Which would be more difficult for an unarmed martial artist to overcome, a grizzly bear or a silverback gorilla?

NEGI RK Friday, January 22, 2021

Which would be more difficult for an unarmed martial artist to overcome, a grizzly bear or a silverback gorilla?

Which would be more difficult to overcome?

Option A:

Option B:

I’ll go for Option C — reality.

The hardest thing to overcome is apparently the devastating, soul-crushing reality that, no matter how much “spinning shit” (in the words of Nick Diaz) we learn, humans have about as much chance against either of these animals as I do of sitting through the Cats movie in its entirety.

I like that it’s not even a question of “which could you survive an encounter with?” The goal is overcoming one of these animals. I applaud your optimism, but the boring real answer is that the gorilla wouldn’t want anything to do with you unless you acted aggressively.

If you did, he’d probably just charge at you, possibly knock you over, give you a disappointed look, and go back to giving zero f*cks. If he wanted to, he could probably smash your head in like a watermelon. Luckily for us, gorillas are pretty chill.

As for the grizzly? Again, it probably wouldn’t want to fight unless it was a mother with cubs, you surprised it, or (rarely) it was a predatory attack.

If it’s a territorial attack, your best bet is to just lie down and play dead.

What do you think you could do to that thing??

Humans are not blessed with the power to deliver a blow with concussive force to something with a neck thicker than our body. And unless you’re this guy:

…your arms aren’t even going to fit around said massively muscled neck, let alone deliver enough of a squeeze to choke it out.

If it’s a predatory attack… well, the bear will start eating you while you’re still alive, so I guess you’d try and do something so you die a warrior’s death and go to Valhalla.

Maybe the bear would chomp your arm off in such a way to give you a nice, sharp stump to stab it with.

I’m sure lots of you have seen this:

So, if it’s a case of “which would you be most likely to survive an unarmed encounter with?” then the gorilla is your best bet. People enjoy close encounters with wild gorillas all the time.

But don’t attempt to fight him…you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.