New York baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn, rolling up his sleeves and coming out swinging for the first time Monday, bluntly told Pete Rozelle to quit "kidding the people" about football being the nation's no. 1 sport.
There's ferment is Philadelphia where the ad agency with the oldest name in the business after a very bad year is picking itself up and coming out swinging.
2009, Julie Miller, Out of Control, ISBN 9781426831980, ch. 9:
She'd endured cruelty and grief and still came out swinging.
Etymology
An allusion to the behavior of a boxer who immediately begins a boxing match or a round of a match by aggressively throwing punches in an unrestrained manner.