"How can he punch me when he can't even reach my face?"
Usually spoken by smug, smirking tall guys, anyone who uses that line is admitting they know nothing about fighting.
When it comes to standing straight and maximizing your height in a fight, I'll make the reasons real simple on why you shouldn't do that:
- You lose reach when you punch down.
- Your jaw is more exposed. The lower fighter is hit on the top of the skull, the taller fighter is hit on the chin.
- Your center of gravity is too high, and your hips/legs are vulnerable to takedowns and knockdowns. There's a reason why freestyle wrestlers keep a low stance.
- Less leverage.
- Unless you're facing a dwarf, the shorter person can still reach you.
Finally, here's 5'10 Mark Hunt knocking out 7'0 Stefan Struve...
and 5'8 Minowa landing an overhand on 7'2 Hong Man Choi.
The amount of tall guys I've seen who think short men can't reach their chins are laughable. Many of these tall guys are way shorter than 7'0. People like to think short men have the reach of babies, and they aren't joking when they talk that way. Forget reaching a tall guy's face, opinions on short men these days are so sour, I've seen people thinking tall girls, skinny tall guys, and tall teenagers can beat up most short men. When even 6'0-6'5 guys think short men can't punch their heads, it's a sad state of affairs.
One may think none of this matters, but it's this contempt that leads to general disrespect in everyday life. Simply put, people think short men can't do anything about it. Hell, many short men think they can't do anything about it. All born of ignorance.
No matter how many analysts and experts say "fighting tall" is a mistake and not an advantage (not even statistically), height worshipers will never let this go: [1][2]. Reminds me of when I saw people who worship height so much, they thought being taller is an advantage in arm wrestling. Most people will automatically assume taller is better 100% of the time. You could explain everything to them and give them the numbers, but they choose to believe what they want to believe. This happens both in sports and normal life.
Probably the best example of failing by standing tall:
This is how most uneducated guys would look fighting someone shorter.
