User blog comment:Darkcloud1111/Good Idea, Bad Idea~No Brakes/@comment-17099359-20141027012939/@comment-9090085-20141027071637

This might sound weird, but I think everyone is a character in a fighting game.

I recall it being brought up on Monty's twitter that he structures his fight animations like those in a fighting game; he points to a SF4 Supper Meter as "Yang's semblance in a nutshell"; and everyone in RWBY has full-body shields in the form of Aura, which is displayed as a health bar.

But everyone has different amounts of Aura, and I think there lies the key to why the White Fang Lieutenant won; this is a fight between a Fragile Speedster and a Mighty Glacier.

All the strikes Weiss managed to land on the WFL were slashes, and whenever she tried to stab him, he dodged. Myrtenaster isn't really made for slashing, it's made for stabbing; so I'm guessing her slashes were Light, fast, weak attacks that just chip away at the opponents Aura. They might be effective against chumps who have little Aura like the WF grunts, but she needs to land some hard-hitting stabs to cut down the massive HP of a Glacier like the WFL. He eventually manages to catch her with a grab, that causes a fair bit of hitstun, and proceeds to start a combo of his own; which, like most Mighty Glaciers, is short but hits like a truck, shredding Weiss's low(compared to the WFL) HP typical of Fragile Speedsters(in fact, it may have been a 2-hit combo). Her Aura depleted, Weiss flies out of the car, unharmed but incapacitated.

That kind of ties into why Yang lost: Yes, Neo mostly hit her with light attacks, but landed a few heavy his too(her kicks) - yes those weren't very strong heavy attacks but they hit. More importantly though, when Yang's HP was low and her Supper Meter maxed out, and Neo left herself open; Yang squandered her opportunity to hit Neo with an insta-death combo(yes those actually exist), allowing Neo to finish the fight with a command throw.

It doesn't really explain why Yang didn't activate her semblance though. Even if intellectually I know it won't help - stronger attacks mean nothing if you never hit your opponent - it's still odd that to me that it didn't activate.