40 midgets VS a lion

[Magi]

Well, I'm certain some of you have run into this article, but in the wake of all the "X VS Y" threads I thought it would be fun to ask this question.

http://www.newturfers.com/mwf/attach/38/355838/BBCNEWSWorldLionMutilates42MidgetsinCambodianRing-Fight.htm

http://lionvs40midgets.uk-directory.com/

Well, a couple of months ago my friend told me of a story he read on the BBC about a Midget Fighting League from Cambodia taking on a lion and losing. It drove me nuts (literally).

I searched for the article, and found it, but to my dismay(and relief, I guess) it was fake.

Well, now I've run into it again. After discussing with some other people, there seems to be a split. Some people favor the midgets, some people the lion. So I ask you.

In a fight between 40 midgets and a lion, who would win?

Here are the parameters of the fight:

* Fight takes place between 1 full-grown, male African lion and 40 midgets
* The midgets are unarmed (no guns, baseball bats, tasers, etc.)
* The fight takes place in a closed arena (a racquetball court for example)
* Fight is over when either a) the lion is dead, or b) all 40 midgets are dead or unable to fight back (severely wounded)
* Lion is highly agitated, midgets know there's no way out until the lion is dead (they have to fight)
* The midgets are not specially trained to fight (not like the Cambodian fighting ones in the article) but are in average physical and mental health
* The midgets are given 5 minutes before the fight to prepare/strategize

Who would win? Cast your vote now!

[Godot]

I think we should just call the Fox Network and see if they'll do a Man vs Beast III with this event as the centerpiece.  That said, I think it'd be one of the less competitive events.  The Lion would savagely pwn them.  Its hide is too tough for them to pierce with their stubby midget fingers, and they wouldnt be able to work the eye area cause they'd just get done tore up.  Let them stick to pulling jumbo jets against elephants, which is contest they actually have a chance in.

[Limbo]

The only chance the midgets have is to choke the lion to death by feeding it the fat midget first...

[Bram]

OK, so it's not a lion exactly, and none of my friends are midgets, but check out the flavor text anyway:

[Klep]

While they would undoubtedly suffer heavy losses, 40 is a LOT of midgets.  I think the lion would tire before it killed all of them.

[Outlaw]

The Lion could theoretically combo off on the midgets first turn, eatting one and throwing the remaining body parts in the direction of the other 39 creating a devasting domino effect.  GG Lion 1, Team Short-Us 0

[Komatteru]

This is one of the foulest things I have ever read.  I lose more faith in humanity every time I read shit like that...

[Matt]

Actually, the best strategy would be for the midgets to wait for the lion to kill a couple, then lure it away while other midgets scavenge the corpses. Pull out the bones, break them to get sharp, pointy ends, and now you've got 35 armed midgets vs. a lion.

[Saucemaster]

Actually, the best strategy would be for the midgets to wait for the lion to kill a couple, then lure it away while other midgets scavenge the corpses. Pull out the bones, break them to get sharp, pointy ends, and now you've got 35 armed midgets vs. a lion.

Definitely a good strategy, but I have to go with the lion simply because I think the midgets will be too terrified when they're facing down a real lion and suffering real wounds to think clearly enough to put this into play.  Figure at least ten of them go down before anyone really starts to collect their wits, but now it's thirty midgets vs. a lion who's pissed off AND has a taste for blood.  If these people are all serious badasses who can get their shit together and do what needs to be done, they should probably win simply by virtue of the fact that they can outflank the lion.  But in reality, I think a group of forty people with no special training and in "average physical and mental health" will just shit themselves and run screaming until it's too late.

Oh, and JDizzle, clearly the problem is that you have any faith in humanity in the first place.

[everythingitouchdies]

This is one of the foulest things I have ever read.  I lose more faith in humanity every time I read shit like that...

Well in total contrast to my friend JDizzle, I love the human race more for stuff like this. Hey are these midgets Christian? Are their oldschool roman spectators? Can I have some teeth from the midgets after the lion kills them? Oh the joy of such a day when this fight could be witnessed.

This is like taking a vintage combo deck to play against a field of standard decks. Then, for good measure, cheating when its totally unnecessary. The Lion is totally bad ass.

EITD

[nataz]

I think I agree with matt. Its not like they didnt see this coming, plus they have 5 mins to plan before hand. Even if they are all average mentaly and physicaly, you cant tell me at least a few of them arent thinking of working together (even at the expense of a few of the others) if its the only chance to save their own lives.

 

[Machinus]

A lion could beat 40 grown men. Have you ever seen a fucking lion? Its mouth is huge, it could just bite your head or leg off. It weighs like half a ton or something and can crush you, or just pierce your organs with its claws. A lion takes like 3 seconds to fatally injure an animal after it catches it, and you can't outrun a lion. Without weapons, the only way to beat a lion is to crush it under the weight of dead bodies.

[everythingitouchdies]

A lion could beat 40 grown men. Have you ever seen a fucking lion? Its mouth is huge, it could just bite your head or leg off. It weighs like half a ton or something and can crush you, or just pierce your organs with its claws. A lion takes like 3 seconds to fatally injure an animal after it catches it, and you can't outrun a lion. Without weapons, the only way to beat a lion is to crush it under the weight of dead bodies.

And midgets dont way much. I know, I have punched one in the neck in middle of a mosh pit and the little bastard seemed to bounce off the floor. Then he laid there. Average midget mind, average midget strength, felled in one punch. That Lion is going to whoop some midget ass. Then eat it.

EITD

[Saucemaster]

I think I agree with matt. Its not like they didnt see this coming, plus they have 5 mins to plan before hand. Even if they are all average mentaly and physicaly, you cant tell me at least a few of them arent thinking of working together (even at the expense of a few of the others) if its the only chance to save their own lives.

Yeah, but imagine you're in there facing a lion.  Do you really think you're going to be rationally thinking, "Hey, guys, this is our only chance to save our lives, so" [duck lion swipe] "we should really" [push Fred toward the ravenous beast] "we should really go find John's body" [step carefully over Fred's entrails] "and dig out some of his bones"?  No way!  To steal a line from Brian Regan, you're thinking "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH HHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!"  At best, you may be capable of thinking, "AAAAHHH!!  LION!!!  OUCH!!!"

I say, let them plan for five *days* and they're still going to get their asses handed to them.  Possibly literally.  "Seeing it coming" isn't exactly the same as "seeing it coming".

[Bram]

Heeheehee. This is the most hilarious thread I've read in a while.

Erm, so yeah, but then you have 40 panicking midgets. Adrenaline pumping all over the place. How tall are these midgets anyway? My guess is, they'd all panic like hell, the lion would start tearing away at some of them (in a horrible freak of nature, lions evolved with only one (1) mouth), and the rest would like jump him and kill him somehow.

Have you ever seen a fucking lion?

Have you ever seen 40 midgets half-crazed with fear of death? Trust me, it's not a pretty sight.

[Saucemaster]

A few facts about lions (let's all agree to pretend that I've gone through the whole "lions are mammals, lions flip out ALL THE TIME, etc." bit), all courtesy of The Hitch... er, Wikipedia (<3 Bram):

1) The male lion, easily recognized by his mane, may weigh up to 250 kg (550 lb).  Moral: Lions are fucking big.

2) Lions are one of the most sexually active cats. During a female's estrus cycle, a male and female will mate unabated for 5-7 days every 10 to 20 minutes.  Moral: Lions are STUDS.

3) Like all other cats they are superpredators, but unlike all other cats they are social hunters and take prey too large and dangerous to overpower singly. Moral: He already knows your midget tricks!

4) Male lions exist largely to defend the pride; excellent fighters (the mane on lions is an evolutionary adaptation to fighting; the mane absorbs bites and scratches that might otherwise be lethal). Moral: This motherfucker does this for a living, against OTHER LIONS.

5) They can sleep as many as 20 hours in a day. Moral: A well-rested fighter is a focused fighter.

6) Baby or young lions... face a high mortality rate from starvation, attacks by other large predators, and especially by male lions killing the younger ones while taking over a pride. Moral: This cat is from the hood.  He's already survived shit you can't imagine.

So they're going against a ridiculously fast and strong badass street motherfucker who outweighs any five of them, fights other lions for a living, is well-rested and oversexed, and is "highly agitated."  Actually, scratch "oversexed", because we all know he's "highly agitated" cuz someone took away his lioness bitches and he's got serious fucking blue balls.  All he wants to do is get his freak on with Lola the Lioness every ten minutes for the next week, and you KNOW she wants it.  All he's got in his way are these forty screaming things in front of him, scared shitless and crying.

No contest, folks.  No contest.

[Vegeta2711]

See and this is why listening to Saucemaster is great, he makes learning fun!

In conclusion

Moral: This cat is from the hood.  He's already survived shit you can't imagine.

Funniest line in a while.

[Matt]

Wait, is this a zoo-raised lion or wild lion? Makes a huge difference.

[kl0wn]

2) Lions are one of the most sexually active cats. During a female's estrus cycle, a male and female will mate unabated for 5-7 days every 10 to 20 minutes.  Moral: Lions are STUDS.

Have you ever even WATCHED midget pr0n? Have I been posting midget pr0n all these years in vain? Have you learned NOTHING about the midget sex drive? I cringe at my wasted half-decade...


Seriously though, I'd put my money on the midgets. Why, you ask?

1) Unless this thing is happening in a clean room of some sort, there are bound to be sticks and rocks and dirt in the arena. You'd be surprised what a little dirt and/or sand can do to an eyeball and how little skill it takes to get it there.

2) If I'm not mistaken, Lions are members of the feline species. Once said lion has had his share of midgets, he'll quit trying to kill them and want to go to sleep. Lions are not bloodthirsty creatures; they do not kill for sheer pleasure. Midgets DO. So like, the lion would get bored and the midgets would just swarm him and gnaw his legs off while he tries half-assedly to swat them away.

3) All the midgets need to do is to put some tape on the bottom of the lion's paws so it'll be too confused to fight. Then they win.

[Magi]

I'm for the midgets. The time to strategize beforehand is what makes them win here. Never underestimate the human, no matter how small he/she is.

See, the way I figure it, all the Midgets just blitz the lion. 40 midgets is a LOT of fucking midgets. even if 10 fall within the first 10 seconds, you still have 30 left, and that's still a lot. The plan would be to get atleast 2 midgets per limb and grapple the lion, bogging him down. Then you have some sacrifices occupying the mouth/face region, while you have some midgets grabbing the tail and causing a distraction that way.

The remaining unoccupied midgets would then grab the mane and go for the eyes with their thumbs and fingers, and eventually the kill (lion would probably bleed to death).

The midgets would suffer tremendous losses, but in the end, with a good plan, they will stand triumphant.

[Saucemaster]

Why does everyone seem to think that forty ordinary people, given five minutes, will suddenly turn into fearless, well-coordinated, superhuman beast-killing machines?  Try a little experiment here.  Next time you're walking down a busy street, take note of the first forty people you see, at random.  Now imagine them all as midgets.  The lady with the toy poodle and $3000 purse?  She's one of your forty.  That guy who's so fat he starts sweating as soon as he starts even thinking about standing up?  He's one of your forty, too.  The guy who looks like your sister could break him in half?  Yep, he's one of your forty.  Sure, there's the steelworker, but he's just one guy.  Mr. ex-military would be good as a leader, but he's got to come up with a plan and convince every single person that a) he should be the leader, and b) that his plan is the best, all in five minutes.

Seriously, five minutes.  Have none of you ever been to a staff meeting at work?  People can't decide what kind of donuts to buy in five minutes.

Wait, is this a zoo-raised lion or wild lion? Makes a huge difference.

This, though, this is an interesting wrinkle.  I think we need a ruling on this one.  JUDGE!!

[kl0wn]

Why does everyone seem to think that forty ordinary people, given five minutes, will suddenly turn into fearless, well-coordinated, superhuman beast-killing machines?

They're not ordinary people though...they're MIDGETS!!

Try a little experiment here.  Next time you're walking down a busy street, take note of the first forty people you see, at random.  Now imagine them all as midgets.  The lady with the toy poodle and $3000 purse?  She's one of your forty.  That guy who's so fat he starts sweating as soon as he starts even thinking about standing up?  He's one of your forty, too.  The guy who looks like your sister could break him in half?  Yep, he's one of your forty.

Your logic is flawed here.

1) Midgets don't have toy poodles or $3,000 purses except to ride on (the poodle that is, not the purses).
2) Midgets don't get that fat.
3) Midgets aren't that weak.

Seriously, five minutes.  Have none of you ever been to a staff meeting at work?  People can't decide what kind of donuts to buy in five minutes.

Midgets don't have jobs in which they go to staff meetings, they get paid to pork chicks that are waaaay hotter than your girlfriend/wife/concubine/mom (check all that apply, although I'm pretty sure I'm the only one 'round here with concubines).

Seriously...have you ever seen a midget in a cubicle? No. That's because they're all doing way cooler things than you.

Let's take a gander at some notable midgets, shall we?

The midget from Willow. Think he could beat a lion? Hells yes.

What about the Lepprechaun? If you think a lion could kick his ass, then you're just retarded.

Mini Me? The glare from his shiny bald scalp would blind the lion into submission.

The Lollipop Guild? They have the lockdown on all the suckers.

Granted, these are all examples of midgets doing extraordinary things, but that's just what midgets do. Midgets do NOT lead ordinary, mediocre lives. They can't. It's not in their DNA. So next time you want to talk shit about a lion kicking a midget's ass (much less FORTY midgets' asses), you better check yourself and realize that midgets are genetically programmed to be awesome. Much more awesome than most normal people could be.

Hell...do you think a lion could wreck THIS GUY?!?!?!?

Midgets get BASHED IN THE FACE and DON'T EVEN CARE!!!

[Bram]

That guy who's so fat he starts sweating as soon as he starts even thinking about standing up? He's one of your forty, too.  

Good. Maybe the lion will randomly die from cholesterol poisoning.

Your wikipedia arguments seem valid, but you seem to have a pro-lion bias. Allow me to counter with some wiki facts about midgets.

- Social and employment opportunities are greatly reduced, regardless of anti-discrimination laws. You thought the lions had their deal of hardship? We're talking forty bitter motherfuckers here.

- Many can have problems produced by the abnormal bone structures. Early degenerative joint disease, exaggerated lordosis or scoliosis, and constriction of spinal cord or nerve roots can cause pain and disability. These little bastards are in constant pain already. They're lived with it all their lives. They're hardly even gonna notice if the lion tears of a random appendage.

- Many of the conditions are associated with disordered function of other organs, such as brain. One word: PSYCHO!

So what he heave here is forty (!) bitter psychopaths who've become practically immune to pain. You're going down, lion.

[Dr. Sylvan]

That's like saying old people make better soldiers because they're used to getting broken bones from tripping over a stick on the porch.

I vote lion.

[Bram]

Just think of Ewoks. I'm quite sure it was less than forty of them that took down that first AT-ST.

[Saucemaster]

Your wikipedia arguments seem valid, but you seem to have a pro-lion bias. Allow me to counter with some wiki facts about midgets.

I feel honor-bound to represent the felines, given my avatar.

- Social and employment opportunities are greatly reduced, regardless of anti-discrimination laws. You thought the lions had their deal of hardship? We're talking forty bitter motherfuckers here.

While I cede that discrimination is embittering and certainly constitutes a hardship, it doesn't exactly prepare you for a 500 lb. lion who's going for your eyes.  Whereas many lions face precisely that when their stepdads decide they want the old kids out of the way to get Mom all juiced up.  And having survived this horrible experience, *this* lion is now capable of the same brutality--if he wanted some bitch who had kids, he'd just kill the kids.  It's a sad cycle, where violence begets violence.  This is one cold OG motherfucker.

- Many can have problems produced by the abnormal bone structures. Early degenerative joint disease, exaggerated lordosis or scoliosis, and constriction of spinal cord or nerve roots can cause pain and disability. These little bastards are in constant pain already. They're lived with it all their lives. They're hardly even gonna notice if the lion tears of a random appendage.

Ah, but notice: disability.  They may be more resistant to pain, but some of them are going to be less able to fight.  And no matter how resistant to pain they are, once their eyes are gone and their intestines are on the floor and they've lost half the blood in their body, they're just not going to be able to fight anymore.

- Many of the conditions are associated with disordered function of other organs, such as brain. One word: PSYCHO!

But just imagine what the effect on a young lion cub's psyche must be when his stepfather tries to kill him because he wants to get some freaky action from his Mom (who totally wants it), who escapes and survives just to face a life of fighting other psycho lion motherfuckers and killing THEIR kids until one day he's too weak, and gets killed by some younger lion.  And then they eat his kids.  Male lions are raving lunatics, man, they're just highly effective raving lunatic killing machines.

You had me going there for a while, but I just can't subscribe to the "midget victory" scenario.

The Ewok example is a red herring, by the way.  They were allowed to construct weapons and were fighting on ground on which the AT-STs were obviously not designed to fight.  For that matter, who's the fucking genius who thought "Hey, why don't we send some giant two-legged easy-to-trip AT-STs down into that incredibly dense forest that remarkably resembles Big Sur on the California coastline, where they'll have no room to maneuver and bring their superior firepower to bear?"

I'll bet it's the same genius who thought "Hey, you know what would TOTALLY take care of our lion problem?  Forty unarmed midgets!"

[Bram]

No, it's actually probably the same genious who designed that conveniant maintenance shaft, totally unprotected by any for or shape of forcefield (or door, for that matter) that just so happens to lead straight and all the way down to the core energy supply at the heart of the Death Star.

And that guy was probably related somehow to the engineer who created that one little hole in Airwolf that would completely destroy the otherwise invulnerable helicopter if a stray bullet went in there.

There's always an Achilles heel. Even for the lion. I'll just bet he's near-sighted or something.

[Saucemaster]

And that guy was probably related somehow to the engineer who created that one little hole in Airwolf that would completely destroy the otherwise invulnerable helicopter if a stray bullet went in there.

Totally off-topic, but OMG AIRWOLF!!!  That just made my day.

This designer really needs a name, so that I can blame him for any number of other problems as well.

[Machinus]

Just think of Ewoks. I'm quite sure it was less than forty of them that took down that first AT-ST.

George Lucas has nothing to do with this battle and therefore midgets have absolutely no chance of beating a completely superior enemy.

[Bram]

This designer really needs a name, so that I can blame him for any number of other problems as well.

There's a decent idea. I'm taking suggestions.

I think his first name should be Roel. He was a friend of mine, and we always used to blame everything that went wrong on him (which was unfair, because it was only true some 47% of the time). It became a running gag and I feel that it should become a cult phenomenon