Warning! This post contains Black Widow spoilers.

In Marvel's Black Widow, Red Guardian's claims about fighting Captain America have to be false. While the film saw Natasha Romanoff and her sister Yelena breaking Alexei Shostakov's Red Guardian from a Soviet prison, he was seen beforehand boasting to his fellow inmates about having fought his American counterpart, though his story clearly doesn't add up based upon the MCU's timeline. While there's a slim chance that he might have fought Steve Rogers at one point, the odds are much higher that Shostakov merely wishes he and Cap had crossed paths.

Just before Natasha and Yelena began their plan to break out their "father" from his Soviet prison, Alexei is seen arm-wrestling his fellow inmates while telling a pretty far-fetched story about his battle with Captain America during his glory days: "So, I have the nuclear code, but there he is. Captain America! Finally, the Red Guardian’s time has come. I grab hold of his shield and, face to face, it’s a test of strength. The shield that he carries with him like a precious baby blanket? I use it to my advantage. I take it, I push him out the window, I make my escape.” 

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However, when Alexei shares that this happened either in 1983 or 1984, he's called a liar due to the fact that Captain America was still frozen in the ice from 1945-2011. Unless Red Guardian is a lot older than he looks and had his dates wrong, there's no way he fought Captain America. Furthermore, even if he had fought Rogers in the '40s before he was frozen it wouldn't make much sense seeing as how the US and Soviet Union were allies during WWII. As such, it's much more likely that Red Guardian is simply lying about facing Captain America in order to elevate his own status, having an obsession about wanting to be seen as Cap's equal.

Captain America Red Guardian which super soldier is stronger

This is made even more evident after the breakout when all Alexei wants to know from Natasha at first is whether or not Rogers ever asked her about him, desperately hoping that Captain America sees him as his Soviet contemporary. However, it's not hard to blame him. Many of his opportunities to have just as big of a legacy for his own country were taken from him after being imprisoned for slighting General Dreykov. As such, he's created this need to be viewed as being just as big and impactful as Captain America himself.

All in all, Red Guardian was almost definitely lying about fighting Captain America simply to bolster his reputation and clout, though perhaps he could fight Sam Wilson's Captain America down the line? Black Widow certainly set up the opportunity for Red Guardian to be featured in future MCU projects now that Dreykov and the Red Room are no more. Perhaps he could be a rival and/or ally to Wilson in the recently announced Captain America 4? While that's just conjecture at the moment, it seems as though Red Guardian will have to work on building a legacy for real, rather than relying on fake stories about facing the original Captain America.

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