Jigoro kano

sounds good on paper. easier said than done i'd say. nevermind things like having to fight in close quarters, between parked cars, or on a flight of stairs or something. anyway the point is, nobody will attack you the way they attack you in class. they give you room to do your moves.

You can do Aikido on the spot, you don't really need a lot of room to do it. A lot of Aikido is done at very close quarters.

evidently they don't demo much of it.

And we don't need a big attack to do technique. We can enter in and seize the initiative, like Judoka do but in a more dynamic way. The attack is pretty much irrelevent if the truth be told.

i realize its more about movement and angle and things of that nature. but...i'd still be interested to see a video of this. all you see is severely over commited attacks in almost all aikido demo's i've seen...unless it's a grab.

but a judoka is trying to stop you, thats the point. not only is he trying to stop you from doing your throws, he's also trying to do his. i've yet to see this from any aikidoka.

This is the great secret of Aikido, if you control the range and dominate the centreline with your guard you become very difficult to attack and your attacker is forced into either getting a beating, attacking like a moron and getting a beating or leaving you alone. The secret of stopping jabs and crosses is to put your hand(s) in the way because no-one is going to punch you in the hands. This forces them around your guard and since you know what's coming defeating them is easy.

i think you underestimate boxers. not that they'd ever likely attack you in the street. but since you brought it up. boxers also keep their hands up just like everyone else, but they still get ktfo. it's not that simple

Boxers keep their hands up but they make no attempt to control the space between them and their opponent or control the centreline. You can freely throw punches at a boxer. Throwing punches at an Aikidoka means getting into a place you do not want to be first. Imagine a boxer fighting a judoka when the Judoka already has hold of the boxer.

controlling the distance is very important in any art including boxing, thats the main use of the jab, to guage the distance. usually to stay just far enough away that the opponent has to take a step to hit em.i envision the judoka eating punches, i'm not so sure it'd be an easy task to keep hold of a boxer even if you already have ahold of him. just my experience