I don't get what people see in... (ask the fandoms!)

I guess that's because people who trained to achieve badassery seem closer to the audience. You can always imagine that, with enough training, you could become as badass as they are, while you will never be as strong as people who are that way because they were born like that.

Also, they're very different aesthetics. Why does anyone like watching professionals do anything? They have the skill to do cool stuff with what they have, that's why. A fight in which the hero flails around until he accidentally crushes his opponent's skull looks and feels very different from one where he carefully takes them apart with the combined application of a half-dozen different martial arts.

I don't often watch Martial Arts shows, but if I do ... it's the aesthetic. A kick applied to the solarplexus is just more elegant than a bullet to the head. And if both opponents are skilled, it looks somewhat like a dance. Rule of Cool - it doesn't really matter whether it could happen in real life.

Let me put it this way:

Which do you think is a better watch:

A speedrunner going through a game as fast as possible and demolishing everything in his way through sheer skill...

... or a Cheater who hacked his stats to be super high, but doesn't have the slightest clue how to actually play?

Except that most speed runs abuse hacking to get the "best times". And mediocre hacking is hilarious to watch, while most speedruns are the same thing over and over with different RNG variables thrown in. The funnest to watch is expert hacking...

That's the opinion of someone who does not actually know how Speedruns work.

Speedruns actually have very formalized rules in most fandoms.

I had seen some speedruns over but can kind of see your point, seeing a skilled fighter dismantle a foe sounds more appealing than simply flailing around hoping that you hit something.

The issue I have with this analogy is that it assumes that Unskilled, but Strong is undesireable and that anyone who falls into such is not deserving of his strength/achievements. Tropes Are Not Bad.

I'm not using Unskilled, but Strong, though.

I'm comparing someone who worked to earn those skills, and thus deserves victory, with someone who's simply cheating and has done nothing to earn victory, thus doesn't deserve them.

It's like comparing someone who trained all their life to be a world class figher with a guy who just pulls a sledgehammer and beats him to death with it.

Was this not the question you're example was meant for?

In a sense. The analogy does not perfectly relate to what he said, it is merely answering a question by providing a similar scenario with a slightly similar setup.

As a real answer, though, we like seeing a Weak, but Skilled character rather than a Strong, but Unskilled character because of the simple reason that the former tends to require a lot more effort, and skill is a much more admirable trait than brute force.