"Never bring a knife to a gunfight" However be very afraid of the guy who knows it's a gun fight but brings a knife anyway.
Your move, writer.
There's the quiet confidence angle: a story where the knife-bringer isn't reckless but simply that good, and the tension comes from everyone else in the room slowly realizing it. Play that for either menace or dark comedy, depending on how seriously the character takes himself.
Then there's the origin-story route, something that explains why this person trusts a blade over a bullet, maybe a past where guns failed him, or a code he refuses to break even when it costs him. That gives you emotional weight underneath the swagger.
Or flip it entirely into a found-family or mentorship piece, where an old-timer teaches a nervous newcomer that preparation matters less than nerve, using the knife as a lesson in composure rather than combat. Every version hinges on the same quiet question: what kind of person walks into danger already certain they'll be enough.
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