Cairne was beating Garrosh into the dirt until Garrosh wounded him slightly and the poison took effect. A pretty one sided thrashing, too.

I did read The Shattering, and my recollection of the Cairne/Garrosh fight as presented in the book was that Cairne would probably have won if it weren't for the poisoning. Garrosh, of course, had advantages of speed and strength because of his much younger age, but in the book Cairne is presented as having more skill.

But some people might disagree with this assessment of what the book presented. The book doesn't state it outright. This is just my impression of how it was written.

As to a Baine v. Garrosh fight, there's nothing that I recall in The Shattering that would tell us who would win that fight.

Cairne was virtually toying with Garrosh in their arena combat. He played on Garrosh's impetuousness and left him to take rash actions while he evaded all attacks and was surprisingly (to Garrosh) quick and agile enough to parry and counter-attack. It was only the slightest nick from Garrosh's poisoned axe that downed Cairne.

One assumes that Baine would have followed the same strategy, and one would also assume that Garrosh would as well...no matter how much he has "reformed" after Cairne's death, he's still a hothead and would have seen red if Baine had challenged him.

Ah, so Garrosh's downfall was his lack of patience. That makes sense, even if Garrosh is technically more talented or stronger/more agile, I guess his lack of patience would make it pretty one sided against somebody who is wise.

Garrosh may be stronger, but his experience in actual combat comes down to a handful of duels, whereas Baine (and Cairne) spent years battling various threats.

Garrosh may bring the War, they bring the Craft.

Though, for all the poisoning, in the end Garrosh did break Cairne's spear and strike a mortal blow. It wasn't as if he went down from a tiny nick shrieking 'Oh the poison, the terrible poison!' with green foam on his lips.

It does seem like they are trying to evolve Garrosh's character into someone more fit to lead the horde. That said, I like the faction leaders who aren't always level headed and who have questionable motives. You can't have good fiction without conflict and the more conflict, the better.