At near‑light speed, a punch stops being a cartoon blur and starts behaving like a physics experiment on the edge of catastrophe. In that regime, the usual fan‑debate metric of who simply runs faster becomes almost irrelevant compared with how spacetime itself handles their motion and impact.
Special relativity rewrites the scorecard. As velocity approaches light speed, relativistic momentum and kinetic energy scale far beyond the simple Newtonian m·v formula, making each fist an energy payload rather than just a fast-moving object. The Lorentz factor boosts effective inertia so much that any head‑on collision between two comparable masses becomes less a contest of strength and more an exercise in destructive energy transfer, bordering on vaporization rather than a dramatic knockout.
Reaction time, constrained by neural conduction and synaptic transmission, cannot keep pace with such extreme closing speeds, so conscious dodging is essentially removed from the equation. The only meaningful edge would come from pre‑planned trajectories and impact geometry that exploit conservation of momentum, turning even a small asymmetry in angle or timing into a decisive redirect of energy. In a perfectly symmetric, bare‑knuckle clash at these velocities, real‑world physics does not crown a winner. It delivers a mutual self‑destruct, with victory decided less by speed than by who manages to avoid true symmetry in the first place.
