This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Working Title: Curbstomp Battle: From YKTTW
Kizor: Trope and discussion page restored from Google cache after the Crash of '08. Some data lost - the cache version was locked for editing by Prfnoff. YKTTW page appears lost.
Nits: This trope definitely needs some love. Trying to come up with a few examples for it...
Caswin: Was the duel with Bill really a curb stomp? As I recall, Bill gave her a run for her money, down to disarming her and nearly running her through but for her Pai Mei training, something the entry ignores entirely. It was short, I'll give that, but it's not as if she shut him down completely. (Besides which, where does the "extended swordfight on a beach" come from? The original script does have them having a final showdown on a beach, but it also has her pointedly beating Bill with very little effort at all.)
Caswin: Removing it as per above. If it has a place here, it's definitely not as it currently reads.
- Kill Bill: Bill's final battle with The Bride was anti-climactic to say the least. After clashing swords with Bill a couple times, The Bride easily dispatched him with the Five-Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique. The two were originally to have an extended swordfight on a beach, but for some reason, Tarantino decided to shoot the Curb-Stomp Battle instead.
This page does not have General Griveous' deflating battle with Obi Wan? What?
Caswin: If you believe it should be here and it isn't, then go ahead and add it.
Rogue 7: Am I the only one who thinks that, on occasion, having the hero just absolutely kick ass on an epic level against an overconfident opponent can be both incredibly awesome and incredibly cathartic?
That Other 1 Dude: No. Also, that's apparently what the two example from One Piece were suppose to be. That's sort of annoying how the article insists that all fights have to have it look the villain is going to win or else it's automatically "the most annoying type of fight in any medium ever". Wouldn't that make most fights incredibly predictable? And really, having it always looking like the villain is winning before the hero makes a come back makes the villain's early lead increasingly meaningless.
Gloating Swine: No. As long as the curbstomping is portrayed intelligently, like in Nanoha A's, where although the enemy tries to attack, it's pre-empted and cut off by intelligent teamwork every time, and not just the enemy's attacks not working by authorial fiat.
Charred Knight: Their are several types of curb stomp battles, CSB between people who are supposed to be the best is god awful (i.E Athrun vs Shinn, and Kallen vs. Luciano, Suzaku vs. Ko R), CSB between a great fighter and an obnoxious loser (Luffy vs. Bellamy, the Wolf guy from Bleach vs Poe)are good, CSB that sets up a plotline with the victim (King Bradley Vs. Greed, Gurren Lagann vs. Viral) are fine, and the Worf Effect is just plain annoying.
That Other 1 Dude: Agreed. The body of the article needs to be edited a bit to show that Tropes Are Not Bad: while it sucks when someone like the Worthy Opponent, which you expect to put a good fight, doesn't, a complete Smug Snake utterly getting his ass handed to him is generally incredibly satisfying.
Servbot: Made the body more neutral. Old version (Kept below) was just begging for a bunch of unnecessary natter and justifying edits.
[When this is played straight, it is arguably the most annoying type of fight in any medium ever, the Curb Stomp Battle doesn't even give the villain a chance to be formidable. One of the hallmarks of a good fight is that the villains have to be intimidating. Not here. No matter how scary the villain was before, here, he's reduced to a complete joke in the face of the shining glory that is the hero. Expect this type of battle to last three installments, and that's if you're very, very lucky. Sometimes the writer will try to justify this. For instance, if, as above, Alice killed Bob's sister, the writer may say that Bob had feelings of "just vengeance" or "boundless confidence," or what have you. If anything, this cheapens it further; the author couldn't write a good fight, so he wrote around a good fight.
Note that this is not boring at all when villains do it, for some reason. Or another. Expect a God-Mode Sue to pull off at least one.]
That Other 1 Dude: Debated
- Avatar The Last Airbender: Aang vs Ozai, debatable in one direction, then definitely in the other once Aang goes Super.
This is defined as a (probably important) fight which is entirely in the hero's favor for the entire match. Doesn't the fact that the villain was winning at first disqualify it from this trope? Isn't that more like My Name Is Inigo Montoya? Anyway, it was a bit more complicated than that, and when Aang was winning it was less "beating Ozai into the ground" and more "hunting him down".
Gloating Swine: Aang vs Ozai is more like Evasive Fight Thread meets I Am Not Left-Handed. For the first half of the fight, Aang wasn't attacking because he was trying not to kill or unduly damage Ozai, but to force him into a position where he could use his shiny new spirit bending. There's a moment that shows it's not one sided where Aang redirects a lightning bolt, and Ozai does a textbook Oh, Crap! face, thinking he's going to get fried.
Caswin: Deleting it again. A minutes-long back-and-forth battle that destroys a fair portion of the surrounding countryside and could have gone either way (Avatar State finale notwithstanding) definitely does not amount to a "curbstomp".
Universalperson: Would the Matrix fit? (The first movie, obviously)
Charred Knight: Deleted, as I edited the first part to compare it to the middle of Gundam Seed Destiny, which was postively filled with these kinds of battle. The best comparison is the first scene with Strike Freedom, where Kira effortlessly destroys 20+ MS in minutes, which would be cool if it didn't make ZAFT look like a complete joke. All the Kallen, and Suzaku scenes did was make Britannia look like a complete joke.
- These two battles were quite short, as well as obviously designed with the sole purpose of demonstration, how uber Kallen and Suzaku have become, by allowing them to blow up some strong, but unimportant characters (only two of whom ever had any plot role not related to these battles). The comparison with the Gundam SEED Destiny trainwreck of a climactic battle isn't really fair.
Star Wars versus Star Trek doesn't belong. There's no actual canon there at all; it's down to where the individual fanboy picks their made-up statistics from.
NoDot: By Canon, Wars victory. That said, I agree.
NoDot: Removed:
- The evidence would be a bit more convincing if it wasn't coming from a site named after one of the ships from Star Wars.
So, the name of the site disqualifies pages of evidence?
I removed the American History X reference because it's not a curb stomp battle. The characters don't face off for a fight, nor does one outfight the other. One character just points a gun at the other and tells him to bite the curb.
- True. It's just the scene that made the expression "curb stomp" popular. So, trope namer, I guess.
- I don't think it can be the trope namer if it's not an example of the trope.
- Sure it can. It just can't be the trope maker.
- I don't think it can be the trope namer if it's not an example of the trope.
Took out the reference to the Brock Lesnar/Randy Couture fight. The bout was short but not particularly one-sided. Couture handled Lesnar better in the clinch than many people anticipated and the fight was more or less even until Lesnar landed the fight-ending punch. As far as Lesnar is concerned, a better curb-stomp example would be the Herring fight, in which Herring put up almost no offense at all. The fact that it went to decision works against it, however.
This trope would benefit from less verbose setup examples and more get-to-the-point defining of what it is. "The big bad became a jobber" is a good example of get-to-the-point but it's not exactly the definition of the trope is it? Still it's better than two paragraphs of blah blah setup example. It should have a succinct definition like "a one sided fight" or such, IMO, but even then that is wrong since there is already a separate trope called "one sided battle." "A one sided fight when you are expecting a more balanced outing?"
Took out a bit in Real Life. It was after the example of Slovakia beating Bulgaria in Hockey, then Canada doing the same to Slovakia in the 2010 games. Someone posted a smart mouth Jerkass comment that is opinion and not even an example to begin with and it a bit offensive.
