Importance of muscle in a street fight?

Ive been wondering, how important is muscle in a street fight, if two people are fighting, the same age and roughly the same height. One person is muscular and bigger, and the other relies on their fighting ability, who has the advantage here?

if we're assuming that it is a dichotomized scenario...muscle or fighting ability, i'd go with fighting ability hands down. but people with muscles can fight too, and depending on the training that built those muscles, it could be very advantagious. the fast twitch muscle fibers that come with heavy explosive lifts can really give you an edge, like a sprinter. the softer rhoutines that are repetition based, not pushed to exhaustion can sometimes give one an unrealistic sense of confidence. power-lifting is good, body building varies. also, if you can coordinate that extra weight and power with forward motion, speed, and skill--hmmm...

Nav

its pretty simple mate in a fight its fighting ability that counts - SOME muscular development MAY occur as a by product of that ability

in a weight lifting contest its the ability to lift weights that counts - developed muscle will definitely be a by product of that ability

one thing ive noticed is that people who develop muscles just from fighting (padwork, sparring and grappling) seem to get big from the inside out... like if you look at them everything around their spine is developed, neck, back, stomach... people who get it from weights seem bigger from the outside in, ie they can have big shoulders but a diddy neck etc

for self protection you should be covering all your bases and following a good functional strength training programme

what made you ask the question Nav?

If two people ar fighting, who have the same fighting ability, I would say the musclier would win. As long as he isn't so muscly he is slow though, but think of the extra weight behind the punches. If he barges into the person he will more than likely knock them to the ground with his weight. If the fight was to go to grappling, weight could prove better with headlocks and other manouvers.

Also the bigger the person, the more chance he has of intimidating the guy he is fighting, which can affect fighting ability and mess them up psychologicaly.

Although as Russell said, if you get the muscly person with no fighting ability versus the smaller person with a good fighting ability, then the smaller guy will win hands down. Being big doesn't make you tough, but if the toughness is already there, then it will surely be a big help.

Loki has something interesting to say about this issue (but was too lazy to post... )
something about how being bigger and more muscular can make it harder to put locks and chokes on and can afford a degree of protection against injury?

Loki, its your floor...

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_RnvaBMlNpI

thought i'd post this in this thread, its an old fight between a bjj black belt and a body builder who won mr utah

Dont confuse MMA / sporting matches with street Nav!

interesting video, but i think it would be dangerous to draw any conclusions from it

(other than that working on the ground can nullify a lot of a persons height weight strength advantage, which we already knew)