Predator won.

[BlueMarsalis79]

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Celtic and Nethead talk

[The Cruentus]

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Celtic and Nethead talk

Which one is which? 

[SiL]

Agreed, once Grid got netted Celtic technically won the battle,

He didn't kill Grid so technically he didn't win anything. The fight wasn't over until one of them was dead. "Won the battle but lost the war" really does not apply here.

Scar wins several battles against Aliens but ultimately loses the war. Celtic lost his battle and contributed to the Aliens winning the war.

[The Cruentus]

Agreed, once Grid got netted Celtic technically won the battle,

He didn't kill Grid so technically he didn't win anything. The fight wasn't over until one of them was dead. "Won the battle but lost the war" really does not apply here.

Scar wins several battles against Aliens but ultimately loses the war. Celtic lost his battle and contributed to the Aliens winning the war.

Yep, predator did win. Celtic kicked Grid's ass and basically won the the actual fight and had it dead to rights. Unfortunately Celltic being slow and taking his time is what allowed Grid to kill him, otherwise he would have been able to finish him.

For this scenerio I don't include the sneak attacks, plasma kills or help from a human either, only a simple 1v1 predator v Alien melee fight.

I was talking about the actual fight itself, not the final result of the encounter between them.  Different strokes for different folks I guess, I was coming at this as a fighter.

Like I said, won the battle, lost the war. I'm sorry you are having trouble with that but it does actually apply, especially since it was his small victory (battle) that contributed to his death. (war) and please try and respect how some people are anaylzing the scenerio, not everyone goes by a simple dead = win. I like to break down fights because in my experience, its not as simple as you think and it also makes for good analysis. I made myself reasonably clear, but y'all got your view and I got mine, so I agree to disagree. 

[SiL]

I'm not struggling with anything. I get where you're coming from -- it's just the wrong place.

It's a death match. Dead = win. That's not an oversimplification of the event, it's the actual victory condition. Anything less is nothing because the entire point of the exercise is to kill your opponent. The fight isn't over until one of the combatants is dead. Celtic can't have "won" beforehand because his opponent was still alive. He gained a significant advantage -- but he never won anything.

Even from the perspective of a sporting match, you don't say that a boxer won a fight if they get knocked out. It doesn't matter how well they did beforehand, they've still lost.

Celtic could have won, absolutely. Should have won, I agree.

But he didn't. In a death match between two opponents, he was the one that died. That's a loss.

[Stitch]

All predators died. They all lost.

One alien survived, therefore the species won.

That led to AvPR, and then everyone lost...

[Kradan]

Especially audience

[BlueMarsalis79]

"Whoever wins... we lose... because Requiem comes next in the marathon."

[The Shuriken]

but in the end, the Predator race was the last one standing.

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/GentleJaggedFlea-size_restricted.gif

But always remember, whoever wins...we lose

Man the Yautja sure loved the stakes being stratosphere high. I mean what IF they couldn't activate they're self destruct?

[Corporal Hicks]

I wonder if the mothership would just carpet bomb the location. It would seem they were constantly close by, monitoring, as we see in the victorious flashback and at the end of the film.

[The Cruentus]

If they were monitoring back then as well, then they were negligent as hell. 
I get its supposed to be trial for the three but allowing an infestation to get to the point there is probably no human left in the city and clearly no chance for the young three, its just silly. There is no honor or sportsmanship in allowing a no-win scenerio to occur, one could argue the containment mistake was due to one of three and so the others were just letting them deal with the consequences but risking world wilde exposure to teach a lesson is still silly. 

[Master Chief]

I wonder if the mothership would just carpet bomb the location. It would seem they were constantly close by, monitoring, as we see in the victorious flashback and at the end of the film.

They would have.

If they were monitoring back then as well, then they were negligent as hell. 

My guess would be they had their hand on the big red button if the Predators weren't able to activate their self-destruct devices.  Once they were notified the last Predator activated his, they knew they didn't have to nuke the site from orbit.

[happypred]

It would've been a good idea for the preds to scan Scar's body before taking it back...so the predalien won I guess

[Huntsman]

Celtic could have won, absolutely. Should have won, I agree.

But he didn't. In a death match between two opponents, he was the one that died. That's a loss.

This is the answer. What I love about this fight is how it gives a winner to the encounter but still leaves enough wiggle room for both creature fans to fight their case as to which is superior. Way I see it, the Predator is highly skilled and should have won this particular fight, but the Alien is the superior foe due to its genetics.

[Wweyland]

It's a shame that the Grid Alien totally disappears from the movie, after killing 2 Predators (out of 3).
I think I saw some production/deleted material pictures where it was on the surface with the Queen, which is very interesting.