Would you rather fight a street or a professional fighter?

None of them if possible. Street fights do happen: sometimes dictated by irrational behaviour, other times escalating from binge drinking, road rage or other unforgivable reasons: whatever the motivation, it can happen to you. With this post I am not trying to discuss how to defend yourself in such a situation: simply analyzing why a professional fighter is usually a more dangerous opponent than a street fighter.  An experienced street fighter, perhaps somebody who grew up in a rough neighbourhood, is a dangerous opponent to fight because:

• he is surely unfair, not playing according to rules (what rules?)
• he will be seizing any opportunity available, hit you first
• he would try to hurt you with a sudden move, perhaps while talking or arguing
• he will try to knock you down as soon as possible: probably once he succeeded he will continue to hit you while you are on the floor
• he will be ruthless, perhaps using weapons, in order to win the fight at any cost

Let’s now define a professional fighter: my definition here will be ‘somebody who fights full contact either in boxing, kickboxing, muai thai, K1 or MMA and trains for it several hours per week’.  I am convinced that you ever get to fight one of these guys (or girls) in the street your chances are much slimmer than in the other case.  The professional fighter will be:

• stronger, faster, fitter than the average man on the street and with enough stamina to be fighting at full power for several rounds lasting 2 to 5 minutes each
• with a good knowledge about what parts of the opponent to hit and the precision needed to deliver on target
• with a well conditioned body, trained to be hit hard by other professional fighters

From an emotional point of view the street fighter will be acting under rage, at full adrenaline burst: the professional will surely be affected by adrenaline rush but in a much more controlled and trained way so he will be more focused on his actions.

Considering that is unlikely we know who we are going to meet on the street and whether they are street, professional or non fighters my suggestion would be to avoid fights at any cost: in the mean time keep (or start) training martial arts, they might be useful one day.