Do you have any other kind of fight training? Also, A LOT of 1st degree black belts aren't any good, because they just have a goal to get to black belt and they quit soon after. Also, for a lot of martial arts schools money is more important than actually teaching someone to be a good fighter so they don't get very good fighters.
I don't know how many 1st degrees you have fought, but you shouldn't judge them too quickly. You also need to fight some 2nd degrees, they are usually more dedicated and better. They're a bit harder to find than 1st degrees though.

I'm a wrestler, placed in state a few times.
All you have to do is tackle 'em. Then they're fucked. They can't do shit on the ground.

Not the way wrestling does. All they do is panic and over-react with punches. They don't realize that I'll take a few at a non-damaging angle to put them in non-defensible position

It depends on the school whether ground-techniques will work or not. Taekwondo has been influenced by many other martial arts. So one school may have some karate-type moves and another will have like hapkido or ju-jitsu if it's hapkido or jujitsu then they will know ground techniques.
When we spar we go by WTF rules but we're mostly a traditional school.
When you spar someone that has martial arts training, it doesn't matter so much what they do, it matters how well they've been taught and how experienced they are. For instance you could fight a 1st degree from a very, very strict school and get the snot beat out of you. On the other hand you could fight a 5th degree from a very lax school and do fine. It's pretty subjective.

my best friend's a 2nd degree black belt. She can throw a punch, but there's no way I'd ever lose to her. (I'd never fight her either, restrained her a couple times though :p)

Yes, how healthy you are and how old you are really matters. I'm sure that there are young, super-strong and fast 1st Dans and old and unhealthy 9th Dans.
It also depends on how you fight, if you spar with no gear on, or full gear on, if you hit to the back or below the waist, or if you only hit to the sides and torso. Very subjective.

arent most 9th dans old, it takes decades to get there, im 15, and even if i go for every grading i can, and pass them all, i'd be in my fifties by the time i got to ninth dan

It depends on the school that you go to. I think I could be a 9th dan by the time I was in my 30s-40s. And there are probably 50-year-olds that are really good at fighting.

Don'tcha just love things that to achieve them you become too old to use them?

Okay, that's a little more practical

Doesn't it depend on how soon you start training? How does your ranking system go?

Actually.
Anything TKD related hold absolutely no legitimacy. :rob:

and whys that?

1 of many reasons.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL5Cy33RWLo]YouTube - ‪Muay Thai vs TKD‬‏[/ame]

---------- Post added at 11:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:45 PM ----------

Another one.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kuqqx6SCMAU]YouTube - ‪Taekwondo Sucks‬‏[/ame]

i'm going to take up tkd soon . i trained in hwa rang from 5-13 tho . which is like , a parent of tkd . i've also done a number of others . it's true that you can't land blows in the back ?