Basic Trope: Someone blocks a punch with another punch.
- Straight: Bob throws a punch, Alice blocks it by punching the punch.
- Exaggerated:
- The impact leaves a Kung-Fu Sonic Boom, with smoke slowly rising off the knuckles of impact.
- Bob has a Power Fist, Alice is bare-handed. It still works.
- Pummel Duel
- Alice parries a punch of a giant ten times larger than her.
- Downplayed:
- Both punches thrown were fairly weak.
- Alice is wearing padding, Bob is not.
- Justified:
- Alice’s fists are the strongest part of her body.
- Bob’s fists are his only weakpoint.
- Inverted: Bob Blocks Alice’s block with a different block.
- Subverted: Alice looks like she’s about to punch Bob’s punch, but at the last second goes for a Punch Catch instead.
- Double Subverted: When she counterattacks, it’s Bob that does the Punch Parry.
- Parodied:
- As soon as their fists connect, Dave calls out “Sick brofist, man!”
- After the Punch Parry, both Alice and Bob hold their hands in obvious pain.
- Zig Zagged:
- Sometimes they punch each other’s fists, sometimes they block them, sometimes they catch them.
- Parrying a kick with a kick, instead. Or even a punch with a kick!
- Averted: No-one parrys any punches.
- Enforced:
- It is almost a requirement for any Pummel Duel.
- The director insists on having this moment as his calling card.
- The author described how that’s not the best way of blocking a punch, but he thought it would be cooler.
- Lampshaded:
- “So I punched a punch. How about that!”
- “Why are you always aiming at my fists? Do my gloves have a target painted on them or what?”
- Invoked:
- Alice punches Bob’s fist because she thinks it’ll look totally AWESOME.
- Alice is Made of Iron and knows it, so she pummels people’s fists knowing they'll come out of it worse than she will.
- Exploited: Bob throws a punch, knowing that Alice will block it with a punch, and hit the metal plate hidden in his boxing glove fist-first.
- Defied: “You crazy? If I tried that, I’d break my hand!”
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed: The impact ends up breaking both Alice’s and Bob’s hand, and it’s used to show how Alice is Unskilled, but Strong, acting on instinct instead of training.
- Reconstructed: Both fighters are too hardcore to care about any injuries they receive, let alone broken hands, and keep Punch Parries going even with broken hands and bleeding knuckles.
- It's a Deliberate Injury Gambit: Alice's hand is ruined by the impact, but so is Bob's hand. Bob is an Extremity Extremist who can't adapt to the kick-boxing Alice relies on after this point.
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