On (canon) General Grievous

Okay, so this might be a somewhat atypical blog, in the sense that it is not my intention to provide comprehensive nor definitive evidence in order to tackle misconceptions. Instead, I'd rather just give my opinion on what it is that makes General Grievous a unique lightsaber duelist -beyond his lack of Force ability- and how it might permeate the fights he's involved in.

General fighting prowess

First, I'd like to point out that despite his apparent inferiority to his Legends counterpart, General Grievous is still a formidable warrior and Jedi hunter. This is best portrayed in the Age of Republic comic series, where he is said to have slaughtered "countless Jedi".


   
He is also shown promptly overwhelming a Jedi Master in combat and blitzing a Padawan.




Therefore, Grievous' skill should be well beyond the capabilities of most Jedi. It takes an opponent on the level of Council members such as Eeth Koth or Kit Fisto to stand a chance against the General. Given his liking for cybernetic enhancements, it's also likely that Grievous improved his mechanical body to become even more dangerous over the course of the Clone Wars.



Unorthodox style and physicals

Thanks to his enhanced physicals, General Grievous is an excellent brawler, putting his extra arms to good use against Obi-Wan Kenobi and taking him by surprise a couple of times. He is also able to send his enemies flying with a single kick, but perhaps most significant is the amount of times he is successful in landing said kicks.








I suspect the unusual reach of his mechanical legs makes it easier for him to catch his opponents off-guard, as they aren't used to fighting someone of the General's physical constitution. Because of this, even though usually a superior duelist would land more physical strikes on a less skilled combatant, I theorize that some instances of the General kicking his foes are not reflective of Grievous' relative skill to them. This would explain some of his showings against arguably superior opponents, such as Darth Maul, Asajj Ventress (who goes on to beat him shortly after getting kicked) or Eeth Koth (who floors Grievous and forces the accompanying MagnaGuards to intervene).

Four-armed threat

As depicted above, General Grievous uses up to four lightsabers simultaneously in order to overwhelm his Jedi enemies. But he's also been shown losing one or two of his hands against the likes of Depa Billaba, Kit Fisto or Obi-Wan Kenobi. However, it should be noted that those feats by themselves don't prove their superiority over Grievous. For one, after Depa deprived him of two hands, Grievous went on to slash her in the back and looked like he was about to beat her when Clone Troopers opened fire on him.





I'd wager Grievous tends to get reckless when fighting with four lightsabers, only to take duels more seriously after he is deprived of some of his weapons.

Although Grievous didn't do so well in his fight with Fisto, the nautolan Jedi Master might have taken advantage of both the foggy environment and then the fact that he inflicted the first successful strike. As is explained in Fisto's entry in the Star Wars Character Encyclopedia - Updated and Expanded, Kit's "tentacles are highly sensitive and allow him to detect others' emotions. This ability allows Fisto to take instant advantage of an opponent's uncertainty in combat."



There's also Grievous being recently repaired and told that he needed "his rest", for what that's worth.

Grievous' fight with Obi-Wan is likely the less circumstantial of the three. It should be noted, however, that despite losing two hands, Grievous seemed fairly confident up until Obi-Wan used the Force to push him into the ceiling. It seems to me that he felt like he could still make a comeback, which is somewhat odd considering the General's infamous cowardice.

Again, I'm aware most of this is highly speculative stuff, I just felt some of these things may be worth considering when looking at Grievous' showings. Anyways, I'm sure you can shed more light on this topic and I'd like to know what you guys think.