I did something very similar. It's just not very fun because of the weird hitboxes, bad controls (crouching when I want to dodge CONSTANTLY) and absurd enemy health bars. I loved most of the characters and scenarios.
I'm pretty sure it's bugged unless there is some mechanic getting missed.
In the fight with the twins things weren't too bad. The 3 second, running/jumping hero punches utterly destroyed any suspension of disbelief. You could at least perfect block these guys.
Then I got to Buck and noticed half the times a perfect block at full stamina doesn't stop his damage. You block the attack, he gets staggered and you still take damage. Dodging works but sometimes you dodge, watch this guy whiff at air and still take damage. Compounding matters, as far as I could tell he cycles through three action sets which appear to be scripted (two attack sets, one spam dodge set).
In the El Cesar fight I thought the mechanics were equally mystifying. Fighting him is ridiculously easy as keeping distance means he does yet another variation of the 3 second hero punch. At least this guy blinks around to land it. Even so, a simple dodge -> heavy hit -> 2-3 small hits -> rinse/repeat made this encounter trivial. The oddity here is, in my game, this guy inexplicably healed up to like 60% from 10% three times. Was his pregnant wife throwing him inhalers or something?
I could continue but, yeah.... The fights are non-intuitive, have questionable mechanics and have equally questionable animations in certain cases (that 3 second wind-up heavy punch is like... the worst way to throw a punch). Even the sponginess/healthbar of these guys makes the entire thing feel like a 30 minute chore. I could give some of this stuff a pass. I can't give the collective whole a pass. It's not good. Not good at all.
i feel like melee was akin to skyrim only problem is skyrim came out almost a decade ago
I enjoyed the fights, but the sponge factor is because they are tuned for people who invest in street fighting/body/athletics. When I went geared up on other playthroughs, I could blow up the other dudes easily. I haven't fought razor again yet, but I doubt he ll be that bad. They also have to make their dmg huge, because brawlers got high HP pools, and strong regen. Even with that, their big blows are meant to hurt you pretty bad, so for a normal, its probably a killer. My biggest beef is prolly the hitboxes.
I enjoy playing brawler build, so it was nice to have some content for it that was a little more challenging in a 1 v 1 way. (cant even block/counter much outside these fights)
Did they patch out the cheese, where you drop a melee weapon then equip it when the fight starts?
I literally have full stamina and still take damage. I tested this stuff. EDIT: As I mentioned, the damage was applied randomly due to how bugged the game is.
I get beat up by everyone. If Snoopy were in the game, I am pretty sure he would beat me up in a fist fight... 
Oh this is hilarious!
I actually attempted the weapon cheat to try to get past Razor.
It said ACTION BLOCKED.
I even tried it with a blunt weapon.
It doesn't work for me, sadly.
I actually attempted the weapon cheat to try to get past Razor.
It said ACTION BLOCKED.
I even tried it with a blunt weapon.
It doesn't work for me, sadly.