Person forced to fight without stiff hand (6)
I believe the answer is:
script
'hand' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'person forced to fight without stiff' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'person' could be 'rip' (rip is a kind of person) and 'rip' is present in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for script that I've seen before include "Handwriting, play text" , "Person preparing text for film actors" , "letters" , "Calligraphy" , "Written form (of play etc)" .)