Well is Bronze Tiger really top 5 Martial Artist in the DCU earth. There are many contestant to the best fighter title. Notable ones, Lady Shiva, black canary, Batman, Cass Cain, Richard Dragon, Connor Hawke. While I do agree that all of them deserve to be in the top 10, only Dragon derserved to be above Ben Turner.
Comic writers has a thing to make their character the best fighter for some reason, e.g Conner Hawke. And Shiva has been given lip service by various writer to be the cream of the crop.
But many have failed where it matters most. Batman and Deathstroke
Shiva- As much as Batman had never beaten her in comic, she has never beaten him. too. She made 4 moves against Batman in which 2 contacted and 2 was blocked. This does not include the strike she executed when he did not take her seriously. While we know Bronze Tiger beat Batman in 3 moves. The last brought the Batman down. Not to mention, Batman failed to beat Bronze Tiger in all 3 fights. 1 lose 2 draws is the score for the Bat. The 3rd fight, BT was sloppy and off his game while Batman was in good condition. It was still a tie.
Connor Hawke- Basically the poster boy when Chuck Dixon wrote him. He had a fight with Shiva (Brotherhood of the fist arc), which I personally felt he lost badly. Outside of that he had never been a proven martial artist.
Cass Cain - She beaten shiva better than Batman and Connor. But she failed to beat Batman, failed to beat Oillie..i mean Ollie? Yes GA had some training but she was SUPPOSE to be the top MA in town. While Bronze Tiger, had the upperhand over Deathstroke in his fight, Cass Cain was stated that her MA skills is too good for Slade to fight her 1 on 1 which were not proven when they did face each other.
While this, I would say that Bronze Tiger could probably considered the 2nd Best figther after Richard Dragon.
They ruined Bronze Tiger. I rather bronze tiger be a meta at will, than a joke at fighting. Hes been reduced to being beaten easily by death stroke. And back to being Shiva's lackey. At least Bronze Tigers transformation would have opened doors for him to fight stronger metas but now hes just a goon. The last story was tolerable if it had played out we could have seen his skill outside of his transformation, and he never used his sword. Now hes just a brainwashed puppet, and not even a threat like he used to be under brainwashing. I hope they fix this quick. Why did they even change it, personally im tired of the whole Bronze tiger skilled martial artist but always looses to gadget users. Classic argument used to be how he sized up to opponents straight hand to hand, but we all knew bats had his gadgets and death stroke had his guns so they would have always had the edge. If he was a threat in and out transformation we could see him face metas on a more even playing field and had something for those gadget users. Now hes just a reject blade who cant even defend himself longer than 2 pages.
Chuck Dixon's Richard Dragon Run. Many fans say it's not canon, I agree to that as Chuck's origin for the character were not in line with Continuity.
But here is that famed Richard Dragon vs Bronze tiger fight from the series. Many posted that Dragon won that fight but never post the full scan. Here are the last 2 scans of the fight which we see Tiger giving 3 hits and Dragon became disorientated. Under UFC rules, that's a win for Bronze Tiger.
Attachment: bronze.jpg
This has been downloaded 9 time(s).
2nd scan. In all comic history Richard Dragon and Bronze Tiger fought only twice. Once in pre-crisis, and than in Chuck version. The PC version was a 50-50 tie, the Chuck Dixion version, started ugly for Ben Turner with Dragon easily gaining advantage but as shown Tiger turned the advantage and beat him down. which means Dragon has NEVER BEATEN the Tiger.