Board Thread:The Flash discussions/@comment-13895380-20160824190348/@comment-13895380-20160825012919

Kaestal wrote: Not really, what many seem to forget is that Eobard during the murder of Nora was distracted with that and Present Barry caught him off guard before going to town, the scene where Barry made his taunts to Eobard probably took under a second, or even if it didn't he was too stunned to do anything.

The fight against Eobard during his "origin story" was also unbalanced by experience if not speed, Barry was simply better tactically than the young Eobard, even though Eobard seemed to be a fair bit faster.

I'd say the only reason Barry "kicked Eobard Thawne's teeth in" was because he was surprised and couldn't recover from being punched in the face repeatedly in time. Looking back at it, it's true that current Barry blindsided Revere Flash, who already looked dizzy from the tackle.

But I have to disagree that him beating Eobard Thawne was due to inexperience on Eobard's part. That was the episode where Eobard learned of Barry's identity. From what Eobard explained in season 1, we know that him and future flash were already equal and couldn't beat each other until Eobard found out Barry's name. This means that not only was Eobard as fast as future Flash at this point but tactically, neither of them were smart enough to out-think the other. There's no way future Barry is a weaker tactician than current Barry.

That was another instance of the Reverse Flash getting taken out by current Barry with just a tackle. He couldn't recover after that.