Do you know who in PotC is the strongest in battle and definitely the most experienced?
Salazar.
(This is worth reading)
As you know, Salazar was imprisoned in the Devil's Triangle for 43 years.
YEARS. Not days.
In a spooky, dark, cold, gloomy, unknown cave, literally out of this world. And without any contact.
Dead men tell no tales.
No one else was held in such conditions.
It would have broken anyone. Completely.
It didn't break him.
And he was also carrying the psyche of the entire crew and struggling with wounds.
And monsters.
Personally.
That sets him apart from others, like Barbossa and Jones. They might be old, but... they're not on the same level.
They sailed under normal conditions, facing equals or weaker opponents. Jack, Mercer...
And they lived by agreements. They had no competition in the strictest sense of the word. They could make agreements to survive. And they didn't fight someone completely, uncomparably stronger.
And he, Captain Salazar, was the only one to personally fight only stronger opponents, and for decades. This is clear if we look at his injuries. He almost lost many fights.
But he turns this experience into practical knowledge.
From wounds and injuries, you can deduce the size of an opponent. To do this as precisely as possible, I used artificial intelligence.
It seems that the monsters Salazar fought weighed around 700 kg, were less than 10 meters long, had a limb span of 3-4 meters, and possessed enormous strength.
Considering the environment and the realities of PotC, this more or less fits a giant marine lizard—let's say something like a Spinosaurus, only slightly smaller.
Notice that we know what Jones wielded, but not what was in the Triangle.
And that was a completely different dimension.
-In the Overworld, you don't have what you have in the Nether.-
It seems Salazar fought the Spinosaurus, but with big difficulty.
That fits his wounds.
He was crushed, slashed with claws, the beast tried to tear him apart or crush him, and he was even thrown around.
Typical injuries for someone treated like a rag doll.
Deep, extensive, painful.
It was incredibly brutal. And it wasn't a fair fight.
But instead of giving up and breaking mentally the captain adapted and persevered.
Thanks to his unique anatomy, experience, and physical and mental endurance, he survived and became a veteran who today bears the scars as a chronicle of those brutal lessons.
And he has experience unlike any other.
Because he fought only against those stronger, not equal, or weaker.
Salazar ignored pain, fighting instinctively and dynamically, revealing his predatory nature.
Using his opponent's body—he observes where to strike with his montante, how to avoid direct critical damage, exploits the terrain, and changes tactics—all of this indicates vast experience in fighting larger opponents.
Biomechanical effects—his body, despite a hip injury and asthma, acts as a battering ram and projectile, allowing him to oppose the beast despite a significant power imbalance.
His fighting style isn't fencing. It's that of a predator, condemned to massive clashes of strength.
In this type of fight, Salazar doesn't maneuver for artistic effect – it's pure, brutal physics and instinct. Every move is as effective as possible: vertical strikes, spinning strikes, ramming – everything to end the fight in the shortest time possible, utilizing his own mass and muscle power.
He doesn't have the stamina for long fights, so he must strike quickly and powerfully.
Furthermore, consider the opponent's strength.
He's learned (probably from his own mistakes) that if he drags out the fight, it's over for him.
If he doesn't kill his opponent quickly, they'll take out their rage on him and use him as an example of their power and dominance (which must have happened at least once). And then, the crew would have trouble helping him. (That's probably how he got his hip injury.)
He's been fighting like that for so long.
He's habitually not open to negotiations or anything like that, but uses the situation to his maximum advantage or ends up with you.
He only fought stronger opponents.
But the habits stuck when he finally had the opportunity to fight weaker targets.
And this experience against larger and stronger opponents gave him a tactical advantage, despite his physical limitations.
And Jack saw it. That's why he kept trying to escape. Because he wasn't so stupid to get in Salazar's way.
