5 Worst Lightsaber Fighters In Star Wars, Ranked

Yoda. Dooku. Anakin. Maul. Luke. Palpatine. Qui-Gon. These characters are famed in the Star Wars mythos not only for their knowledge of the Force, but for their skill with a lightsaber. To this day, the most iconic moments in the franchise are primarily lightsaber duels, with a couple of Death Star trench runs thrown in for good measure. The weapon is the symbol of the franchise, and few characters are as beloved as the ones who wield it best.

But what about the ones who wield it worst? Most of the lightsaber battles shown in the mainline Star Wars movies and shows are climactic by nature, which makes it rare to see someone really stink up the joint. But just as there are better and worse lightsaber fights, there are better and worse fighters. Today, we're running down the truly dismal.

Before we start, a few ground rules. First, training and experience matter here. We're not going to fill this list with padawans or newly minted knights who got shredded by General Grievous in the Clone Wars. Second, we can't judge what we haven't seen. There are too many characters in the old Legends canon, comics, novels, and video games to include them all. We're not going to blast Atton Rand just because some builds make him useless with a lightsaber, or Agen Kolar because his only real fight has Palpatine kill him before he can even swing. So for our purposes today, we're only looking at characters with notable, on-screen fight records in the movies and canonical shows. We also only allocated one Inquisitor spot, as otherwise, frankly, this would just be a list of Inquisitors.

Every good ranking needs a last-place entry to properly establish expectations. In this case, it's Savage Opress, who might seem at first like a fierce warrior (he is) who's taken some big wins (he has). Look a little deeper, though, and you'll find a character largely carried by his brute strength, Force aptitude, and his far more skilled brother, Maul. Remember, this is a list of the worst lightsaber fighters, not the worst fighters who sometimes use lightsabers.

On the saber front specifically, Savage has taken some big L's. In fairness, though, they've often come at the hands of some pretty high-level duelists, which is part of why he only goes as high here as number five on the list. He gets washed by Dooku on multiple occasions in "The Clone Wars," and even when he faces the Sith Lord alongside Asajj Ventress, he isn't much of a factor other than being a force of chaos. He's still in training there, of course, but that's less of an excuse in the show's fifth season, when Savage looks similarly lost and overmatched in the two-vs-one with Maul against Darth Sidious, in which Palpatine kills him.

Dooku and Palpatine are tough foes against whom to rate a person's skill, but even when you watch Savage skirmishing with Obi-Wan or a group of Hutt-hired bounty hunters, the lightsaber just isn't the point of focus. He's a brawler, and any time he has to fall back on actual finesse, he usually looks overmatched, no matter how far in his favor the numbers are. But we love Savage, and he's still an incredibly formidable combatant, so he goes no higher (or, well, lower).

Kylo's fight record is sort of the opposite of Savage's, in that we never really see him punch above his weight class. Most of his duels in the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy are punching down — Finn and Poe, with no formal training, in "The Force Awakens," and a group of Praetorian Guards in "The Last Jedi." He does beat Rey in "The Rise of Skywalker" (before getting distracted and sucker-punched), but though they're better matched in that film, he still has years on her in terms of training and experience. Absent the injuries he's fighting through in "The Force Awakens," that's a matchup he should absolutely win.

For someone who trained under Luke Skywalker — someone with Skywalker blood and every advantage of knowledge — Kylo just falls well below where he should. His aggression is a frequent weakness, and he fights with little grace, eschewing the traditional lightsaber forms in favor of a brutal, battle-hammer style that works on less skilled opponents but always looks a little unbalanced.

Maybe if we'd gotten a better look at him fighting as Ben Solo, absent the corruption of the dark side, he'd dodge this list. Or maybe the original Kylo Ren ending would have given us a dark side villain worthy of his heritage. We have neither to work with. What we do see throughout the sequels is a nepo baby who clearly isn't getting his reps in.

Clocking in at our first podium spot is the token Imperial Inquisitor of this list, the Eleventh Brother. To be fair, we could have chosen any of his brethren or, uh, sistren? Yes, it seems that's a word. Any of his brethren or sistren could have gone here, with Reva of "Obi-Wan Kenobi" and the Fifth Brother and Seventh Sister of "Rebels" getting special consideration. But none of those characters have a single loss as brutal and embarrassing as the one the Eleventh Brother suffers in "Tales of the Jedi."

Facing off against Ahsoka Tano, who doesn't have a lightsaber, the Inquisitor gets off a full three swings before his fourth is caught by the former Jedi. She quickly disarms him and then kills him with a single blow. The whole duel takes about 10 seconds. It's arguably the hardest anyone has ever lost a lightsaber fight in Star Wars.

If that were the Eleventh Brother's only notable appearance, he might sit at the top of the list. Blessedly for him, his recent appearance in "Star Wars: Maul — Shadow Lord" is a much better showing, where he holds his own alongside fellow Inquisitor Marrok against Maul and a pair of Jedi on the run. That show saves him from utter shame, but he's still a very bad lightsaber fighter.

Yord Horde, I'm sorry. Your boy is not the one.

Say what you want about "The Acolyte," but it's hard to deny that the short-lived series has some of the best lightsaber dueling in all of Star Wars. The choreography is next-level, and there are a lot of fights, many featuring truly top-tier duelists like the dark side Stranger (Manny Jacinto) and Jedi Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae). Unfortunately, all of that skill only makes the less capable warriors look worse by comparison, which is exactly what happens to Jedi Knight Yord Fandar (Charlie Barnett) in the show's fifth episode, "Night."

Facing off against the Stranger in the jungles of Khofar with a whole team of other Jedi at his side, Yord gets his entire business totally rocked in short order. The Stranger doesn't even need to use his fancy cortosis helmet to turn off Yord's lightsaber. He dispatches him in a matter of seconds with simple saber technique, wounding him and leaving him for dead. When Yord tries to redeem himself by leaping back into the battle later on, the Stranger once again embarrasses him, breaks him into a submission hold, and then snaps his neck. It's brutal, but honestly, Yord, you never had a chance.

Yes, Yord is a less experienced Jedi, but this is just too tough of a performance to bounce back from, even taking into consideration his youth and hubris.

Look, we all know that Sabine Wren can scrap with the best of 'em. She's a seasoned Mandalorian warrior with the full bag of tricks — flamethrowers, fibercord whips, blasters, jetpacks, the whole shebang. She also gets proper lightsaber training after claiming the Darksaber in "Star Wars Rebels," learning from Kanan Jarrus. In the "Ahsoka" series, she gets more training from the eponymous protagonist, and we learn that she actually trained with Ahsoka pretty extensively between the two shows.

Despite all that, Sabine is ... not the best with the blade. Perhaps it's her Mandalorian fighting style winning out, but she gets rocked pretty hard by Shin Hati on multiple occasions in "Ahsoka." While she gets a win over Gar Saxon in "Rebels," that fight is more of a Mando brawl, and he has even less saber training than she does. Despite being given every opportunity to improve, Sabine always looks like she's on the back foot when fighting with a lightsaber, and her duel record is lousy for as long as it is.

The counterargument, of course, is that she isn't Force-sensitive ... except, she is. The controversial "Ahsoka" storyline of Sabine finally connecting to the Force makes that a questionable excuse for her prior duels, and even beforehand, her technique, which has nothing to do with Force-sensitivity, just isn't great. She's a strong fighter, and a fun character, but her lightsaber abilities just aren't there. And given how much training and screentime she's had to prove otherwise, it's relatively easy to put her at the top of this list.