Off-topic here but what would you guys consider to be the most formidable dog breed when it comes to fighting in general?
Which would would come out on top in an all-out dog battle royale?
Bolushi @ajay
Hardcastle oldgreengrolar @hammerhead
I think it's never a good idea to skip ahead to talking about breeds before understanding the genuine variety of organically evolved dog types. The breeds essentially "pay homage" to these types, sometimes in very artificial or misleading ways.
There are hundreds and hundreds of breeds (depending on your Kennel club registry of choice), but in truth the real number of genuinely significantly different dogs is much lower.
Spitz and pariahs
Sighthounds
Scenthounds
Herding dogs
Gripping dogs
Terriers
Livestock guardians
Toys and dwarves
I would consider these the basal types.
Then from this base other genuine types emerged through hybridisation with one another and specialisation for other tasks or different lifestyles. This list then starts to get somewhat tricky and big, but remember everything below is derived somehow from the above.
Hunting Spitz
Herding Spitz
Hauling Spitz
Village Guardian Spitz
Scavenging pariah
Hunt assisting pariah
Neolithic pariah sighthound
Ancient african/Middle eastern/south asian hunting sighthounds
European hunting sighthounds/longdogs
Collie-Lurchers
Running pack scenthounds
Walking Scenthounds
Dwarven Scenthounds
Curs
Generalist gun
Spaniels
Pointers
Setters
Retrievers
Draught/Mountain mastiff or sennenhund
Hunting Bulldog/bandogge
Man-bulldog /bullmastiff
Boarhound/ bull-lurcher
Man-hunting boarhound (colonial bloodhounds)
Baiting bulldog
Bull terrier
Drovers
Heelers
Collies/koolies/kelpies
Living fence herders
Shepherd's livestock guardian
"Outcast" livestock guardian
Fell terrier
Ground terrier
Coursing terrier/terrier-lurcher
Feist/Cur-terrier
Toy terriers
Toy spitz
Toy bulldogs
Toy sighthounds
Toy spaniels
True asiatic toys
American Ornamentals
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That I believe covers it. You could possibly divide some further into somewhat distinct variants, and maybe I'm forgetting something... but basically that's actual dog variety by function. By my count that's 43, but there are 360 breeds recognised worldwide, and by some metrics that can be stretched out over 400. The breeds then are clearly "duplicating", and in truth in some cases none of the breeds adequately represent one of the above functional types. Some types aren't represented, and some breeds don't actually belong to any of these categories because they're an artificially fabricated frankenstein with no function.
The breeds are to dogs what "the bible" is to world history. They kind of claim to be talking about dogs, dog variety and dog history, but they're not really. Together they represent a "fairy tale" that loosely alludes to aspects of dog history. They tell the story in a metaphorical/allegorical unregulated way with zero fact checking or science involved, and the dogs are living mascots who exist only to tell the story (though they typically genuinely descend from "characters" in the real story, and at times retains some of their characteristics, maybe).
This is a very long winded way of gently guiding you away from a "breed" focus when analysing dogs. It helps to understand dogs better when you stop thinking of them as this endless assortment of pokemon-esque breeds, and understand dogs instead as a tree with some main significant branches and then a few little twigs splintering off each branch.
When you go back to the "basal" types. You'll notice there's no "fighting dog" group. And sure enough, fighting wasn't and isn't a genuine reason for a dog type to evolve. It's always been a side-disctraction, and as such various types of dogs have historically found themselves being mis-used and abused in this frivolous activity.
That said, some obviously lend themselves more readily to performing in a fight than others.
Spitz breeds are basically just wolves somewhat down-sized and nerfed. They retain all the wolves basic suite of instincts and inclinations, including their inclination to fight (wolves are naturally quite scrappy and fight-happy animals). Spitz breeds will naturally just fight among themselves frequently, and if you've spent any time watching sled dogs on tv doing anything you've PROBABLY seen them break into fights here and there.
I imagine it gets pretty annoying for the people who work with them. But for some, historically, it would inspire them to actually intentionally let them fight and see who wins as a casual sporting contest.
In Japan they actually ONLY had spitz breeds until the mid-late 1800s, so prior to that they had spitz breeds doing everything, including fighting for entertainment and gambling purposes.
This is mirrored somewhat by the world of Livestock guardians. They're naturally kind of surly and confrontational for their role protecting livestock from wild predators, so shepherds in central asia and the middle east would sometimes intentionally fight their dogs to settle disputes or for entertainment, possibly even to "test" them for their potential to fight off wolves (though this was arguably misguided).
For the most part through history, people have merely just casually fought the dogs that were already hanging around for a bit of a laugh. It wasn't that serious. Dogs that existed because they had other real jobs that were much more important would have little fights to amuse bored hard working guys in their down time.
The same is true for the origins of bloodsports with the gripping dog lineage. What was found however, is that they're really good at it.
That's because their specialised role essentially IS fighting. Taking the fight out of dangerous animals people were hunting and/or unruly untamed livestock. Holding onto a bear, boar, bull, etc etc that's fighting for it's life, and subduing it while taking punishment but not dying, it turns out affords you attributes that are very relevant in a fight with most things, including your own kind.
They took to fighting like ducks to water, and the prowess displayed in their performances actually inspired people to get more serious about "combat sports" involving gripping dogs for their own sake. Bull baiting and bear baiting and serious dog fighting among them. These dogs would go on to sweep the world of dog-fighting, and now they can be found performing as fighting dogs in far flung exotic locations, even in afghanistan, thailand, pakistan, japan, russia, serbia, brazil, mexico, whatever. Places that have no historical connection to such dogs have been taken over by these dogs in the dog fighting world because they are the best fighters.
Over time it was discovered a sprinkle of terrier makes bulldogs even better at fighting, as they'd lose no-to-minimal grappling strength, subjugation ability and durability, but gain some better killing and finishing instinct (terriers being specifically designed to kill vermin and varmints).
The "bull terrier" as a type is basically the end result of selection for dog fighting ability, and an actual functional ready to go performance bred (for the pit) bull terrier looks like this-
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Above is what a dog actually designed by the task of dog fighting looks like. Not designed by man, but the very task of fighting. You're looking at just the product that pops out after that evolutionary sculpting has taken place.
But it's not so cut and dry that bull terriers will just always beat other dogs. So much goes into the individual dog, so much can go wrong, so much can go right. Within a dogs lifetime, or in their breeding history. A "bull terrier" can hypothetically lose to a spitz or even a poodle, let alone another working gripping dog which maybe isn't a pit-fighting dog but is still specialised for elite levels of combat with wild beasts.
Even the fully legit dogs, like those pictured above, may potentially lose if they have a massive weight disadvantage against a very rugged killer large dog (lets say an LGD that has experience in nasty dog fights and weighs 90 kgs). They say "it's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog", and that often is true, but it has it's limitations and make no mistake that size is an advantage.
Dogs like those above are definitely the most elite best fighters in the dog world, and frankly in the animal world. But they still need to be bred well, conditioned well, given life experience and have their talents nurtured, etc etc. And also yes size disadvantages can potentially overcome superior fighting ability. A very large powerful dog (or wolf) with experience killing quickly might just take such a dog out before it even really gets started fighting. But the answer to your question is still I believe the game-bred pit-focussed Bull terrier. You should probably bet on the elite professional, or use your discretion on a case by case basis to determine if a size advantage for a serious killer dog might be too ridiculous.
There IS of course always more than one way to skin a cat.
The bull terrier is the result of overcoming the lack of killing ability in the subjugation specialist and punishment-enduring maestros that are bulldogs by adding killing ability with the terrier. Alternatively you have the Tosa Inu of Japan.
They also have the gripping dog foundation (as japan quickly learned their fighting spitz couldn't compete with western bulldogs and bullmastiffs) BUT instead of focussing on elevating their killing ability, they elevated their durability and adapted their own version of the sport to be what they refer to as "Inuzumo" which means "dog sumo". The dogs have such incredibly thick and loose durable hide and such sturdy robust bones that injuries typically are minimal or superficial, and instead they showcase their grappling skill, strength and flexibility to gain ascendant positions over their opponent and dominate them into exhaustion or submission.
They sometimes DO die and it's usually from exhaustion/heat stroke, though the "enthusiasts" are usually pretty good about treating such things.
(this dog lived, and btw was the champion of the event).
These fights in Japan are actually legal and are considered tourist attractions watched by young and old, perhaps due to the general lack of gore. I didn't show pit bull terrier fights for a reason, and it's because I actually find them extremely unpleasant and barbaric.
The only really meaningful question when it comes to "best dog fighting breed" for me would be pit bull vs tosa. It's actually a tough one. One might think "tosas don't have killing ability so pitbull wins", but the truth is Tosa's kill non-tosas all the time. There are countless horror stories of pet tosas killing other dogs in brief street scuffles. They can kill well enough, they just can't be easily killed. So it's a fairly interesting matchup, objectively speaking, even though weird as it may sound I honestly don't like dog fighting or find it that interesting. But this match up is somewhat interesting because it's persistence and killing ability against durability and power, where both contestants have a lot of grappling/fighting skill.
I'd probably still bet on the best of the best apbts. I think they'd probably ultimately win by exhausting the tosas to death, when they weren't killed first, which would happen sometimes, but IMO not most of the time. The fighting scene that produced the gamebred apbt is just more brutal and cut-throat and the dogs have unfortunately had to rise to meet that level.
