FWIW, I never thought he was literally trying to choke him. Get leverage on him? Pop his head off?
Maybe they had Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots in his time
For those curious, it came out in 1964. One of the clues that it wasn’t made before the 1950s is that it is made of plastic.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_'Em_Sock_'Em_Robots
People were knew of robots in the 1930s. They were afraid of them killing humans and taking their jobs.
People in the 30s were afraid of anyone who looked slightly different to them because they might kill humans and take their jobs. And then some fucks actually killed humans and took their jobs out of fear said humans might kill humans and take their jobs.
Its probably never a good idea to just let a super soldier wrangle with your neck though. Cap could without a doubt do some kind of damage there.
Wasn’t his body made of vibranium though? How would Cap do damage with his bare hands?
Its hard to say, comic Cap could probably throw his proto-vibranium shield and fuck MCU Ultron’s whole world.
But the point of Captain America is not that this move would harm Ultron. The point is Cap would choke a robot to hold it off for even one more second as it tried to harm others, and he did just that. And that’s true no matter what version of Captain America we are talking about, except maybe not Captain Hydra while he is brainwashed.
I’d also add that the head overall requires a decent amount of articulation which makes it a weak point and easier to cause damage to Ultron.
Also there’s important sensory and processing components making it much better to rip off than an arm or leg.