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Shaolin Monks May Sue Over Tale of Defeat by Ninja
Socguy writes "A unique story on the CBC website details an even more unusual conflict. A Chinese Shaolin temple has demanded an apology from 'an Internet user who claimed a Japanese ninja beat its kung fu-practicing monks in a showdown.' A letter from the members of the temple, posted on the Internet on Thursday, denied the fight ever took place and called on the person who posted the claim under the name "Five minutes every day" to apologize to the temple's martial arts masters. Monks from the temple, which is located in the Songshan Mountain region of the Henan province, said they will consider legal action if he or she doesn't make a public apology."
As you touched on, one of the largest issues is that of regulated matches versus real life-or-death combat. Even with grappling - in a ring, a responsible fighter may put a lock on you that could easily destroy your joints, but only apply enough force to make you submit. The same goes for strikes.
As an example - a friend of mine is an assistant Kung Fu trainer. His Sifu has somewhere around 20 generations of Shaolin Kung Fu training behind him (as well as a style of Kung Fu that his great-great-great-great-etc. etc.-grandfather created). He started training basically as soon as he could stand, and studied under Bruce Lee for some time.
Get in a ring with him, and he'll destroy you - but you'll still walk away. Bruised, battered, and damn near ripped limb from limb, most likely wishing you had never even considered the fight, but you'll walk away in one piece. Someone who didn't know of his training tried mugging him - pulling a knife on him. By the time his attacker hit the ground he had 3 broken ribs, a fractured skull, a broken jaw, a broken leg, and an arm broken in three places (if I'm recalling correctly. I may have mixed up an arm broken in 3 places for a leg broken in 3, but the injuries are in general accurate). That was his measured response to assure that he was no longer in any sort of danger, the man could have been dead before his body dropped.
It's very hard to judge the effectiveness of one fighting style versus another unless you're looking at two people who are really out for blood.