When it comes to mixed martial arts and other combat sports, there are weight classes.
This is what separates sports from reality.
In real life, when you’re facing somebody, you won’t have the luxury of dividing up into weight classes so you have a “fighting chance”!
You may be facing someone who is bigger or stronger.
In fact, you PROBABLY will, because “bad guys” pick victims they think they can beat.
Facing someone who is bigger and stronger than you is one of the biggest fears most people have.
For that reason, I talked to my friend Mike Gillette to get his advice.
Here’s a summary of the three tips he gave me for facing a larger attacker.
3 Things To Remember When Fighting A Larger Attacker!
You know that when you match against someone, size is a factor.
Another factor, though, is how much knowledge you have.
You can’t be bigger than every person you meet.
You can’t always be stronger no matter how strong you get.
So you’ve got to fight smarter.
This is where training and preparation come in.
It also brings us to our first tip for facing someone who’s larger and stronger.
#1: You Won’t Be Fighting A Professional
In the cage, on the mat, or in the ring, it’s very rare that a fighter does something the other fighter has never seen before.
You’d have to go all the way back to the early days of the UFC, when it was just a free-for-all, to see a competition where fighters were doing things their opponents had never seen.
Those days are long gone.
Everybody knows everything if they’re a competitive fighter.
Gaps in knowledge still exist, however, out in the real world, in street fighting.
The more you know, the better off you will be if you get attacked by someone larger than you.
He won’t be a professional fighter, chances are, so if you know things he doesn’t, you’ll be able to take him by surprise and use his ignorance against him.
#2: He’s Going To Pick You Because He Thinks He Can Win
It’s rare that a much smaller guy attacks a much larger guy.
Criminals will target someone smaller because they think that they can win easily.
This means you’ve got to keep in mind, in every altercation, that you’re going to be at a disadvantage right from the start.
You’re not going to be able to just rely on size and strength to win because the attacker will already have chosen someone smaller.
You’ve got to communicate clearly and immediately with the opponent in that situation, which means inflicting pain.
But pain alone won’t be enough if he’s bigger and stronger.
That, in turn brings us to…
#3: Take His Balance And You Own Him
If you can introduce instability, you can inflict pain in a way that you can’t by trying to overwhelm somebody when they’re larger.
When we take away someone’s balance, even for a brief moment, it creates a sense of panic.
The biggest priority to anyone who is off balance is suddenly to regain that balance.
Nobody tries to fight when they’re falling.
The first thing they try to do is regain their footing, get their head over their hips, and figure themselves out.
It can all happen very quickly, but if you can take the attacker’s balance, you get a brief window of opportunity during which they’re focused on something that isn’t you.
This can give you the chance to take a devastating shot and take them down.
