Ki-Adi Mundi vs AotC Kenobi

Standard rules.

Kenobi.

Mundi decisively

Ki

Kenobi

How far away is the gap in power and ability of beginning of TCW Kenobi from AotC Kenobi I wonder? Pretty clear in the novelization at least that Kenobi is her solid superior at this point and I don't think she herself grew that much when she engaged Ki Adi Mundi.

Problem is that while Ventress was winning most of her engagements with Kenobi in the CW Multimedia project, it's usually when Kenobi was hindered, with the possible exception of Cestus Deception(I've seen arguments Kenobi was hindered and not really sure what to make of it atm), but irrelevant since TCW canonically takes place after.

Also tricky is that Ki Adi only really engaged Ventress for a brief period of time. It proves he's not a pushover and can give her a fight but I'm not sure it proves they're equals.

Kenobi, close-ish fight.

Mundi solidly.

Kenobi. Pressing Dooku while exhausted and injured despite being at a massive knowledge disadvantage and matching Maul for longer than Qui-Gon puts him out of Mundi's league

No

12 month post AotC Kenobi getting smacked by Ventress and a toying Fisto is worse than giving General Grievous, an omnidirectional death machine a solid fight whilst exhausted. AoTC Kenobi never pressed Dooku either.

This guy gets it

This guy has put you in the ground on multiple occasions. You should have learned from your first defeat that I get it, Cuckpants

You’re not right about all of it, but you are about the important parts

Mundi loses harder than the time he got cucked by fodder raiders.

Tbf everyone sucks in pre-tpm material

Since I've got some time before work. 

Obi-Wan wasn't pressing Dooku for that long, I'm assuming this quote from the novel is being referred to: 

AOTC Novelisation wrote:Obi-Wan steadied himself and shifted his lightsaber from hand to hand, getting a better grip on it. Then he exploded into motion, coming on again fiercely, his blue lightsaber flashing all about. He kept a better measure of his cuts this time, though, reversing his angle often, turning a wide slash into a sudden thrust, and he soon had Dooku backing, the red blade working furiously to keep Obi-Wan at bay.

If we analyse this quote in a vacuum: sure, it looks good. Except for the fact that Dooku had been toying with Kenobi before then, and his taunting caused Kenobi to bring on his A-game, but it really wasn't enough. Notwithstanding that the Count could have blitzed Obi-Wan at the very start of the duel, Dooku furiously defending against a sudden change in tempo from Kenobi isn't indicative of anything really. It's the same sort of situation he was in against Maul; he came on ultra-aggressively and full of energy, something Maul wasn't expecting. Though of course in the Count's case, he retained his confident smile until he fought Anakin, "For the first time, Count Dooku lost his little confident smile. He had to work furiously to keep Anakin's blade at bay, dodging more than parrying." And he's described as also working furiously in this scenario against Anakin, so it's doubtful he was really pressed. Then we discover later on that Dooku had been holding even more back from Kenobi and Anakin: "Dooku went into a wild flurry then, the likes of which he had not shown against Obi-Wan or Anakin, raining blows at the diminutive Master." And the comic reinforces that this is Dooku's finest assault:



Yes, Kenobi had been fighting beforehand and was at a disadvantage, but I fail to see how that makes up for the insane gap between the two in any respect anyway. He presses Dooku after Dooku taunts him, and while using unorthodox attacks and a different approach that momentarily surprises Dooku. If Dooku was intending to kill a fresh AotC Kenobi fast, it's hard to see how he couldn't do it very quickly. 

Also consider that across the sources - movie, novelisations both senior and junior and the comic all have the same general intent for the confrontation: Kenobi gets toyed with and outplayed hard, Anakin does quite a lot better but is still inferior, and Yoda then outduels an all-out Dooku. 

In all, Kenobi only presses Dooku after he gets taunted and decides to change up his approach to surprise his opponent, but that surprise factor only lasts momentarily, and Dooku didn't even lose his confident smile until he engaged Anakin - and was holding back his full potency until he faced Yoda. So yeah, not seeing why this showing from Kenobi places him above Mundi being exhausted, having several fellow Jedi die around him and holding off a guy who is a challenge to high tiers in sabers.

Good post MP.

Just touching briefly on this: 

GreySentinel365 wrote:Kenobi. Pressing Dooku while exhausted and injured despite being at a massive knowledge disadvantage and matching Maul for longer than Qui-Gon puts him out of Mundi's league

This is kinda just wrong. 

Obi-Wan "matches" Maul for about 20 seconds; the novel explains that Kenobi was tiring fast and put everything into a last-ditch attempt by cutting the saberstaff in half. After that point Maul was fine and winning (Kenobi had exhausted his reserves). So the point from when he began the attack to that moment is generously 20 seconds. 

Meanwhile, Qui-Gon fought back and forth with Maul for 40 seconds on Tatooine, the fight only tipping in Maul's favour at 40 seconds. That's a huge difference.

Even if we take the Naboo bouts only, there's no real difference. The total engagement between Jinn and Maul was 30 seconds, and the total engagement between Kenobi and Maul is 40 seconds. Remembering again that Kenobi was only matching Maul for half the time he was engaged.

The reason why Jinn burnt out a lot quicker on Naboo during his final assault as opposed to his Tatooine performance is that (1) he was on the verge of total exhaustion and had a couple of minutes to center himself and regain some reserves and (2) he deliberately went 110% to overwhelm Maul, which nearly succeeded.

Also, no, there's no reliable way to gauge how base Kenobi would have done compared to Enraged!Kenobi.

Ergo there's no way of rationalising TPM Kenobi ~ Qui-Gon. Jinn held Kenobi in high regard, yet still acknowledged in the novel that Kenobi was not yet his equal as a swordsman.

So what we have is Jinn matching Maul for 40 seconds vs Enraged!Kenobi matching Maul for 20 seconds (he also caught Maul off guard as well, compare to Qui-Gon who was surprise attacked and unprepared for a duel).

I'm going to very tentatively back Ki-Adi for now. I wish we had more showings from him, but he's probably loosely comparable to a version of Ventress that is solidly superior to AotC Kenobi on neutral ground. I've seen arguments that Kenobi was hindered in CD but I'm not convinced. 

Early TCW Kenobi probably beats him though.

CD is 12 months into the war laddy

If we discount the TCW narrative then there's not enough data to make a prediction. We have an exhausted Kenobi catching a toying Dooku offguard and we have an exhausted Ki-Adi giving a good account of himself but ultimately losing in a one-sided fight to Grievous. It doesn't really tell us what would happen if the two met in combat.

The Ventress point is the only reliable comparison of skills, and we have to go with the revised timeline if we are going to composite.

Mundi didn’t seem worried at all about facing Ventress again, he actually seems really confident about a second confrontation. Then again, the duel was brief. 

I think it’s safe to say that Mundi’s demonstration against GG is more impressive than Kenobi’s, though, and his rep justifies it.

Kenobi dies. Mismatch. 

Spoiler: