Most of the time, when discussing HSDS, a lot of people only considered Zhang WuJi and Zhang SanFeng as the notable fighters.
We might have overlooked Xie Xun, the Golden Mane Lion King.
Xie Xun's appearance at the beginning actually left a lot to be pondered. He performed several feats that suggest he's actually a very good fighter.
His senses were highly tuned as a fighter plus he's quite ruthless and cunning (due to his desire for revenge).
The drawback perhaps was because he kept being defeated by his si fu, Cheng Kun, who of course taught him all his martial arts and thus knew them better than Xie Xun. But this doesn't mean that Xie Xun was less as a fighter than Cheng Kun. And by saying so, I'm not rating Xie Xun as a fighter of Xiao Feng level who could beat the crap out of anyone even with higher level of skills than him. I'm just curious to know how Xie Xun is actually compared against the other fighter in his era, such as Mie Jie Shie Tai, the Wu Dang heroes, etc etc.
Yang DingTian (the former leader of Ming Sect) had high regards about Xie Xun as a person and this might be an indication that Xie Xun was a good capable person with strong martial arts background before the tragedy that happened to his family.
So how do you guys rate Xie Xun ability as a fighter?