I love 's fighting style. The way he puts so much power behind his punches that his momentum ends up bringing him to the ground, along with the bad guy, is so different from what we see on 99.9% of other action/adventure TV shows and movies.

I agree, he puts his entire body weight into his punches much of the time. I was taught that a punch should begin with the momentum in the hips, but Mac really puts this into action. I also like that he showed his hand hurting pretty often after these punches too...you know that's gotta hurt!!

It shows he's human. Though there is plenty of fighting where he doesn't show his hurting.

I also like 's fighting style as well. And he really looks like he's in a lot of pain after he punches a bad guy. And I agree you don't really see that in many action & adventure TV shows and movies.

Mac was especially good at cold-cocking the bad guys if they didn't see him coming. If it was a straight fight Mac might be in trouble, but if he snuck up on you it was lights out every time (well, except for those few times when he missed). My friends and I used to refer to this as the MacGyver Knockout Punch.

I always like it when the bad guy seems to have the upperhand but than Mac fights back.

I heard somewhere that MacGyver was supposed to be an above-average fighter unless it came to someone more skilled, or powerful.

I always shake my head because he's always getting himself beat up. XD Or if he throws a punch, he ends up knocking himself off his feet.

Makes him human, yes... but it also makes me chuckle at how often he loses his balance and falls on his butt.

I love the scene in Walking Dead after they drug him and take him away in a truck. He escapes and hits the two bad guys with a shovel. He then proceeds to punch one guy, spins and promptly smacks his face on the truck fender before falling over. I crack up every time. XD

If I recall well Mac had a yellow band in a karate in The Wish Child but when it comes down to fighting Mac just uses brute force. He's not showing off with martial arts or anything. Mac usually has the upper hand in fights but took beatings as well (Bitter Harvest, Guns 'N Boyz, Easy Target).

In The Walking Dead that scene is my most favorite. He hits them with the shovel, jumps out and than *pow*.

Also one of my favorites is The Wasteland, though he lost. I mean, he took four guys on his own. I wonder how that one went if that bottle of powder wasn't there.

I LOVE this fight scene in Log Jam. I showed it to my best friend and she was like... we SO have to watch that episode now.



I just love how he makes that leap off the top of that pile. It was like... CHARGE!!! XD

I agree, I think he uses brute force most, if not all of the time. He keeps himself in pretty good shape, so I'm sure he does some kind of strength training in order to do what he does. I just love that he's not always very graceful.

I'll have to re-watch Wasteland now. LOL!

I think his fighting style could best be described as 'full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes'! He does seem to have cornered the market in one-stop-knockout-drop punches too

I'm also a huge fan of how he does that massive, gangly flying leap to bring down fleeing bad guys and the way he knocks himself off his feet with the momentum of that punch!

I really like that fight scene from Log Jam. When Glass takes that chainsaw and Mac going 'aaaaah!'
Mac never screams, but when he sees that chainsaw, he quickly gained upperhand. No way he's going to be sawn into pieces.

Gotta love him!
I must go rewatch that episode...

ROFL! I'm so terrible. The first few times I saw him throw those punches that end up with him falling, he had so much momentum I cracked up laughing. Another I like about MacGyver. He's not your average, run-of-the'-mill hero who is completely indestructible. XD

I agree not your typical I can beat anyone in a fist fight hero.

I agree not your typical I can beat anyone in a fist fight hero.

Right! Take James West (from the 60s show, Wild Wild West) for instance. He was always taking on 3 or more bad guys yet he always came out on top. Not that I have anything against that show (loved it!) but just as an example.

I love the look on Mac's face when he decides to tackle the bad guy and break through the railing.

You mean that "Oh man..." look? XD I love it too... or when he looks at the hose when it ran out of water.

I've caught myself saying "Oh man..." a lot now too. XD

I also agree that I like MacGyver because he's not your typical "indestructible" hero.

Yep, that's the look.

He doesn't seem to use Karate in his fights, does he?
I wonder if he kept it up, or if he had too many other things to do. It certainly doesn't seem to be his fighting style of choice...

Or it could be in the mix and I just haven't noticed it. Any Karate experts here care to venture an opinion?

Does anyone know how many times Mac actually punches someone? I lose track of the episodes but love how he always shakes his hand afterward like "owww"

You mean the single punch fight or every single fight?

it's funny, I've never seen a hockey player hurt his hand in a "gloves off" fight.

Never seen a rugby player, a football hoon or a bar fighter hurt their hands either.

Hockey players hurt their hands all the time in fights mainly because they'll contact the sharp edges of helmets, visors, and teeth when throwing punches.

The code of conduct, though, is to never show any painful emotion at all. However - often a camera will pan to the penalty box immediately after a fight and catch a player with an ice bag placed secured over hand. Sometimes immediate medical attention is required(re: stitches, breaks, consciousness issues) for which medical personnel are standing by.

I haven't noticed any particular 'style' from Mac other than being opportunistic, camera angle savvy/sensitive, and of course the 'Jim Rockford' borrowed comedic pain reaction.

Yeah the damage is caused by things other than someones face normally.

There's plenty of video evidence around to indicate that punching someone doesn't hurt anywhere near as much as MacGyver or Jim Rockford would have you believe and there's a pretty simple reason why... When you punch someone their jaw and head absorbs the impact, all the energy you put into a punch transfers to their face causing it to snap back like a shock absorber which is what actually knocks them out. That's why punching a wall hurts a lot more than punching someone's face, face is soft and mushy, wall is solid and stable.



Having said that though, there's always the risk of landing the punch badly, in which case you can cause damage to your hand, but a got straight plant on the jaw is going to hurt the other guy a lot more than you.

As the old saying goes, Punching someone in the face doesn't hurt anywhere near as much as being punched in the face.

Yeah I think it's fair to say that his fighting style really was for the cameras. It looked full of energy but would be pretty useless in real life.

MacGyver's pain reaction always cracks me up. But, I also love how he reacts when he doesn't want to get hit. I remember one of my favorite scenes is from Three For the Road, and he throws his hands up to protect his face and says "don't hit!". He does this again in Humanity when Victor was going to shoot him in the sewers. He comes off as a bit of a pain wimp, but seems to endure it rather well when he is hurt, which I would contribute to his stubborness (and the magic of television). teehee

Haha I don't know - thanks for clarifying. I guess since there's basically some kind of fight in every episode, I suppose I'd go for more of the "single punch and shakes hand afterward" fights

Hmm, although that's part of what I'm trying to figure out - does Mac shake his hand after every punch? Or just sometimes?

I'll have to watch them again, but I seem to remember him shaking his hand afterwards quite a lot.

He only shakes his hand sometimes. It mostly seems to be after the one off knock out punch at the end of a scene. If the punch is somewhere in the middle of a scene and he has other things to do he doesn't worry about it.

MacGyver's fighting style has always irked me. It doesn't make any sense to me that someone in MacGyver's line of work wouldn't know basic self defense. What's even more confusing is that at the start of the show we see him as an accomplished fighter but as the show wears on his fighting skills seem to diminish down to nearly nothing.

I would have much rather they made MacGyver a character who hates to fight, but if he has to, he knows how to.

Agreed, it just doesn't make sense. If he wasn't a decent fighter, his career as a troubleshooter would be very short indeed!

Same thing happened to Riggs in the Lethal Weapon films - first one he can fight, thereafter he's rubbish...