Tuco - in the pussy thread you said you think the Mountain is the baddest man on the planet. Is that what you actually believe? Or is 'baddest' more meant to describe him skull fucking the country side for 3 books?
I ask because I've always assumed Barristan was the baddest dude in the current timeline.
Before people jump down my throat about bringing up THIS discussion, eat shit. That is all.
Character X is the most powerful character and would beat all other characters despite this being a pure fiction and the reader having no way to accurately measure their strength!!!
I think Sterling has the right of it with tiers. Not only is it tenuous to rank real fighters (as in, MMA fighters, boxers, grapplers etc) in a meaningful way, but it's also not useful in fiction. The fights themselves are just machinations of the plot rather than systematic entities that control the plot.
I think all you could effectively do is look at a fighter, Ex, the mountain, and then create a 'bubble' of fighters that, if they were able to best him in fair combat, would not annoy the reader. If pre-nerf Jaime were to fight prime Bobby B the result could go either way. The reader would either see Jaime slice n dice Bobby B, or Jaime's breastplate would get caved in. The reader would have to accept that.
Now if pre-faceless Arya would have danced around Meryn Fucking Trant and riposted him in the face, saving Syrio Fortell, the reader would become incredulous and it'd be a plot hole. In fact the idea that Syrio Fortell would have died to Meryn Fucking Trant is either a plot hole, or a reveal that Syrio was pretty much full of shit along with all of Arya's training. This would honestly be more interesting than him showing up again.
So to answer your question more directly, I'd say there's no characters in the GoT universe, from Aegon II to prime Selmy to prime Arthur Dayne to Strong Belwas that would not be in lethal danger in Oberyn's place, but it's impossible to say how a fight would go.
