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John Wick VS Boba Fett: Breakdown

Updated: Nov 2, 2023


John Wick VS Boba Fett graphic

Contents



Gun skills

Wick's gun skills

The John Wick series is famous for A) lots and lots of guns, and B) actors who actually put in the effort to use them well. Keanu Reeves, already a skilled shooter, trained for months to get as dialed in as possible for the second and third films.

Wick's marksmanship is excellent. He almost never misses a shot (the only shots he does miss are extremely difficult ones, like shooting a running target from forty feet in flashing lights and shadows). He sniped multiple goons in the heads in the first movie's warehouse shootout, and repeatedly lands chest- and headshots in CQB.

Wick's CQB skills are the best part of the series. Time and again, he defeats multiple realistically skilled attackers at once. He is very tactical with his engagements, using the reflection in a window to judge when to pounce on the home invaders in the series' first fight, ducking in and out of cover in the nightclub and catacombs battles, and constantly reloading. He can also perform judo throws while shooting.

In the third film, Wick's steady elimination of the armor-clad High Table troopers in the New York Continental shows just how capable he is at taking on armored opponents. However, in that case he was also lightly armored, whereas in this case his ballistic suit will do basically nothing against Boba's weaponry.


Fett's gun skills

Boba primarily uses a blaster carbine, and doubtless is an excellent shot.

In The Mandalorian, Boba uses a blaster pistol to fight off a band of stormtroopers, killing three with one to two shots each from about fifteen to twenty yards, specifically hitting the black rubber sections at the joints of the armor. It is to be noted that he was firing one-handed as well.



Unarmed combat skills

Wick's unarmed combat skills

Wick has shown knowledge of (and practical skill in) Brazilian jujitsu, judo, aikido, sambo, and Krav Maga. He occasionally shows some skill in kickboxing and punching, too. He often demonstrates throws while keeping his gun safely pointed in the right direction.

Wick is very strong, but he was overpowered by henchman Kirill in a brutal fight when ended with Wick getting thrown off a balcony. Kirill managed to get the upper hand against Wick (who had just come out of retirement and was suffering from exhaustion and a minor gunshot wound) using Taekwondo kicks and grappling along with greater strength. Later in the film John defeats Kirill with his superior jujitsu ground game and strangles him while wearing handcuffs.


Fett's unarmed combat skills

Fett is not very technical in his unarmed fights. Usually he seems to rely on raw strength more than on martial arts skills. However, on one occasion he performed a throw against a stormtrooper, flipping the man completely over before stabbing him with his gaderffi stick (half club, half spear).

Fett also overpowered and de-limbed a large alien in a cantina brawl. The alien's limbs were likely not as strong as those of a normal human, but this is still extremely impressive. Boba is very powerful.



Armed melee skills

Wick's armed melee skills

Wick appears to have great skill in kali, a Filipino martial art focusing on sticks and knives. In John Wick 3, he defeats multiple opponents in a drawn-out knife fight, showing proficiency in deflections and counters.

Wick is capable of fighting with a sword, too. While the series' sword fights are less realistic than its gun action, Wick is still clearly a very fast and precise duelist.


Fett's armed melee skills

Boba absolutely murdered several stormtroopers with nothing but a gaderffi stick, landing very powerful blows that shattered their helmets (the stormtroopers' armor in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett performs much worse than that in the Original Trilogy and canon literature, so perhaps it's more aged).



Durability

Wick's durability

Wick is ostensibly a real-world human, but he's survived things no one should be able to and kept going, like falling fifteen feet off a balcony, getting shot, getting stabbed, and falling several stories. It's not just that he survives—it's that he survives and seems mostly fine the next day.


Fett's durability

Fett is tough as nails, but as far as I can tell his armor does most of the work for him. Anyway it's still much easier for him to kill Wick with a hit than for Wick to kill him.



Equipment/weaponry

Wick's equipment

Wick has used many different handguns, including Glocks 19 and 34 (9mm handguns) and later a very nice 9mm Pit Viper 2011, holding 24 rounds. He usually uses stock magazines but may on occasion use extended mags.

For rifles, Wick uses numerous AR-15 variants, including some M4 carbines. These rifles are capable of semiautomatic fire and their high-velocity .223 bullets can piece some modern body armor. M4s and AR-15s are accurate enough at 300 yards to place bullets in a human torso reliably, and their range is greatly improved with a scope or holographic optic (such as Wick often uses). He also wields a SIG MPX, a 9mm submachine gun (but with an odd 16" barrel add-on, making it more like a carbine) and the Coharie CA-41, a rifle similar to the AR-15, firing the same .223 by 5.56 cartridge. (The former would not be an ideal weapon when facing armored men in CQB, as he used to it do.)

In the first movie, John uses a Kel-Tec KSG 12-gauge shotgun with a foregrip and a holographic sight. In the second he wields a Benelli M4 shotgun which he is highly capable with, and in the third he wields the similar Benelli M2 with steel slugs to blow apart numerous heavily armored High Table troopers. He snipes multiple Tarasov mobsters with a DTA Stealth Recon Scout bolt-action sniper fitted with a scope. In Chapter 4 he loads the ludicrously fast magfed Genesis Arms 12 shotgun with Dragon's Breath shells, which shoot lots of sparks and could potentially light someone on fire if they were soaked in gasoline first (you know, the usual).

Wick also carries a smaller pistol and often a knife.

In the first film, Wick dons a bullet resistant vest under his clothes before going to the Red Circle to hunt down Iosef. In the second film, he gets a full bulletproof suit, capable of stopping handgun rounds at close range. The suit seems light and flexible. However, its thermal defensive capabilities are unknown—though if it's made of kevlar, it would certainly have some heat resistance—and there's no reason to think it would help much at all against a direct hit from a blaster bolt.


Fett's equipment

Boba's primary weapon is the Blastech EE-3 blaster semiautomatic carbine, which has limited select-fire capabilities (it can fire single shots or bursts). The weapon is fitted with a scope, implying long-range capabilities—Ultimate Star Wars implies that the EE-3's range and stopping power are slightly inferior to that of stormtrooper E-11 rifles, which perform on a similar level rangewise to modern SMGs, though they're usually seen in use at close range. Based on official literature statements (stating that the E-11's effective range is 100 yards, and its maximum range is 300 yards) it is reasonable to conclude from this that Boba can reliably land hits out to a hundred yards or so. Hits from Star Wars carbine/SMG equivalents have been shown to be capable of blasting into concrete and vaporizing metal.

In The Mandalorian, Boba uses a blaster pistol to fight off a band of stormtroopers, killing three with one to two shots each from about fifteen to twenty yards. He appeared to primarily be aiming at the flexible black rubber sections at the joins of their armor, but immediately prior he killed a trooper with a direct point-blank shot to the breastplate, so we know the handgun has the capability to kill even through plastoid armor. Stormtrooper armor is in fact extremely durable and would easily stop real-world small arms fire, so this is impressive.

Boba's armor is made of durasteel plates joined with some kind of heavy, durable fabric. The main plates are undoubtedly capable of stoping small arms fire, and the suit sports many concealed weapons, including:

gauntlet knives (the right one is longer in one comic, and was used to decapitate a humanoid)

a gauntlet blaster (range of up to 50 yards, and capable of blasting a human back a full seven yards when fired at melee range)

a wrist rocket (capable of launching multiple rocket types, all apparently guided, including stun warheads and antivehicle ones—shown firing rockets approximately equal in yield to a real-world hand grenade, minus the fragmentation)

a wrist flamethrower (almost certainly gas-based; has range of up to five yards)

a launch cord to wrap up targets

The suit also has a jetpack, which can be used for short-distance flight at a moment's notice. This jetpack sports an additional single-use rocket with a full targeting system. It appears to have an explosive yield of approximately a quarter of a ton of TNT (it obliterated a large speeder and even took down a small Imperial transport, causing it to crash into another one). This rocket has been used at ranges of several hundred yards, though it did lock onto the wrong transport in the latter incident. Note that the rocket requires several seconds to arm, aim, and fire, so it cannot effectively be used during a typical firefight.

Boba also carries grenade-like explosives with a radius of effect of about two yards (similar to the MK3 concussion grenade).



Scenarios

1: Desert plain

Wick and Fett have been tasked to kill each other. They have spotted each other about 500 yards away on a huge salt flat. There is absolutely no cover. Fett has his standard loadout and Wick has an AR-15 (with a holographic sight), a 9mm Glock pistol, his bulletproof suit, and a good-sized knife.

In this situation, the fight will come down to Wick and Boba diving to the ground and trying to pick each other off with their respective rifles. I see no reason why Boba's backpack rocket can't be fired while lying down, too, and though the range is probably too great for accurate firing of the rocket, Boba doesn't need a particularly accurate shot. He just needs to land a strike within about a hundred feet of Wick, which will probably kill him.

If we take away Boba's big rocket, it's still going to be difficult for Wick to landing a lethal shot. Boba's armor isn't just bullet resistant, it's truly bulletproof—it can and will stop basically all real-world small arms fire. Wick has to hit either the visor (which is probably some sort of metaglass-like materiel which may simply shrug off the rounds) or the cloth gaps (which are probably kevlar or something like it—penetrable but not easily so). However, Boba still has to get closer, so Wick may be able to drop him with a throat shot or two before the Warsian can get off an accurate shot.

Give the Baba Yaga a sniper rifle and things change quite a bit. Mid-caliber bolt-action rifles can be accurate out to the thousands of yards. Wick is an excellent marksman, and even if his long-range accuracy is well below SF snipers, he'll still be able to land repeated hits on Boba at this range, and the much heavier and faster rounds will do significantly more damage. Boba may survive even head shots, but he isn't going to be comfortable by any means, and eventually Wick will get a neck or rib hit.

Winner: Fett by explosion with carbines, Wick by throatshot if he gets a sniper


2: Forest shootout

The two are placed in a big temperate forest and told to find and kill each other. Wick has his bullpup sniper rifle, a handgun, and his bulletproof suit. Boba has all his standard equipment.

I think in this scenario whoever spots the other first wins. Wick is stealthier and better armed for sharpshooting, but he can't effectively take cover if Boba opens fire, and Boba's helmet probably has thermal imaging capabilities.

Winner: Even


3: Home invasion

Boba Fett is taking the place of the Tarasov assassins from the first film. He knows who Wick is and needs to enter his house and kill him without just blowing the whole thing up. His jetpack and back rocket will be useless here. All Wick has is what I think is a suppressed H&K P30L, a 9mm semiautomatic handgun with 15 rounds per magazine, and several backup mags.

John starts upstairs near the balcony, as he did in the film. I'm not sure how good Fett's room clearing skills are, but Wick will certainly have the advantage of surprise. It comes down to whether John can kill Boba immediately with a surprise attack, or whether Boba's armor will tank the hits and he'll be able to blow John away. Honestly, my best guess is John shoots Boba repeatedly in the chest and head (not harming him but probably stopping him in his tracks) before tackling him and putting a few rounds through his neck.

It's also possible that Boba has advanced detection technology that can allow him to spot John through walls or floors. In that case, he only has to fire a couple shots through the wall to kill the Boogeyman.

Winner: Wick by ambush


4: Compound showdown

Both assassins get their full loadout. They are dropped fifty yards apart in a big concrete millitary complex.

I think Boba wins this pretty easily in most cases. He can shoot through most of the available cover and Wick's range and melee advantages are gone at midrange. If you give Wick a shotgun or something, maybe he's got a better chance, but the odds are still not in his favor.

Winner: Fett by blasting

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