Meridian: In Chapter 7, Tynar tries to deescalate a budding fight between the guards and former rebels, only to get punched in the face by a guard who blames him for convincing them all to defect from Phobos in the first place, as all they've gotten for their trouble is constant distrust and derision from the rebels.
  • Vow of the King: Grimmjow tries to refuse orders to return to Las Noches, only to be cut off by Halibel sucker punching him.

    Films — Animation 
  • In Antz, Colonel Cutter arrives in Insectopia and starts describing Princess Bala. A stoner bug tries to welcome him, and his flat response is a fist to the face, while he continues describing her.
  • In Batman vs. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, After disarming and knocking down Leonardo, Ra's al Ghul starts monologuing about how the turtle never had a chance of defeating him... only to be cut off by Leonardo kicking him in the groin.
  • In Frozen (2013), Anna takes her appropriate revenge against Hans for playing with her emotions in a bid to usurp the throne, not to mention trying to kill her sister, and proceeds to shut him up and then some:
    Hans: Anna? But... she froze your heart!
    Anna: The only frozen heart around here is yours. [she then punches him hard enough that he lands in the fjord]
  • The Incredibles:
    • Mr. Incredible attempts to flatten Syndrome with a log while the other is recapping his life-story, but it doesn't quite work, and then gets fitted with a lampshade:
      Syndrome: You sly dog! You got me monologuing!
      • He does get one in the end as he is making an escape, claiming he'll kidnap Bob's son Jack-Jack someday, only to get a car thrown at him, resulting in him getting sucked into a jet turbine because of his cape.
    • Deconstructed when Bob's Mean Boss Huph belittles a guy getting mugged across the street, only for Bob to give him a Neck Lift and then toss him through five office walls that lead to the hallway. This leaves Huph grievously injured and gets Bob discharged from his job.
      Bob: [sees the mugger get off scot-free] He got away.
      Huph: Good thing, too. Huh, you were this close to losing your[Bob grabs him by the neck and tosses him through the walls leading from his office]
      Bob: [as his shocked co-workers stare at him] Uh-oh...
  • Injustice (2021). During an argument over Superman breaking his Thou Shalt Not Kill rule, Batman ends up slugging the Man of Steel with predictable results.
    Superman: Show me your hand. (Batman doesn't) Come on, don't be 'you'. (Batman holds out his hand so Superman can use his X-ray vision) Hairline fracture of the third finger. A little ligament damage. You'll be fine in three weeks.
  • In the opening of Kung Fu Panda, the bull says it, but it's Po that does it.
    Bull: I see you like to chew. Maybe you should chew ON MY FIST!
    Po: Enough talk. Let's fight. SHAKABOOIE!
  • Hercules: When Hercules regains his godly powers at the end of the film, Hades flies into a rage and tries shouting him down only for Herc to Offhand Backhand his face in. When Hades recovers, he admits he deserved that.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Both the verbal and non-verbal kind appear in Batman (1989).
    • The first being when Batman fights a guy with a sword who after his pre-fight flourish, kicks him in the gut.
    • After that The Joker in a joke pulls off a You Wouldn't Hit a Guy with Glasses prank while cornered. Batman punches him out anyway.
  • In The Boondock Saints, Rocco starts to lay a Your Mom insult on one of the Russian mobsters who come in to shut down the local pub. The mobster orphans his setup by punching Rocco's lights out before he can finish it. Connor, Murphy, and the rest of the bar patrons' fists (and a few liquor bottles) then join the discussion.
  • The Gingerweed Man: When The Gingerweed Man goes to confront Smokahontas while Barbara rescues Buddy, Gingy tries to start the fight with some words, only to be knocked across the room by Smokahontas.
  • The James Bond reboot Casino Royale (2006) opens with one of these, showing how it's going to be Darker and Edgier: a baddy is taunting Bond over his first kill, and starts to say that killing people gets easier after the first. Bond shoots him mid-sentence, then says nonchalantly: "Yes, considerably."
  • This is Zhukov's preferred communication style in The Death of Stalin. When he shows up to arrest Beria, he silences the latter's objections with two punches to the face.
  • In Die Hard, Dick Thornburg forced himself into Holly's house, and the resulting news report led Hans to discover Holly could serve as bargaining against John. Once Dick appears after the hostage crisis is solved and tries interviewing them, Holly punches him in the face.
  • Doctor... Series:
    • Doctor in Distress (1963): When she's kicking him out of her apartment, Sonja decks her ex-boyfriend in the face and sends him down the stairs.
    • In Doctor in Clover, Rock Stewart threatens Dr. Grimsdyke with a belt in the mouth after he is accused of being over 35.
    • Doctor in Trouble: When the sick Russian trawlerman refuses to have an anesthetic injection, his Captain decides to put him to sleep herself with a swift crack from her fist.
  • Turbo tries this when he's sparring with Tiger Wong in Dragon Tiger Gate. It works the first time. The second time, Tiger kicks him in the face as he moves in.
  • In Dumb and Dumber, Big Bad Joe "Mental" Mentalino, henchman of briefcase owner Nicholas Andre, does this to a man waiting outside a phone booth and losing patience. What's more, he does it through the glass.
  • Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: When Forge has a dagger to Kira's neck he begins monologuing about his villainy and ill-gotten riches. Holga throws a potato at him, it hits him square in the face, and a fight commences.
  • The Gamers: "All hail the bandit king!"
  • In Gangs of New York the Gaelic-speaking assassin pulls out his gun on Bill the Butcher but then spends an unnecessary 2 seconds shouting "For the blood of the Irish!" which allows Amsterdam to jump up and grab the assassin's arm — directing his aim away from Bill's heart — and ultimately kill him with the assassin's own gun.
  • Tuco from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly pretty much says it all: "When you have to shoot, shoot — don't talk!" This quote came immediately after he put down a one-armed guy who had cornered him in his bath and just would not shut up.
  • Chang-yi's employer in The Good, The Bad, The Weird should have followed Tuco's advice. After he gets tired of Chang-yi demanding more money, he threatens the assassin at gunpoint and starts bragging that he can't dodge a bullet. Chang-yi proceeds to drive a knife into his neck.
  • Groundhog Day: Phil gives Ned this wise advice after some time loops
  • In Hangmen Also Die!, audience members at the cinema start applauding when they hear the news of Reinhard Heydrich's assassination. A Nazi there stops the film and demands to know who started the applause, saying that nobody is allowed to leave until he finds out. They start leaving despite his protests, which are then interrupted by one of the moviegoers punching him out.
  • Kingsman: The Golden Circle: "Butterfly Guy" finds himself on the receiving end of this, right in the middle of delivering the Pre-Asskicking One-Liner from the first film. It's one of several signs that he's not quite back to normal.
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe:
    • In Captain America: The First Avenger, as the SSR are invading Hydra's base, one of the Hydra men starts to say Hydra's motto: "Cut off one head, two more take its place!" Colonel Philips blasts him with a shotgun and provides the best counter.
      Colonel Philips: Let's go find two more!
    • The Avengers has Loki furiously telling the Hulk, who's been tearing through his army, that he is a god and he will not be threatened by a green simpleton like him. The Hulk responds by grabbing him and slamming him around the room, leaving him bloodied, beaten, and making a hilariously pathetic squeaky noise.
      Hulk: Puny god.
    • Guardians of the Galaxy:
      • Drax shoots Nebula with a rocket while she's badmouthing Gamora.
      • Peter interrupts Ronan's monologue by singing and dancing to buy time for Rocket to repair the Hadron Enforcer and shoot Ronan's hammer.
    • Avengers: Age of Ultron: In the Avengers' confrontation with Ultron in his main body after they destroy most of the Ultron Sentries, during a pause in their attacks, Ultron manages to get out "You know, with the benefit of hindsight..." before Hulk punches him off into the distance.
    • Eternals: During the climax, while Sprite rants at Sersi about envying humanity and never getting to live a normal life herself, Druig knocks her out with a rock.
  • The nonverbal version appears in Never Back Down. During an underground Mixed Martial Arts bout, a capoeirista won't stop showboating, so his opponent "shuts him up" with a simple punch.
  • In Please Turn Over, Mr. Jones decks Edward in the face when he believes he's been having an affair with his daughter, Miss Jones.
  • Another unspoken version of this occurs in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Right as the enemy swordsman is wrapping up his pre-fight flourish, Indy pulls a gun and just shoots him. The original script called for an extended sword/whip duel, but Harrison Ford was suffering horribly from dysentery, and so the scene was shortened to a joke.
  • In Raising the Wind, an annoyed street musician tells his group's leader to punch Mervyn "on the hooter" after he gives them some condescending advice.
  • In Romeo Must Die, a thug does the crane stance and claims that he has picked up martial arts, but Jet Li's character kicks him in the knee while he is talking.
  • In Scream VI, a barrage of reporters is waiting for Sam outside her home. Once one of them turns out to be Gale Weathers, Sam tries punching her, Gale ducks... and then is hit by Sam's sister Tara.
  • In the movie Shoot 'Em Up, the presidential candidate is giving a final speech to the main character to redeem himself, but the hero shoots him in the head before the candidate can even finish his speech.
  • Just before the climax of Small Soldiers, when Alan is confronted by Larry Benson (the creator of the Commando Elite) who makes a smug comment that Alan could be sued for his claims, Alan's father promptly decks him for threatening his son after he learned that Larry's toys nearly killed Alan and Christy.
    Alan: There's a problem with the Commandos.
    Larry: Really? What kind of problem? Bear in mind, you will be called into court to substantiate your claim.
    [Stuart punches Larry in the face and knocks him down]
    Stuart: YOUR TOYS NEARLY KILLED MY SON!!
  • In Taken, the bad guy has a knife to Bryan's daughter's throat. He gets halfway through the sentence "We can negoti—" and Bryan shoots him in the face.
  • A scene in True Lies pulls a variation on this, when Harry and Alan confront Simon, a humiliated con-artist that previously attempted to sleep with Harry's wife. They leave him on a dam in his underwear, where he's certain they will kill him.
    Simon: You're going to kill me, aren't you?? You're just... I'm gonna get shot aren't I? I know it, I'm gonna get shot!! You're gonna shoot me! Well shoo—
    Alan: Get lost, Dipshit. [starts shooting at his feet]
  • In Up Pompeii, Lurcio punches the jailer in the eye for trying to have his way with him.
  • Anna in the film Van Helsing. She takes advantage of the Large Ham qualities of her vampire opponent to attack.
    Anna: I think if you're going to kill somebody, kill them, don't stand around talking about it.
  • In the Veronica Mars movie, Alpha Bitch Madison Sinclair confronts Veronica after the events at their 10-year high school reunion:
    Veronica: I'd stop right there.
    Madison: What are you, gonna use your stun gun on me? Don't you think that's gotten a bit old?
    [Veronica clocks Madison in the face, knocking her down]
    Veronica: Original enough for ya?
  • This is the main schtick of Su Qi-er, the protagonist of The Young Vagabond, who responds to any challenges by lashing out. Punks, bullies, challengers, everyone. This actually gets him into trouble early in the film when Su punches out a business partner of his father, a foreigner, for mistaking the foreigner at making a racist remark on the Chinese when said foreigner is only complimenting Chinese food.

    Literature 
  • The Acts of Caine: This is a major recurring tactic in Blade of Tyshalle. Caine in fact uses this trick in the climax to kill the reascendant Ma'elKoth.
  • Sword of Truth: In Confessor, a military commander that's had Richard as a captive from the last book, sees Richard coming, and starts on a monologue about the things he's going to do to Richard, and is cut off (excuse the pun) mid-sentence.
  • In War of the Spider Queen, a wizard aiming a wand at a suspicious visitor shuts up in the middle of his sentence and receives a postmortem diagnosis:
    Pharaun Mizzrym: If you hadn't been so busy expounding on my foolishness, you might have heard the words to my spell.
  • Warhammer 40,000 Expanded Universe:
    • The Gaunt's Ghosts series has several instances of this.
      • First & Only, Gaunt surprises Zoren by punching him. This is so Zoren can, as part of a ploy, accurately report to the ship's captain that Gaunt attacked him; the captain has scanners that he uses to try to work out when people are lying to him, and can read the truth of the charge.
      • In Ghostmaker, Gaunt punches Ortiz after his artillery had fired on a location where he knew the Ghosts were, killing hundreds of them. The superior who had actually ordered the attack intends to take advantage of this to court-martial and shoot Gaunt; unfortunately for him, Ortiz drives a tank into headquarters and files a report that he had been injured by his guns' recoil.
      • In His Last Command, Ludd is ordering some aristocratic officers of a New Meat unit into battle. One says Ludd has insulted him and demands a duel. Ludd punches him and declares the duel over — he had said it was at Ludd's convenience, and that was convenient.
    • Eisenhorn: Xenos ends with a villain cornering Eisenhorn on the top of a collapsing alien edifice and demanding that he hand over the primer for a Tome of Eldritch Lore. Eisenhorn responds by shooting the man dead.
    • In the Horus Heresy novel The Flight of the Eisenstein, Dorn strikes Garro for the news he brought. Then, as Qruze pointed out, Dorn had clearly held the blow, which could have killed Garro, because he wanted to hear it all. He listens to the rest, and accuses him of insanity. When Garro accuses him of blindness, he decides to execute him. Only Keller's intervention saves him.
  • Star Trek:
    • In a Star Trek: New Frontier novel, Calhoun is confronted by an Orion who's a quicker draw than he is. They size each other up in an Old West-style staredown... then the Orion decides to gloat, since he's obviously going to win... until a grenade Calhoun planted goes off and kills him.
    • A less combative example, but in Spock's World, a Hamalki scientist bites a Vulcan professor in the middle of a debate. Ain't No Rule that says she can't.
      Professor: When one remembers that, on most levels of consideration, one does not exist, such matters as the question before us today assume their proper aaaaaaaiigh!
      K's't'lk: Fascinating. For someone whom on most levels of consideration doesn't exist, you scream with great enthusiasm. And I heard you, too. Better have that looked into.
  • (Punch-clock) villainous example in The Grapes of Wrath: Jim Casy attempts to give a strikebreaker a Last-Second Chance and promptly gets his skull smashed. Sucks for Casy, but hey, it does fit the religious metaphor!
  • Star Wars Legends:
    • In Death Star, in a cantina on the Death Star, two Alderaanian contractors are trying to make sense of what Tarkin just did to their homeworld. Enter a stormtrooper boasting that "the Rebel scum won't be giving us much trouble after Alderaan, hey?" Mock their grief, will you, motherkriffer! That contractor's fist can give your smug face trouble! And then the bouncer will evict you instead of him!
    • In the Novelization of Revenge of the Sith, General Grievous kills several Nemoidians this way when they get on his nerves.
  • In Uncle Tom's Cabin, Simon Legree has murdered Tom, and George Shelby is furious. Legree reminds him that the law is on his [Legree's] side, and adds, "After all, what a fuss, for a dead n***." Shelby gets really pissed and decks Legree.
  • Occasionally invoked in Discworld, but lampshaded more often. Vimes in particular devotes a little bit of internal monologue in Men at Arms to the notion of monologuing; always hope the guy who has you at his mercy is an evil man, because it means he's going to take some time to gloat about it and enjoy having power over you, while a good man will kill you straightaway (as Carrot does later). In other words, Vimes actually likes people who monologue, because it gives him a chance to use it against them.
  • The protagonist of Thunder Point by Jack Higgins, Sean Dillon, gets surprised on a boat by the bad guy, and in the middle of the speech about how he's going to be killed, pushes his enemy over the rail and drowns him. "If you're going to kill someone, bloody kill them! Don't stand around talking about it!"
  • Shows up several times in The Dresden Files. Harry likes doing this to villains.
    • Subverted in Death Masks when Anna Valmont shoots Nicodemus mid-speech, to no effect. She keeps on shooting him, and Nicodemus makes an annoyed 'get on with it' gesture.
    • Later in the book, however, Nicodemus seems to appreciate it; he asks Michael why he's fighting, clearly as a prelude to a Break Them by Talking speech. When Michael simply readies his sword for battle, Nicodemus' response is "Ah. Eloquence."
    • Another notable instances occurs in Ghost Story when Harry repeatedly does this to the Grey Ghost. It turns out that she was trying to trick him into Cast from Hit Points-ing himself to death, as she can take the hits better than he can dish them out.
  • Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos is fond of remarking that "No matter how powerful or subtle the wizard, a dagger in the back will seriously cramp his style."
  • In the Rivers of London series, getting the villain talking and then attacking them is one of Peter Grant's favoured tactics.
  • The Donald Westlake novel Dancing Aztecs features a conversation where a group of smugglers argue about whose fault it was that a shipment got misplaced. They gradually realize that one of them gave the pickup man instructions in the Spanish alphabet when telling him to get Crate E. Said guy doesn't quite get the difference between the Spanish and American alphabets yet, nervously asking "Beg pardon?" Rather than explain his mistake, The very irritated enforcer of the organization ops to deck the guy in the face
  • Sandokan: In The King of the Sea, an alleged Mecca's Pilgrim was ordering the escaping Tigers of Mompracem to surrender when Yanez, happy to see him, shot him in the chest.
  • How Not to Summon a Demon Lord: Emile calls an attack called "Alps Fall", then starts describing the attack while it is charging. Diablo gets fed up and punches him out, then calls him a moron for trying that so close to him.
  • Full Dive: Hiro often gets attacked midsentence while trying to boast or make dramatic speeches in the middle of fights.
  • Sōsuke from Full Metal Panic! does this... how many times? He's as fond of doing this as executing Groin Attacks. There's an instance where he keeps sucker-shooting the three karate guys in Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu, and the instance where he blows Tsubaki (and Mizuki) away while Tsubaki makes his dramatic speech.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Subverted in 7 Days (1998), when Frank tries to interrupt the bad guy of the week this way. The bad guy gives him an irritated smackdown and repeats himself from the top.
  • Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: In "The Magical Place", Skye enters the building where Coulson is being held and tortured by Centipede. Raina starts saying that this is for Coulson's own good, only to be cut off by Skye knocking her out with one punch and strolling past her.
  • In the Grand Finale of Angel, after Wesley is mortally wounded by Vail, Illyria walks in and they have a touching scene. Vail recovers consciousness from Wesley's last-ditch attack, and sees Wesley die in the arms of Illyria, who has shifted into her human guise. Thinking she's just another human, Vail mocks Wesley's "meaningless death"... only to have Illyria morph back into her God-King form and punch right through his face.
  • Babylon 5: In "The Wheel of Fire", Sheridan forces Lyta to stop inflicting Mass Hypnosis on a bunch of bystanders. Lyta taunts that he can't watch her forever, so Lochley obliges by punching her out, which has a practical implication, too: telepaths can't use their abilities when they're unconscious.
  • Parodied in the Blackadder Goes Forth episode "Private Plane". The Baron von Richthofen has Blackadder and Baldrick held captive. George brings Lord Flashheart to come and save them only to come face to face with the dreaded baron. The following exchange plays out like so:
    Baron von Richthofen: Ah, and the Lord Flashheart. This is indeed an honour. Finally, the two greatest gentleman fliers in the world meet. Two men of honour, who have jousted together in the cloud-strewn glory of the skies, face to face at last. How often I have rehearsed this moment of destiny in my dreams. The honour we two encapsulate; the unspoken nobility of our comradeship—
    (Flashheart shoots the baron)
    Flashheart: What a poof!
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
    • A demon in "Once More, With Feeling" gets it while singing. Worth a laugh.
      "She's not even half the girl she... OW!"
    • Invoked and then lampshaded in "Choices" when Faith responds to Willow giving her a "The Reason You Suck" Speech by punching her in the face.
      Faith: You hurt me, I hurt you. I'm just a little more efficient.
      Willow: Aw, here I just thought you didn't have a comeback.
    • In "The Freshman", Sunday does this to Buffy twice. The first time is after she makes a crack about Buffy's outfit, and when Buffy looks down, Sunday clocks her. The second time is when Buffy falls through the ceiling of Sunday's lair, and she's surrounded by Sunday and the other vampires:
    Sunday: I must say, you've really got me now. I mean, it's a diabolical plan - throw yourself at my feet with a broken arm and no weapons of any kind. How am I going to get out of this one?
    Buffy: You got a nice set-up here, but you made one mistake.
    Sunday: Yeah? What was that?
    Buffy: Well, I'm not actually positive, but statistically speaking people usually make at least one- [Sunday punches Buffy in the face]
  • A truly epic example comes from a 1981 episode of Coronation Street when Ken decides to confront his Arch-Enemy, Mike, about his involvement with his wife, Deirdre. Going into his office at Underworld, he states, "I've had enough of you mucking around with my family, Baldwin. More than enough." And before Mike can even get out a response, Ken belts him in the face so hard it knocks him down and departs.
  • Dexter: While Dexter is washing dishes, Paul gives him a long-winded, menacing speech trying to intimidate Dexter. He warns him that he loves his children, he's their father, and he won't let Rita or anyone else get in his wa—Wham! Upside the head with a frying pan. And, because this is Dexter, this leads inexorably to Paul's death.
  • Doctor Who:
    • At the end of "The Reign of Terror", Robespierre is shot in the jaw by one of the men come to arrest him as he tries to turn them to his side with a pretty speech.
    • In "The Idiot's Lantern", the Doctor is punched out mid-sentence:
      The Doctor: Hooold on a moment, there are three important, brilliant and complicated reasons why you should listen to me. One– [punch]
    • Rory gives the Doctor one in "The Big Bang".
      SHE IS TO ME!!!
    • "Day of the Moon":
      Canton: Are you armed?
      Silent: THIS WORLD IS OURS. WE HAVE RULED IT SINCE THE WHEEL AND THE FIRE. WE HAVE NO NEED OF WEAPONS.
      Canton: [shoots Silent]. Welcome to America.
    • Happens twice in "Let's Kill Hitler", both by Rory. First Rory. Punches. Hitler. Then he hails a Nazi guard and then releases the fist.
    • "Thin Ice": The Twelfth Doctor punches out Lord Sutcliffe after the latter starts shouting racial abuse at the Doctor's latest companion, Bill Potts.
  • In Dollhouse, Topher boasts that he has uploaded several martial arts into his brain, only for his opponent to punch him out before he can react.
  • Farscape
    • In the premiere, John Crichton is freaked out over being thrown into the midst of these psychotic aliens and being sneezed on by Rygel is the last straw, causing him to shout, "What is the MATTER with you...people?" D'Argo responds by knocking him unconscious with his Overly-Long Tongue.
    • In "Throne for a Loss", Crichton is trying to convince the mercenaries who've kidnapped Rygel for ransom that it's not worth the trouble.
      Crichton: Look, Rygel is an obnoxious gas bag and who's gonna shell out for that?
      Rygel: He's right! I'm unloved, unwanted, unpopular—
      (Bekhesh kicks Rygel viciously in the head.)
      Rygel:... unconscious...
  • Upheld beautifully in Firefly, where the Alliance agent in the pilot has a gun to River's head and starts threatening to shoot her as Mal walks in — only to get shot in the face by Mal without missing a beat.
    • Subverted, however, in Serenity:
      The Operative: Let us discuss this like civilized men. I'm not threatening you, I'm unarmed—
      Mal: Good.
      (Mal shoots the Operative down, grabs Inara and then turns to get the hell out, but the Operative stops him)
      The Operative: I am, of course, wearing full body armor. I am not a moron.
    • There's also Mal punching Atherton Wing just as he is about to say something nasty about Inara. He really likes this trope.
    • There's also this bit of dialogue from the pilot, where Mal decks Simon for hitting his Berserk Button about the Alliance in general:
      Mal: You don't want to go down this road with me, boy.
      Simon: Oh, you're not afraid of [The Alliance]? I already know you'd sell me out to them for a pat on the head. Hell, you should probably be working for them. You certainly fit the prof... *WHAM!*
      Jayne: Saw that comin'.
  • Game of Thrones:
    • Jaime's way of shutting up the obnoxious Black Walder Rivers when he scoffs at his accurate criticism and disregards his warning? A backhanded slap. With his golden hand.
    • Jaime and Tyrion find themselves facing a rather pissed-off Bronn.
      Bronn: I've never hit a dwarf before, but say another word and I will belt you!
      Tyrion: You see, I don't believe you'd do that — [Bronn hits him in the face]
  • In the beginning of Season 3 of Heroes, Claire nails Sylar in the chest with a butcher knife while the serial killer supervillain is busy monologuing. It doesn't take.
    • And when Sylar makes another douchey comment about Emma, Peter punches him in the mouth.
  • In a rare example when the protagonists are the victims of this, on Leverage this happens to resident badass Eliot when he meets Quinn and his usual tap on the shoulder tactic is greeted with this.
  • Ben, Manipulative Bastard of Lost, gets one from Sawyer in season four when he is trying to play on the latter's emotions by talking about how Kate decided to stay with Jack instead of going with him. Probably not the smartest idea since Ben was tied up and being held captive at the time.
    Ben: Good thing she has Jack there to comfort h— (*PUNCH*)
  • Monk: In "Mr. Monk, Private Eye", while Monk is making inquiries about the driver in a fender bender, he gets gut-punched in midsentence by a bar manager. It's not clear why the guy does this or whether he knows the driver is also a murderer, and he gets no onscreen comeuppance.
  • In Once Upon a Time, at the end of the Arendelle arc in Season 4, Frozen (2013) movie it's based on, gets an offscreen Call-Back to a scene where Anna punches Hans:
    Anna: [putting on her gloves to hide the knuckles] Have you seen these bruises?
    Elsa: Have you seen Hans' eye?
    Anna: Definitely Worth It.
  • That fantastic moment in Scrubs when Dr Cox (who'd been worrying about the kind of father he'll be to his unborn son) walks in on Dr Kelso tearing into Elliot. J.D. tells him that "if she was your daughter, you'd know exactly how to handle it."
    Dr Cox: [whispering] My God, you're right. [walks up to Kelso, taps him on the shoulder and then decks him]
  • Stargate SG-1:
    • Minor Goa'uld Toth begins his melodramatic doom monologue, but just when he starts to talk, Carter shoots him.
    • "Window of Opportunity" has Jack and Teal'c stuck in a "Groundhog Day" Loop. Teal'c has the unfortunate luck of being hit in the face with a door at the start of every loop. In the middle of the episode we get a montage sequence of the two spending several loops having fun instead of trying to get out of it. Teal'c takes this opportunity to respond to the "I'm sorry, I didn't know you were there." by slamming the door back into the opener's face mid-apology.
  • Star Trek:
  • Early in Season 2 of Ultra Zero Fight, Jathar the Alien Hipporito plans to trap Ultraman Zero in Bronze (after having done so successfully on Glenfire and Mirror Knight). Despite having coated Zero's fist in bronze, Jathar goes on with mocking him at how easy it will be to defeat him. How does Zero respond? By evoking this trope, with his "bronzed" hand no less.
    • During the episode of New Ultraman Retsuden being hosted by Ultraman Zero and Glenfire, Jathar reveals he had survived his encounter with Zero in Ultra Zero Fight and tries again to turn Zero and Glenfire into Bronze. He fails yet again.
  • In Veronica Mars, Logan does this more than once when someone presses one of his many Berserk Buttons, often intentionally.

    Pinball 
  • FunHouse (1990): One way for the player to interrupt Rudy's heckling is to shoot the ball into his mouth. This will either hit his jaw ("OW!") or cause him to gag on the ball; both actions award points.
  • In No Good Gofers, hitting Bud or Buzz while they are in the midst of taunting the player stops them in mid-sentence and shows a satisfying clip of the gofer getting clonked with a pinball.

    Pro Wrestling 
  • This is very common in and out of matches, either to catch a showboating opponent off guard or to end a Heel's promo. For bonus points, this is often done with a Finishing Move. Shawn Michaels tends to shut people up with his Sweet Chin Music.
  • This is actually the Finishing Move of The Big Show. He simply punches his opponent (with his 16 INCH FIST) and often does this to someone who is annoying him outside the ring.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Doctor Who Adventures In Time And Space has a pre-set initiative: people who want to talk always go first, followed by people who want to run away, then people who are going to do something like MacGyvering, and finally people who want to fight always go last... unless the Player Character gets the "Five Rounds Rapid" Advantage (which is, appropriately enough, described on the UNIT sourcebook), which allows him to attack other people during the "talker" part of the initiative.
  • Any Dungeons & Dragons game, ever, will sooner or later have someone yell "I roll for initiative" in the middle of the villain's evil speech. The fourth edition sphinx gains combat bonuses if you do this, or can't answer its riddle.
  • In Exalted, Infernals have this trope both ways. Ones drawing power from The Ebon Dragon receive bonuses for doing the speechifying, at the cost of putting themselves in danger of this trope. Meanwhile ones following Malfeas and Adorjan, both strong proponents of murder over talking, can get bonuses for doing the interruption unto any opponent they find available.
  • Magic: The Gathering:
    • Azor's Elocutors offers an Instant-Win Condition of literally boring the other players to death. However, within the card mechanics themselves, the filibuster counters can be reduced by damaging the Elocutors' controller.
    • In multiplayer games, some decks are designed as "political" decks: they have a lot of effects that hand out bonuses to other players as well as themselves, with the intention of keeping themselves too useful to directly target until they're in a position to pull out an instant win combo. However, the fact that they're spending resources on benefiting other people means that when they do get targeted, they tend to fold pretty quickly unless they've gone in hard on a "pillowfort" build.

    Theatre 
  • In The Birds, a bogus soothsayer comes to Cloudcuckooland, using a fake prophecy to extort some new clothes and a share of the sacrifice meat from Peisthetaerus. Peisthetaerus answers him on his own level; he claims that Apollo told him, basically, "any fake soothsayer who comes to demand goodies from you needs to Talk To The Fist". He then beats the fraud up and sends him packing.
  • In the wedding scene of Les Misérables, Marius gives Thenardier's "payment" for trying to blackmail him for his father in law's status as an escaped ex-con at his own wedding by punching him in the face. Madame Thenardier finds this hilarious; Thenardier, less so.
  • In Starship by Team StarKid Taz goads Commander Up into punching her to toughen him up. When he doesn't she punches him instead.

    Video Games 
  • Used beautifully in one segment of Neverwinter Nights 2. The player can find themselves in a very annoying minigame featuring a lute contest between the player and an arrogant bard. The bard, Cain, insults the player at virtually every opportunity and the minigame is no thrill either. At the very tail end of the contest, win or lose, Cain insults the player one last time. Upon which, the character is given a new interaction choice in the dialogue menu: "Set Cain on fire and steal his lute." Even if you're playing a goody-two-shoes character, you can't resist that.
  • In The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, the player hears Big Bad Mankar Camoran's Hannibal Lecture coming from thin air from the first moment they set foot in his realm. When they finally confront him face to face, Camoran launches into yet another long-winded speech... if they let him. In some other cutscenes, the player's controls are locked down for the duration, but not this time — so many choose to interrupt his monologue with sword or spell.
    • And many choose not to interrupt him, because Mankar Camaron's speeches are a genuine work of art as far as megalomaniacal ranting goes. Then again, they only went and hired Terence Stamp to do the voice, so what else could we expect?
    • Turn the difficulty down to minimum and spell yourself up to 100% Chameleon and you can kill him with one shot, which makes the interruption that much more satisfying.
  • While it wasn't an attack to his person, it's similar and equally satisfying: in Jedi Outcast, Kyle comes up against one of the game's two Big Bads, Admiral Fyyar, at the end of a mission to bring down the ship's shields. Fyyar launches into full Large Ham mode, about how worlds will tremble and all... and Kyle throws his lightsaber at the shield generator, frying it.
  • When Lucien in Fable II goes into his long-winded speech, you have the option of shooting him in the face to permanently shut him up at any time. Take too long, and Reaver does it instead.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer (2002): Mook vampires love to run up to Buffy while saying something creepy/threatening/narmful. Quite possible to stake them in the middle of their speech. "You can't stop us Slayer... there's OOOFFF AAARGH." DUST. Awesome.
  • Final Fantasy
    • In Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, most attacks and spells have a starting time. Against smaller foes, it's possible to interrupt this, but beware that they don't do it to you, Zack!
    • In Dissidia Final Fantasy, after Squall defeats Ultimecia during the Shade Impulse storyline, she tries to deliver a monologue about her Freudian Excuse. Squall responds by finishing her off mid-speech with a slash of his gunblade. He is the only hero in the game to do so; every other villain either manages to gloat or gets a more touching send-off. This moment is also a nod to the final battle of Final Fantasy VIII: Ultimecia begins the same speech in the last stages of the Boss Battle, but is unable to finish it before Squall and the other heroes defeat her.
  • A lot of this happens in-game in the Kingdom Hearts series when an enemy is calling his/her attacks. For example, the only way to stop Sephiroth's HP to One attack is to bash him over the head while he's trying to invoke "Descend Heartless Angel". Chain of Memories even gives you a way to quickly interrupt any attack, complete with its own tutorial (though your attacks are subject to the same mechanic, as well).
  • Ansem in Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance] periodically stops attacking to say something, practically begging for you to come over and shut him up, especially in the case of his taunt of "Is that all you've got?".
  • In Mega Man X: Command Mission, X (the resident Martial Pacifist, mind) unceremoniously shoots Epsilon dead in the middle of his post-battle speech. Granted, Epsilon was swearing to oppose them as for long as he lived.
    X: Why? Why create something as dangerous as the Supra-Force Metal missile?!
    Epsilon: For power. Without power, our ideas will be ignored.
    X: What?! There must be another way...
    Epsilon: The Federation has already declared us Maverick. What other choice do we have? As long as I am in operation, I shall—
    Zero: Now, X! Shoot!
    X: (fires)
  • Entertaining in-game example: This video of the X Men arcade game.
  • In Resident Evil 4, Ramon Salazar goes off onto another smarmy monologue on how he's going to kill Leon with another clever trap. Leon, who by this point is thoroughly fed up with Salazar's bullshit, shuts him up with a knife to the hand.
  • River City Ransom Ex is one of those games where you can sock the enemy in the head mid-speech and your allies won't stand for it.
  • Happens to the Prism Rangers in Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. After their incredibly corny introduction speech, they prepare a transformation attack. Etna interrupts them mid-sentence with two gunshots, taking out both Yellow and Blue with little trouble and leaving red without the ability to transform.
    Prism Red: Curse you! Shooting before we even have a chance to transform... How inconsiderate! Are you demons?!
    Etna: Uh-huh.
    Prism Red: ...Oh my gosh! I completely forgot about that!
    • Unfortunately, this turns out to be a dumb thing to do, as Red summons his hired help and it all turns into crap.
  • This is the titular character's way of things in Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story. No, not the Mario Bros., but Bowser. Giving absolutely zero craps for anyone else's agenda, he tends to address most speeches, rants, and villainous proclamations with a solid Megaton Punch. Most notably is the following exchange:
    Fawful: [in the middle of absorbing energy from an Eldritch Abomination with a Transformation Sequence] With this! The world... The world...! IS FOR FAWFUL!
    Bowser: Try again in a hundred years, you little weirdo! The world is mine! [immediately punches Fawful so hard that he flies clear out of the room]
  • You can do this in so many ways to the mooks in Batman: Arkham Asylum that it can be great way to spend time when you're bored. When heading to the final confrontation with The Joker, you walk through a gauntlet of thugs taunting you, but not attacking. You can casually walk up to one and just jack him in the face, erupting the room into an epic brawl.
  • There's a particularly notable instance of this in Batman: Arkham Origins: during the "battle" against the Electrocutioner, he taunts you and mocks you relentlessly... until you punch his lights out. Whether you do this during an ellipsis or as he speaks is up to you, though.
  • Bushido Blade begins almost every fight with your opponent talking for a short bit before the fight starts proper. It's entirely possible to cut them down before they finish, however this is considered a dishonorable act and will brutally end your playthrough short if you ever do it.
  • In the final fight in Bully, when Gary is knocked down to certain levels of HP, he grabs you and starts unloading more of his Hannibal Lecture on you. Mash buttons fast enough, and you can knock him away; otherwise, he'll finish his lecture and hit you.
  • Mass Effect:
    • The player has the option to end a news interview with an irritating reporter by outright decking her. In Mass Effect 2, you run into the same character again. If your original choice wasn't to punch her, but you do punch her this time, Shepard will remark, "I should've done that the first time we met." You get one last round against her in Mass Effect 3, only she dodges your swing at the last second, either leaving you to be knocked on your butt, or, if you're quick enough, follow up with a headbutt.
    • You can opt to shut up a Talkative Loon with a swift right hook. Kaidan remarks: "That might have been a little extreme, Commander."
    • In other instances, this trope involves a bullet. Popular targets are Finch, the slimeball from the "Old Friends" mission, and Wrex, who has second thoughts about working with Shepard on Virmire.
    • Some of the interrupts from Mass Effect 2 are an even better example.
    • In one case, a Krogan Warlord engages in a long speech about how the Krogan are going to take over the galaxy; you're given the ability to cut him short by shooting the explosive tank below him, burning him alive.
    • In another, when an irritating krogan warlord named Uvenk is trash-talking Grunt and Shepard in front of Clan Urdnot's Shaman, Shepard can headbutt Uvenk in the face, which staggers him note . Uvenk looks pretty surprised and angered at this, while the Shaman laughs his head off at Shepard's audacity (and then compliments Shepard for having such an understanding of krogan mindsets).
    • Another one is during Miranda's loyalty mission; as a mercenary commander proceeds to describe how his men are prepared to gun them all down on the spot. You're given the option of having Shepard grab the commander and turn him around in a chokehold and break his neck, then proceed to shoot an explosive tank hanging from a crane, dropping and exploding behind two other mercenaries. One flies towards the camera and bounces off the crate another mercenary was using for cover. His expression says it all.
    • The best example is during the mission to find Thane, where you come across a particularly uncooperative mercenary. The Renegade interrupt has you punch him out the window that he's in front of. In a skyscraper.
      Merc: I have nothing more to say to you; if you shoot me, my team will—
      Shepard: (punches Merc out the window, Death Cry Echo)
      Shepard: How about "goodbye?"
    • In Mass Effect 3, there's a renegade interrupt where you gut-punch a quarian admiral and kick him off of your ship as he's trying to justify his actions, because he fired on the geth Dreadnought you and Tali, a fellow admiral, were still on at the time (at the cost of his chance to withdraw safely).
    • Perhaps one of the greatest examples is at the end of the Rannoch arc, where you can interrupt a Reaper's monologue. Except in this case, the fist in question is the entire quarian armada shooting it in the face.
  • At the end of the Imperial Agent storyline in Star Wars: The Old Republic, you have the opportunity to shoot the Big Bad in the face during his Motive Rant, robbing her of her dramatic Bifauxnen reveal.
  • In one of Iron Tager's Story Mode paths for BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, he punches Bang Shishigami while the latter is calling an attack.
  • The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night: During the Sky Pirate arc, the Big Bad of the arc are a couple annoying parrots named Scratch and Sniff who are the brains behind the "captain" of the pirates, the massive, but extremely stupid, Skabb. Sniff really likes throwing around trash talk and Bullying the Dragon. This gets so annoying that it even annoys Sparx. After Skabb falls to his Disney Villain Death, Sniff continues to insult Spyro. Sparx has enough and shuts Sniff up by knocking him out cold with a punch to the face.
  • At the end of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers, Darkrai attempts to pull a We Can Rule Together on the player and their partner. He even seems to convince the partner to do so. But then the player reconizes A Glitch in the Matrix in that their partner would never react this way. They realize they're in a nightmare and attack Darkrai, shattering the illusion.
  • Totally doable in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, thanks to its unnervingly satisfying "you-can-sucker-punch-anyone-you-like" function. This is, in fact, a perfectly viable means of completing certain sidequests, like the one where you're trying to get the blackmail footage from Brian Tindell. You can do his quest, talk him into handing the footage over, or punch him in the face and take the footage off his body.
    • There is a total of one side-quest that can't be completed if you choose to just punch out the guy you're trying to get information from. On the other hand, if you don't have the social enchancer augmentation, you can just bribe him, then punch him out and get your money back.
  • In Asura's Wrath, this is combined with the act of skipping a cutscene where at certain points when bosses start talking, pressing a button would have Asura try to shut them up forcefully. The Trophy/Achievement names follow the template of "Shut Up, Name!"
    • Subverted against Augus where Asura tries this but Augus doesn't budge an inch.
    • Also subverted against Kalrow, who turns out to be just a hologram.
    • Reaches its logical conclusion in the final episode of the DLC. Asura is offered godhood by Chakravartin, who is for all intents and purposes God. His response? "I refuse." (Punches GOD in the face)
  • At the end of X-COM, the alien brain you need to kill in order to stop the invasion attempts to plead its case. A soldier interrupts it by blowing it apart with a plasma gun.
  • In Grotesque Tactics 2, the protagonist and a villain start arguing over who will win if they start to fight. They keep going. It turns into an Overly Long Gag before one of the hero's allies announces "Oh for the..." and the game goes to combat turns with her acting first. She can then teleport past the protagonist to attack the villain in the back.
  • In Borderlands 2, After the fight with The Warrior, Handsome Jack goes into a long rant about how you screwed up his plan to take over and "tame" Pandora, which you can interrupt at any time by shooting him. Or you can let him finish, and give Lilith the honor of finishing him off.
  • In Bayonetta, the Affably Evil Cardinal Virtues will ramble endlessly if they're allowed to; Bayonetta usually has to fire a few rounds at them just to get them back on topic. For the gigantic archangels, this is a mild annoyance, but the thought's there.
  • In Sword of the Stars The Herald is a menace that can visit one of your colonies and broadcast ominous statements that cause the morale of the colony to take a big hit. Of course any defence forces with enough firepower at the colony can destroy his vessel and avoid the morale drop.
  • The opening sequence of Doom (2016) ends with Dr. Samuel Hayden trying to justify his tampering with Argent Energy (and its inevitable consequences) to the protagonist. Doomguy takes one look at the mutilated civilian corpse at his feet before silently cracking his knuckles and punching out the speaker.
  • Rick from Unbound Saga seems only capable of communicating by punching.
    Tian: I believe that's all of them. [sheathes blades after helping Rick and Lori slice up some mutants]
    Rick: Good. [suddenly performs an Angry Collar Grab on Tian while slamming him on a wall] Now start talking! Who are you and what are you doing down here?
  • Foes in Undertale, especially bosses, start off with a monologue, then the player gets the first turn to attack. Sans, the final boss of a No Mercy/Genocide run, interrupts his own monologue to suddenly attack the player, taking the first turn and unleashing a powerful, hard to dodge series of very rapid attacks. If the player manages to survive, he ponders:
    Always wondered why people never use their strongest attack first.
  • In Yakuza 6, Kiryu and the Hirose family are marching on the Millennium Tower to confront the traitorous acting Chairman of the Tojo Clan, Sugai. A small army of Tojo mooks is waiting outside the skyscraper, but when their leader goes to stop them he gets a mouthful of Kiryu's knuckles for his trouble.
    Mook leader: Hello there. You're the fourth chairman, yes? What business do you have here today?
    [Megaton Punch]
    Kiryu: I need to speak with Sugai. But I can show myself up. Get out of my way!
  • Fate/Grand Order:
    • Billy the Kid has a habit of shooting people midsentence.
    • Miyamoto Musashi has a habit of slashing people midsentence. When Archer of Inferno is able to block it, she calls Musashi a coward for attacking her while she was talking, but Musashi retorts that given how powerful Archer of Inferno is, she'll take any opening she can get.
    • Limbo, moments away from defeat, starts a long-winded speech, trying to buy a few seconds to use his secret trump card. It does not work.

    Visual Novels 
  • When the protagonist of Double Homework thinks Dennis is about to rape Johanna, he grabs Dennis around the neck, not listening to his frenzied explanations and warnings. He then throws Dennis out the window.

    Web Animation 
  • In Egoraptor's "Awesome Chaotix", a bored Sonic starts off the video, "Man, Mobius sure is boring around he—*cue fist to the face from Knuckles*". Knuckles does it to Espio as well.
  • In Final Fantasy VII: Machinabridged, Yuffie shouts "SURPRISE ATTAAAAAAACK!" and starts gloating about her skill; she only gets as far as the first syllable of her name before Tifa applies percussive maintenance. The screen then switches to Yuffie's naming screen, where her name is incomplete, several letters are knocked askew or outright missing, and her portrait has Tifa's fist embedded firmly in her face.
  • In If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device, the Emperor does it with mind-fists twice in the same episode: once to Eliphas when he hears his letter, the other time to Kitten after the latter mocks his earlier line.
  • In the "Black" trailer for RWBY, this is Adam's response to being ordered to identify himself by an AK-130 android.

    Webcomics 
  • Black Mage uses this in 8-Bit Theater. Well, the party basically use it every time when they don't argue about something.
  • Aurora: The villainous storm god Tynan tries to monologue at Kendal about how doomed he is, only for Kendal to slice him in half. Unfortunately, since Aurora's gods' bodies are just vessels they form to interact with the world it just manages to surpise Tynan for a brief moment.
  • In Cucumber Quest, Tomato tries to threaten Almond, bragging that he has no qualms about hitting girls and so on. Almond isn't impressed, and interrupts his speech with her sword.
  • Inverted in Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures, when Dark Pegasus pulled out an Immolating Blast in the middle of a sentence — his own.
    Dark Pegasus: And for the rest of you, I give this advice: If you're going to destroy someone, do it while you're talking. They always expect you to finish the sentence first.
  • Used in the backstory of Darken. Just as Leon is delivering his "Good will always triumph" speech to Gort, he gets a knife in the back courtesy of Casper.
  • Darth Maul gets one in Darths & Droids when he tries to talk to Qui-Gon, who responds:
    Qui-Gon: Talk to the laser sword!
    They really should have listened – he was on their side, and didn't want to fight.
  • Dominic Deegan: In an arc where several people in Hell have been subjected to their sympathetic origin stories, the irredeemable Sigfried decides to punch the vision in the face and leave. Even the Fan Haters liked it!
  • Dragon Ball Multiverse: Nail does this to Frieza during the Universe 7 backstory.
  • In this Dystopia strip, the Dystopia heavy shows the Tribes heavy how it's done.
  • In El Goonish Shive, Professor Raven attempts to slice homicidal wizard Abraham's head off in mid-speech as negotiations break down — with him, "final warning" means exactly that.
    Abraham: Feigned frailty, no "En garde"... Have you no honor?!
    Raven: The lives of my students are more important. Besides which I did warn you…
  • Done by Jon in this this Errant Story strip, after he provokes the other man into arguing with him face to face so that he won't notice the revolver suddenly being drawn and aimed at his midsection.
  • Existential Comics: Captain Metaphysics "refutes" Pyrrho's skepticism by punching him, while the hover over text lists a number of ideas this works on. He uses this for every problem which is brought up, and also threatens anyone who disagrees with his "solution" this way.
  • Fate/type Redline: Sakura Saber faces a Servant who attempts to introduce himself, only for her to stab him in the throat mid-sentence. As he staggers around choking on his own blood, she finishes him off and says he was a fool to talk in the middle of a fight.
  • Subverted in Footloose when Fey!Keti begins talking, then attacks in the middle of her own speech.
  • A Girl and Her Fed has the Fed employ this to good effect.
  • Girl Genius:
    • The Abbess lost the count of the Heterodynes for a while. Moloch applied a lever, to the back of the head.
      Von Zinzer: Trust me. You wouldn't get anywhere trying to argue with her.
      Tarvek: You really are the best minion ever.
    • Vole perhaps ironically gives a gleeful lecture on this very subject to Tarvek and Gil, even as he whales on them: when it's time to fight, fight, don't stand around assuming that Talking Is a Free Action. As soon as he gets a chance, Gil shows that he got the lesson.
  • In Godslave, when Edith tries to explain to Turner that she has no idea where Anpu is, he answers by slamming her into a wall before she can finish speaking.
  • In Homestuck, Andrew Hussie beats Doc Scratch to death with a broom while he's in the middle of launching into another expository speech.
  • In Men in Hats, Aram decides he'd rather avoid having conversations with people, and punches Beriah in the gut before he can say "what's up."
  • Misfile combines this with Groin Attack. Ow!!
  • The Order of the Stick: Enor, the half-dragon bounty hunter, doesn't let Elan goad him into a pun-fight.
  • Rusty and Co.:
    • Madeline pulls a simple version of this on Plaidbeard. Mimic objects, due to wanting more information about why the dwarf did what he did.
    • Later she does it to the Zombie Knight; this one didn't talk anything valuable, and she smelled his evil.
  • Schlock Mercenary demonstrates how once the meaningful discussion is dismissed, people simply choose on which methods they used to fall back:
    Captain Tagon: I've got a torpedo bay full of points.
  • Tower of God: This happens while Quant and Endorsi are talking to each other, revealing where they have their badges. Endorsi goes for Quant's badge the moment he reveals it, while he is still talking.
  • Weak Hero:
    • In the cafeteria, Philip Kim tries to intimidate Gray with his usual bluffing, only for Gray to cut him off with a sudden elbow hook to his face followed by a kick to the head before he hit the floor.
    • A bully from Alex's past makes his reintroduction by mocking Alex's new friends, prompting Alex, with a deadpan expression, to sock him in the face while he's still in the middle of talking.
    • Alex manages to interrupt Dongha mid-sentence by surprising him with a one-two combo punch.
      Donga: Whoa! Shit, that caught me by surprise! You almost hit— WHAM!
    • The fight between Juwon and Jake seems to end as Jake is hit and slumps to the floor. Juwon is in the middle of complimenting his strength and potential when Jake's fist suddenly hits him square in the face.

    Web Original 

    Web Videos 
  • Atop the Fourth Wall:
  • The Angry Video Game Nerd:
  • Dragon Ball Z Abridged:
    • Played most straight by Goku against the Ginyu force, where he downs Recoome during his posing, smashes Jeice in the face repeatedly, and downs Burter while he's having a touching discussion of friendship with Jeice.
    • Also played with in two flashbacks. In the first, Zarbon is remembering Frieza ordering him to get to work, only to be blasted in mid-air by Vegeta. In the second, Jeice is trying to recall advice on what to do when being repeatedly smashed in the face, only for another punch to break off the Captain's words.
      Jeice: Ah, he cut off the Captain!
    • When Piccolo arrives to the battle against Freeza's second form, Freeza starts a joke with "Now tell me if you've heard this one." As Piccolo just fused with Nail, he has, and punches him before he can finish.
    • Goku's heroic speech (I am the lightbulb in the darkness! I am the Alpha and the Amiga! etc.) is interrupted right as he's saying that he's a Super Saiyan, when Freeza blasts him in the face. Goku, of course, isn't seriously injured, and finishes his sentence after a short pause.
    • Android 18 kicks Vegeta in the middle of one of his sexist comments directed toward her in their fight.
  • Variation in Jonathan in Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure Abridged, who's willing to crash-tackle Dio during the latter's Internal Monologue.
    Dio: Seriously? Let me finish my sentences!
  • Undertale the Musical: "Genocide Package" has dying Mettaton telling the Fallen Child that they failed to kill everyone and Alphys has already evacuated most of the monsters. Fallen then proceeds to furiously finish him mid-sentence.

    Western Animation 
  • Played for Drama and Deconstructed in the Arthur episode "Arthur's Big Hit", when Arthur punches D.W. after the latter has a Never My Fault speech over his model plane being destroyed. Arthur himself then gets grounded for this act.
  • During the Final Battle of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Fire Lord Ozai starts gloating after blasting Aang into a pile of rubble. His gloating is cut off when Aang (who has just regained access to the Avatar State) grabs Ozai by the goatee and blasts him into a stone pillar.
  • The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes: In "Gamma World, part 2", the Abomination tries to deliver a Badass Boast to The Hulk, only for the latter to cut him off mid-sentence and fling him through the roof with a kick.
  • Batman Beyond: Terry McGinnis interrupts the Joker's lecture on what the real Batman would do with an elbow twist. Also: "Ha. Ha."
    • Terry manages to irritate The Joker by making fun of him. Sort of a verbal punch.
  • In Batman: The Animated Series, Batman is having "one of those nights" when he hears the police scanner report a man attacking a restaurant wielding a ketchup gun. When he arrives to sort out the situation the Condiment King, as he describes himself, has been gleefully waiting for this confrontation for quite a while.
    Condiment King: "What's this? Ah, the Big Bad Bat Guy. I knew you'd ketchup to me sooner or later. How I've relished this meeting. You, the Dynamic Dark Knight, versus me, the Conceptual Condiment King! Come Batman, let's see if you can cut the mustard."
    Batman: *delivers a single punch to CK's stomach* "Quiet!"
    • In "Joker's Favor," everyman Charlie Collins—who the Joker's tormented for two years—kicks off some well-deserved karma by punching the Clown Prince of Crime so hard that he falls into some nearby trash cans. Badass Normal doesn't even begin to cover it.
      Charlie: [to an escaping Joker] Hold it.
      Joker: Oh, come on! [laughs and starts walking away]
      Charlie: I said HOLD IT!
      [socks the Joker in the stomach, sending him reeling]
  • Wonderfully inverted in the Beast Wars finale. Megatron tries goading Optimus to give one of his grand speeches about protecting the innocent, to which Optimus simply responds "Speech this!" with a right hook to the face.
    • Much earlier, Dinobot and Rattrap deliver both this and a Big "SHUT UP!" to Tarantulas when he interrupted their bickering.
  • Codename: Kids Next Door: With Numbuh 4, it's a case of Talk to the Dodgeball. Also sort of done when he faces off against Count Spankulot with a gun that fires a KANGAROO, with him declaring "Time to teach you the Australian word for OUCH!"
  • Family Guy:
    • An infamous Overly Long Gag has Stewie needle Brian at length, twice in one episode, in a voice irritatingly rising in pitch with every sentence, about the novel he's never finished writing. In a later episode, Stewie starts doing this again, but this time Brian punches him out almost immediately.
    • In another episode, when Meg gets released from prison, she asks who "the biggest, toughest guy in the house" is. Peter responds to the question and starts to boast until she beats the living shit out of him for all the abuse he put her though.
  • On Jimmy Two-Shoes, as Jimmy goes on about how he's going to tell Heloise about the Snowrilla, he gets a snowball in the mouth by said creature.
  • Used by Zatanna in "This Little Piggy" episode of Justice League Unlimited, against the Sorceress Circe:
    Circe: Insolent trickster! You dare to strike— (gets hit by a chair)... You dare to strike— (gets hit by a table)... You dare— (gets smothered by a tablecloth) QUIT IT!... Oh no... (gets hit by a grand piano)
    • Here's this delightful little gem from the Justice League episode "Wild Cards":
    Ten: (beats up on Superman, grabs him by the scruff of his neck) I'm stronger than everybody! I knew I was stronger than you!
    Superman: (headbutts him, sending him flying) I heard that before.
  • A truly epic moment for Kim Possible. In So the Drama, Drakken seems to have finally outsmarted Kim, and exuberantly gloats in his office about how he figured out that her weakness is boys and dating. Then he finds that she escaped his death trap and snuck up on him.
    Kim: You're right, Drakken. Boys? Dating? Oh it's hard. But this... is easy!! [punches him in the face]
  • King of the Hill: An inversion by Bobby, when confronted by one of his usual bullies who doesn't seem too intimidated by his recent Groin Attack spree he ends up hitting him in the middle of his own sentence:
    Clark: What are you gonna do? Are you gonna kick me in the nads?
    Bobby: Am I gonna do it? Yes. When am I gonna do it? Don't know!. Could be tomorrow—
    *CRUNCH*
    Bobby: [to an incapacitated Clark] One thing you'll find out about me, Clark, is that I'm not a very patient person.
  • In the Korgoth of Barbaria pilot, a Giant Mook began making a bizarre and overly long threat to Korgoth that the main character eventually got tired of listening to, so he interrupted by ripping off the mook's face.
  • The Life and Times of Juniper Lee: Juniper Lee once conked a would-be monologuing villain with a rock in a Batman Cold Open.
  • When the title character of Mega Man (Ruby-Spears) copies Pharaoh Man's weapon, he shouts "Now I've got your power!"... and gets punched in the face, instantly promoting Pharaoh Man to Memetic Badass status.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Chrysalis remains defiant even as she, Tirek, and Cozy Glow have been defeated and de-powered... it doesn't help:
    Queen Chrysalis: You think friendship will save you?! We will ALWAYS return! Nothing will EVER stop
    [a giant cupcake falls on the trio]
  • Regular Show:
    • In "The Night Owl", the title character freezes Mordecai, Rigby, Muscle Man, and High-Five Ghost for several hundred years to make himself famous. When the guys manage to make it back to the present and accidentally ruin his plan before he caught them with it, the Night Owl starts chewing them out for it. Muscle Man walks up, grabs him by the shirt and knocks him out cold in the middle of his rant.
      Night Owl: I maxed out my student loans for that car! You're gonna have to pay for that! (Muscle Man decks him to the ground)
      Muscle Man: That's for freezing us on purpose.
    • In "Eggscellent", after Benson makes an insensitive comment towards Rigby's dying state due an allergic reaction to eggs, Mordecai punches him in the face and gives him "The Reason You Suck" Speech about how nobody likes him and only hang out with him because he's their boss.
  • Happened to Samurai Jack in the episode where he fought in Gladiator Games against his will. As it happens, this was immediately after his opponent rattled off a long train of smack talk that Jack was trying to counter in turn.
  • The Simpsons:
    • Happens twice in "Bart vs. Australia". Homer does stupid things in front of the U.S. Marine guarding the embassy's gate, and twice the Marine punches Homer in the face.
    Homer: Hey, are you like one of those English guards who can't laugh or smile or anything? (makes silly faces and noises till the Marine punches him) OW!
    Marine Guard: No, sir! US Marine Corps, sir!
    • In "The Old Man And The 'C' Student", Homer tries to sell springs door-to-door; he goes to the Skinner residence, where Skinner decks him on account of his son Bart costing the town the Olympics. Due to the springs covering his body, he just bounces right back up, so Skinner decks him again. Rinse and repeat.
  • In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Pizza Delivery", SpongeBob and Squidward go through a lot of hardships to give the pizza to the customer who ordered it. When SpongeBob finally arrives at his doorstep to give it to him, the customer has the nerve to chew him out for not giving him a drink (which he didn't even order) and sends poor SpongeBob to tears. Squidward (in a rare instance) immediately comes to his defense and knocks the customer's door, and when the customer continues to complain, Squidward decks him hard with the pizza box.
    Customer: Another one?! Look, I told your little friend I ain't paying for that!
    Squidward: Well, this one's on the house! (smashes the pizza in his face)
  • In Star Wars: The Clone Wars, a Mandalorian Agent is monologuing to Obi-Wan and the Duchess of Mandalore prior to his escape. He explains how he's going to kill them once he's off the ship, and how neither can stop him without killing him which would violate the Duchess' technical pacifism and make her no longer love Obi-Wan if he was the one to kill the agent. Cue Anakin's lightsaber being driven through his chest from behind.
  • In the climatic battle of Teen Titans (2003), Madame Rouge repeatedly tries to monologue only for one or more of the heroes to take her down midsentence.
  • In Transformers: Animated, Bumblebee tries to attack Starscream when monologuing to Megatron. Starscream effortlessly takes Bumblebee down. "YOU INTERRUPTED MY SPEEEEEEEEECH!!"

    Real Life 
  • Ex-Apollo Astronaut Buzz Aldrin was once harangued by conspiracy theorist Bart Sibrel, who vehemently argued that the Moon landing was a hoax in front of his stepdaughter. His response was to interrupt the conspiracy theorist with a punch to the face. A judge let Aldrin off, ruling that the conspiracy theorist was practically assaulting Aldrin, and Aldrin had every right to make him Talk to the Fist. After all, Sibrel said things to Aldrin's face such as "how do you expect to get to heaven" and "you are a coward, a liar and a thie-", the last one is a downplayed version of Killed Mid-Sentence because that's when a line was crossed and Aldrin gave Sibrel his solid right hook.
  • Ray Bradbury, apparently:
    "A horrible little boy came up to me and said, 'You know in your book The Martian Chronicles?' I said, 'Yes?' He said, 'You know where you talk about Deimos rising in the East?' I said, 'Yes?' He said 'No.' — So I hit him."
  • This once happened on the floor of the European Parliament. During a visit by Pope John Paul II to the EP, Northern Irish ultra-Loyalist MEP and hard-right Presbyterian minister Rev. Ian Paisley started angrily denouncing him as The Antichrist. Conservative German MEP Otto von Habsburg - who was also the current head of the House of Habsburg at the time - as a very devout Catholic (his father was the literally saintly last Emperor of Austria Hungary and his ancestors were the Holy Roman Emperors, for heaven's sake!) took exception. With his fist.
  • Billy Milano was arrested for punching Warrel Dane in the face at some point in the late nineties. The true instigator is still unknown, as is the reason why it happened; some accounts allege that Dane was drunk, depressed, and was just generally not having a good night and that Milano told him to shut up and stop whining before he punched him, while others allege that Dane was drunk and acting like a complete asshole and that he had been verbally abusing Milano and talking shit about him all night, resulting in Milano confronting him and punching him when he received a rude response. What is known is that Dane was drunk, that Milano punched him, and that the police were called and subsequently carted off Milano for assault. Amusingly enough, photos exist of the arrest and of Milano sitting in the back of a cruiser with a drunken Dane waving at him.
  • Jeremy Clarkson, presenter of Top Gear (UK), was accused of adultery on the front page of a tabloid newspaper. Discovering the editor of the Daily Mirror — one Piers Morgan — sitting in an upmarket restaurant with his extra-marital affair, Clarkson addressed the double standard involved here by punching Morgan across the diner. Whilst public opinion in this case was supportive of Clarkson, on the grounds the man he had chinned was Piers Morgan, a later punch by Clarkson had far less of a happy result. note 
  • The now famous video of neo-Nazi Richard Spencer getting punched in the face while giving a speech.
  • Miami Dolphins Cuban-American player Kiko Alonso reacted extremely badly when Colin Kaepernick praised Fidel Castro after the latter's death. In a game between the Dolphins and Kaepernick's San Francisco 49ers, Alonso smashed Kaepernick with a vicious tackle that decided the game. Alonso, whose father was a Cuban exile forced to flee Cuba from Castro's regime, later said that Kaepernick's comments caused bad blood between the two of them.


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Mio shuts Mobius up

As Mobius proclaims about their perfect form of interlinking, Mio jumps in the midst of their monologue and sends them flying with a punch.

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5 (18 votes)

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Main / TalkToTheFist

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