Any pre-20th Century president probably has an advantage.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32664017)

This dood is in the first 10 dead without an army to command: http://linapps.s3.amazonaws.com/photomojo/lintvnews.com/photos/2011/02/g15-john-f.-kennedy-inauguration/117-eisenhower-and-jfk-journey-to-the-capitol-for-the-inauguration-22e35.jpg

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32664037)

exactly the final matchup I was thinking of

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32665193)

lol at teddy roosevelt, he wouldve died from an asthma attack a minute in

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32664159)

Adams?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32664916)

Edit: fuck my ass it is true

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/04/05/milnes.carter.nuclear/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32665206)

Lincoln was tall but pretty frail, a lot of historians think he had Marfan's or something

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32665154)

http://www.infoplease.com/t/history/true-washington/strength.html

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32665249)

nixon was a buff chad in his heyday but was more paunchy and jowly by the time he took office

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32665810)

He was strong. He was the "railsplitter."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32665174)

Washington was also a killer. Those Indian wars were mostly close quarters combat.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32665232)

Like, a 6'4" guy could pummel the world champion flyweight boxer, even though he was completely unskilled.

A "knife fight" is still just a fight in which you overpower and stab a guy. "Skill"/experience is not decisive.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32665282)

With a knife? No, it doesn't. You obviously haven't had any training with fighting with a knife, but the top skill is speed. Strength isn't particularly relevant since getting close enough to grab means close enough to stab. I would absolutely take a smaller, faster, well trained guy over a super tall unskilled guy that was 3x stronger (which isn't even the scenario involved).

"Like, a 6'4" guy could pummel the world champion flyweight boxer, even though he was completely unskilled."

Not sure if I even buy that (McCain is like 5'6" and was a top boxer, and a bunch of special forces guys are fairly small), but regardless, irrelevant since we're talking about a deadly weapon involved. Remember that case where some 100 lb Asian guy took on some huge fratdood and nearly killed him with a few quick stabs? Weapons are the ultimate equalizer. That is why they're awesome.

I might be convinced to change my answer if it was pure hand to hand, no weapons involved.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32665388)

Size differential.

TR was not a professional "knife fighter" anyway, AFAIK.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32665435)

TR was an elite soldier which definitely included training in hand to hand combat. That wasn't the age of carrying automatic weapons.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32665459)

he probably had that old man strength going for him

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32665274)

I'm thinking Lyndon b Johnson is being underrated. Big ass Texan with an epic mean streak.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32665289)

Teddy was shot while giving a speech and continued for 90 minutes. “Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot. It takes more than that to kill a bull moose. Fortunately I had my manuscript, so you see I was going to make a long speech, and there is a bullet—there is where the bullet went through—and it probably saved me from it going into my heart. The bullet is in me now, so that I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best.”

Roosevelt was a New York City police commissioner. After his appointment in 1895, Roosevelt attempted to reform one of America’s most corrupt police departments. The future president regularly took midnight rambles to make sure officers were walking their beats. His decision to enforce an unpopular law that banned the sale of alcohol in saloons on Sundays made him a very unpopular figure in New York, but he persisted in the crusade even after receiving two letter bombs in the mail.

A boxing accident left him virtually blind in one eye. Roosevelt boxed for Harvard University’s intramural lightweight championship and continued to spar recreationally during his political career. During his days in the White House, he regularly put up his dukes against former professional boxers and other sparring partners until a punch from a young artillery officer smashed a blood vessel and left him nearly blind in his left eye.

Roosevelt once scaled the Matterhorn. While a student at Harvard, Dr. Dudley Sargent warned Roosevelt, who had been a sickly child, that, because of a weak heart, failure to lead a sedentary life could have fatal consequences. “Doctor, I’m going to do all the things you tell me not to do,” Roosevelt responded. “If I’ve got to live the sort of life you have described, I don’t care how short it is.” A year after graduation, Roosevelt took time from his European honeymoon with Alice to scale the 15,000-foot Swiss Alp with two guides.

At the July 1, 1898, Battle of San Juan Heights, he exposed himself time and again to the enemy’s fire. For a good part of the fight, he was the only man in the regiment on horseback (the cavalry division had been forced to leave nearly all of their horses behind in Florida), making him an irresistible target for the Spanish soldiers on the hilltops. They tried their damnedest to knock him out of his saddle but inexplicably failed. Instead, their errant shots wounded and killed Rough Riders who had the misfortune to be standing next to their colonel.

Encouraging his men forward, Roosevelt started a charge on Kettle Hill, a prominence just in front of San Juan Hill. Caught up in the excitement of the moment, African American Buffalo Soldiers and white Regulars from other cavalry regiments joined the Rough Riders in the pell-mell assault. Cheers erupted on all sides. “I most positively assert,” remembered one Rough Rider, “that every face I looked into, both white and black, had a broad grin upon it.”

Just 40 yards from the summit, Roosevelt abandoned his horse at a barbed wire fence and ran alongside his orderly toward a fortified house. Suddenly, two Spanish soldiers jumped out of a trench and fired at the two charging Rough Riders. The distance was no more than ten yards, but the Spaniards missed and then turned to run. Roosevelt, without slowing his pace, instantly raised his revolver and fired once at each enemy soldier. His first shot missed, but the second dropped one of the fleeing Spaniards. An exultant Roosevelt later wrote a friend, “Did I tell you that I killed a Spaniard with my own hand…?”

After taking Kettle Hill, Roosevelt received permission to lead a charge against one of the two blockhouses on San Juan Hill. It was another footrace as Roosevelt and several hundred men ran down Kettle Hill under a withering fire and up the steep slope of San Juan. Between gasps for air, Roosevelt turned to his orderly and shouted, “Holy Godfrey, what fun!” One Rough Rider recalled the charge as “just a mob that went up a hill. If the Spaniards had been able to shoot, we’d never have made it to the top.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32665322)

they dont make men like that anymore

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32665335)

8790247057340985720934790852734957298347095823

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32665359)

The man who had been propelled to the Oval Office after an assassin felled President William McKinley bellowed out, “Don’t hurt him. Bring him here. I want to see him.” Roosevelt asked the shooter, “What did you do it for?” With no answer forthcoming, he said, “Oh, what’s the use? Turn him over to the police.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32665430)

http://gawker.com/lbj-was-obsessed-with-his-dick-1694599317

He early became fabled for a Rabelaisian earthiness, urinating in the parking lot of the House Office Building as the urge took him; if a colleague came into a Capitol bathroom as he was finishing at the urinal there, he would sometimes swing around still holding his member, which he liked to call "Jumbo," hooting once, "Have you ever seen anything as big as this?," and shaking it in almost a brandishing manner as he began discoursing about some pending legislation.

Even on the floors of the House and Senate, he would extravagantly rummage away at his groin, sometimes reaching his hand through a pocket and leaning with half-lifted leg for more thorough access.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32665460)

LBJ was 55, GW was 57, Grant was only 47 so he should get more play although by then he was probably a decrepit drunk.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32665501)

assuming the strongest or most fit president would win a melee is short-sighted. the weak have a strong incentive to gang up on the strongest.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32665812)

Does game theory really say all the weak would coordinate in a knife fight to the deal with no problems? Word?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32666573)

grover cleveland takes all these bitches out

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32666625)

"he fairly personifies trustworthiness"

synonyms: epitomize, embody, hypostatize, typify, exemplify, represent, symbolize, stand for, be the incarnation of, body forth, put a face on

"the picture on the label should personify good, wholesome American cooking"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32667747)

Although even there I still might pick the consensus final of Jackson vs TR with maybe Lincoln and LBJ rounding out F4.

Some dark horses to look out for:

-- Rutherford B. Hayes: pretty badass service record during civil war, could take a lot of punishment

-- Chester A. Arthur: Just a big, burly motherfucker, probably the most intimidating height/weight combo in the field

-- Nixon: Not going to win in a fair fight but why expect him to keep things fair? Nixon could pull some shit like poisoning Jackson's whiskey before the tournament, hiding out somewhere until the last man standing and then ambushing them, etc.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3531828&forum_id=2#32698977)