If you’ve never been in one, no need to comment “never”. For me it was over a decade ago as a teenager at a state fair. Quick fight broke out between an annoying guy and myself. He was following my little group around tossing stink bombs at us. A little pushing turned into a little punching. We both ended up in cuffs but neither with actual charges. We were both banned for the following 2 years from that fair.
I got attacked by a mentally ill guy having some sort of freak-out: He came up, told me he was stressed out, then started punching me in the arm. I backed up just out of punching distance but still in kicking distance, squared off, and warned him to leave. Someone who was with him kinda dragged him off before he could close the gap again so things didn’t escalate past that, but my plan was to teep him in the guts/chest as hard as I could if he came at me again.
A teep is definitely the safest thing you could have done in that situation. Never know if hes got a knife, so grappling is scary. Also, you never turn your back to run in a situation like that.