Well, I've competed as an amateur. I've only been involved in one serious fight outside of competition after I began training. And no, I didn't start boxing the guy up, or kicking at his legs. Quick double leg, sat up and punched him in the head till enough people grabbed hold of me to break it up. Guy never grappled in his life- if you train any form of grappling art, you'll know it when you feel him, sometimes referred to as "fish" because of the ineffective way they flop around, like a fish out of water. They can be a little more slippery than a trained guy, but not for long, they'll get tired quickly and then you attack. For one on one scenarios, I like the Gracie philosophy of "cooking" your opponent. You don't eat things raw, right? Same thing with trying to catch an armbar or a choke on someone who has *some* skill and is very determined, and maybe they have a size/strength advantage over you. It's fine, pull them into your guard, keep breaking their posture, frustrate the shit out of them until they try to explode and give you something to attack. For scenarios where there may be multiple attackers, I'd rather start throwing punches, if I couldn't run away for w/e reason. Get my back against a wall, hopefully somewhere that allows some lateral movement; Goal being to knock each guy senseless as fast as possible, don't let anyone get behind me, because the longer the fight goes, the more the advantage turns in the favor of the guys who have numbers, so it's imperative that you get the hell out of that quickly.