If you missed 42 attacks in a row, you had lots of chances to use active skills.

"Active" skills like wheel kick (and better yet, sweep kick which you can learn when wheel kick gets over a certain level) should be able to win you that fight.

Sweep kick is particularly nice as it lowers the opponent's moves a little, so if he is low on moves when you start to fight, he may be unable to flee.

If you are alive long enough to miss 42 melee attacks, you are alive long enough to kick the guy to death.

That said, I would tend to start with any maladicting attacks you have. These are attacks that make an enemy fight worse. An example would be caltraps.

Blindness dust is also good, because you can (a) move in and out of combat as you choose, (b) lower his hitroll, which can matter if it gets too low. Finally, it means that if you disarm him he can't get his weapon back!