After giving the heroes of this story trouble for a good number of episodes, their fight comes down to the life of Joseph Joestar, Josuke’s father. Otoishi’s stand, Chili Pepper, is a long range stand that can travel through all electric currents giving Otoishi the ability to conceal himself and scout the main cast to devise a battle plan. Thinking they would be safe, Jotaro, Josuke, Okuyasu, and Koichi attempt to hide from Chilli Pepper in an open area with no exposed electricity.

Unfortunately through the battery of Okuyasu’s scooter, Red Hot Chili Pepper is able to find our heroes and exploit Okuyasu’s stand’s ability by making holes on the ground, exposing underground wires to rush to the harbor where our heroes would rendezvous with the progressively aging Joseph Joestar who is probably not physically (and mentally) capable of handling himself in combat. Thankfully the cast manages to catch up, and Josuke does the bulk of the fighting. It all comes down to exploiting the natural weaknesses of electricity to gain the victory.

First, Josuke traps Chili Pepper in a tire since it stops the flow of electricity. However, the tire was weak enough for the stand to punch out, but the air flowing out flies the tire to the ocean thus melting Akira’s stand. However, Akira would try one last time to kill Joseph but Okuyasu by chance just knocks him out.

If there was ever a deadly plan that just happens to backfire due to underestimating your opponent, this one takes the cake. Alessi, a minion of Dio, possesses the stand known as Set, a shadow that turns whoever touches it, not just to a child or a baby, but to even a fetus! He manages to successfully turn Polnareff to a toddler and in turn, affects his stand’s abilities. So where does it all go wrong?

When he manages to shrink Jotaro into a child, he ends up underestimating his strength and it turns out that a mini-Jotaro (and without relying on his own stand) is still strong enough to beat the crap out of Alessi. And when Jotaro and Polnareff regain their adult forms, Alessi is thrown into the air never to be seen from again.

Prior to the breakout story arc, Stardust Crusaders and its introduction to stands, the fights were artistically more along the lines of other masculine Shounen Jump series at the time such as Hokuto no Ken, so this was more emphasized on the physical aspects but still had its share of strategic wits. One example is when Dio has his hands on Jonathan (while Jonathan has Dio’s body sliced in half with a sword) to attempt his deep freeze, the blade while sitting on a fire pit, the fire conducts through the sword and to their bodies was a basic and yet non-mystical way to counter Dio’s then, special attack.

In one last attempt to defeat Jonathan, Jonathan defeats Dio’s technique by purposely burning his fist with highly concentrated Hamon energy to “burn through” him and attack his body thus disintegrating his original body. Though Dio lost the battle to win the war, before his head would also melt, he purposely cut off his own head from his body and with the help of Wang Chun, his attendant, they come back to crash Jonathan’s honeymoon cruise and Dio would take Jonathan’s body as his own.

After ignoring Joseph’s advice that they shouldn’t attack the hotel where the Pillar men are hiding, Caesar pushes on believing that by attacking while it is still daylight gives him the advantage. Initially, Waamu uses the pipes in his body to manipulate the water vapor to refract sunlight to fight Caesar outside the abandoned hotel he is hiding in.

Thankfully, Caesar finds a way to use Waamu’s defense against him by using Hamon charged bubbles to get sucked into Waamu’s wind, which in effect penetrates his skin. Admitting he no longer can fight outside, Waamu lures Caesar inside but Caesar still continues to press the offense. Due to Caesar repeatedly using his attack, he has the lobby of the hotel filled with Hamon bubbles and plans to use them to direct sunlight towards Waamu. When Caesar gets into close range for the finish, Waamu still has enough power to use his final move to stop Caesar’s attack and kill him.

Before Caesar died he managed to take the lip ring that contained an antidote that would cure Joseph’s poison, and would give him the last of his Hamon. Being the old style warrior Waamu is, he acknowledges Caesar’s worthiness as an opponent and doesn’t further attack Caesar before he dies knowing he can no longer do anything.

In the climax, Joseph battles Wham in the Roman Colosseum like it were the old gladiator days. Thanks to his intense training in Hamon, Joseph is able to counterattack some of Wham’s techniques by wrapping his arms and conducting the energy of Hamon to his opponent. Eventually, both men lose their chariots and fight hand-to-hand (with some energy attacks). Joseph initiates the first step of his victory by using childish tactics such as throwing simple pebbles as a distraction and firing a Hamon charged cannonball at Wham causing some heavy damage.

Out of desperation, Wham resorts to his final move, the Gathering Gale. Joseph counters this move by throwing his energy charged bandana at Waamu (though Waamu disintegrates it, its burning ashes still manage to reach Waamu) and then throws a Molotov cocktail. Along with the burned ashes charged by Hamon and the cocktail spreading the damage, Waamu accepts his defeat as a true warrior and perishes.

This is the purest example that fights with the highest stakes don't have to be physical, but can also be mental. Initially, Joseph and Polnareff try to challenge D’Arby but both instantly lose and get their souls taken by D’Arby. Eventually, it is up to Jotaro, a teenager who can't even legally gamble in most first world countries to save his friends. First, he finds that D’Arby was cheating and breaks his fingers. During the second deal (where the boy who dealt the cards was secretly a minion of D’Arby), Jotaro doesn't bother looking at his cards and just plays mind games by using his Star Platinum to get him some drinks and cigarettes to distract D’Arby and break his cool.

Without folding or showing his hand, Jotaro puts on the ultimate poker face by saying he is willing to bet on the souls of his remaining friends, his own, and his own mother’s (he says he has no issue with it under the pretext that she is going to die anyway)! This gives D’Arby the impression that Jotaro may have used his stand to change his own hand to win and he ends up suffering a mental breakdown giving Jotaro the victory and reclaiming the souls of Joseph and Polnareff. As it turns out, Jotaro never looked at his cards to maintain his poker face and ends up having the worst hands you can think of.

In the second to last battle of Stardust Crusaders, Polnareff and Iggy take on Dio’s loyal right-hand man, Vanilla Ice. Powered by Dio’s vampire blood, Vanilla Ice is a fellow immortal vampire and his stand, Cream, can swallow itself into a ball-like void that can simultaneously move at quick speeds and wreck havoc. Due to the features of this stand and his crazy personality, this is probably one of the most violent fights in all of the JoJo series. So in order to win, both Iggy and Polnareff have to find ways to stay on the initiative. Iggy tries to use Vanilla Ice’s admiration of Dio as a distraction by making a silhouette of Dio with his Fool stand, but considering that Dio is a vampire and with the silhouette exposed to sunlight, Vanilla Ice saw right through the ruse and starts to cruelly torture Iggy.

With his last strength, Iggy sacrifices himself to save Polnareff and gains the victory by using Vanilla Ice’s strengths against him by using the holes he created with Cream’s voids to bring sunlight (with the sun now rising) into the dark room they were battling in, and instantly kill him.

In the final battle of Battle Tendency, a then 19-year-old Joseph Joestar faces against Kars, who has obtained his ultimate form with the combined powers of the stone mask and the Red Stone of Aja. Thanks to these new powers, Kars is now immune to basic vampire weaknesses such as exposure to sunlight, and he can manipulate his anatomy to give himself wings. Worst of all, he can now use Hamon 100x a greater rate than Joseph! So desperate times call for desperate measures for Joseph to win this fight.

Joseph goes as far as taking a plane and luring him to a volcano (and crashing him into the core), but even that doesn't work and loses his hand! So what does it take for Joseph to win? After Joseph strikes the Red Stone of Aja, he makes the volcano erupt and while both men are boosted into the air, Joseph finds a way to push Kars out of the Earth’s gravitational pull by distracting him with trash talking and having other flying debris (and his severed hand). After Kars enters orbit, he freezes to forever float in space.

In one of the most unique battles, it is between a dog and a bird. So if you’re hardcore into animal rights, this fight might not be for you considering how disturbing this fight goes. With Pet Shop having the advantage of the air and superior eyesight, it is bound to be a tough battle. To make matters worse, Pet Shop’s stand, Horus, is a long-range projectile icicle attack while The Fool is mostly short range and a defense oriented stand. A majority of this battle is more mental as opposed to physical. Iggy has every disadvantage you can think and is mostly on the defense.

The episodes even give audiences the chance to hear Iggy’s inner thoughts and know what desperation he is conveying thus giving the fight a more immersing tone. Iggy tries to take the fight to the sewers thinking he would have the advantage but he could be no more wrong and is continually on the defensive. When Iggy was trying to shield himself underwater with his stand, Pet Shop still presses to attack with Horus trying to cave him in. Iggy thinks by digging underground to escape would help him, but in fact, Pet Shop was already waiting for him.

Right in the middle of charging his attack, Iggy decides to go on the offensive, bites Pet Shop’s beak and has the attack work against him by having it explode in his body thus giving him the victory.

As for this being JoJo’s number 1 fight, hardcore fans are likely to put this on their list of fights in ALL of anime! This fight is a pure mixture of brain, brawn and balls to the walls! After emerging from the shadows, Dio is back with The World (or ZA WAARUDO), which can freeze time minimally, but enough to do maximum damage. This fight goes all around the streets of Cairo causing mayhem. They push each other to the brink and it eventually comes down to wits.

In one instance, when Jotaro is knocked down from a knife attack, he purposely stops his heart from beating just to play possum and throws a devastating sucker punch before Dio can freeze time. He plays some other mind games with Dio by hiding magnets in his wrist so when he is frozen in time, the magnets in his own clothes can react to Dio coming close by psyching him out giving him the impression that Jotaro can move while time is stopped. In some instances when you think the fight is over, Dio finds a way to come back when he lets himself get knocked around back to Joseph’s body to absorb his blood to go full power. But it’s not enough to stop our hero as his anger drives him to shatter Dio’s body to pieces by stopping his roundhouse kick with a devastating overhand right swing.

Thanks to this fight, Jotaro also discovers that his stand is capable of stopping time and counteract Dio’s stand thus contributing to his victory with his anger.