Experienced streetfighters, like cops and bouncers, avoid going to the ground if at all possible because someone will come out of the crowd and use your melon for a football.
The bad guy has some say in how the fight will proceed, it is probably a good idea to have a plan to solve an entangled engagement and create space to allow other options like your gun or knife etc.
If you can go full out for 1 minute you are a badass.
mike r
100% I was a bouncer for 5 years in my early 20s, i learned real quick to judge who was bluffing and who was really a bad dude. I always acted 1st. If I thought it was someone bluffing, i could usually grab them quick and introduce them to the door. If it was someone intent on getting into it, id watch thier hand wiht my arms crossed but my right hand close to my chin, from here as soon as I saw a hand move, i would deliver a very quick powerful elbow to the jaw. im not sure how many guys i knocked out that way, but it was more than 10 less than 20 probably. I always carried an ASP and had to use it more than i would have liked. A large guy (6'3 265) vs me (5'10 220) had a broken bottle and was trying his best to cut as many people as possible, stopping him included breaking his arm with a 36" asp with a 2oz tip. and another 10-12 strikes to take him down so the other guys could hold onto him. If i would have wanted to kill him, i could have easily split his stupid skull with that asp.
