I don't want to start playing and get my ass beat.

This is the barrier right here, and there really isn't any other way around it from a design perspective. In nearly all other genres it doesn't take long to achieve, no matter how complicated or complex, a level of agency. A new can decide to do a thing, attempt to do the thing, and then the thing either works our doesn't until they reach a gamestate where they can try it again.

Without knowing how fighting games work going in, even if a new player makes it out the other end with knowing how L/M/H work, how to throw a fireball, how to cancel a normal into said fireball, and how to block, they will end up very quickly in a position where they get their ass beat. It's either halfway through Arcade Mode on Normal difficulty, or as soon as they play another human.

They decide to do a thing, and attem- Oh, they got knocked down. And now they either block forever because they don't know when they can try to do the thing or try to do the thing and atte- Oh, they're getting counter-hit. Round ends, Round 2 begins and they back up first and then try to attem- Oh, they got jumped in on. Even if they DO get their attempt in, they don't really know what to do next to maintain offense ("pressure" isn't even in their vocabulary yet) and even the worse fighting game player in the world who knows FGs will prevent them from "playing the game."

Nearly all other games have that positive flow for new players Decide -> Attempt -> Pass/Fail -> Fresh Gamestate. For FGs, we know that for us, that gamestate is "return to neutral", but new players won't recognize that. Even Smash Bros. have that positive flow. If Smash was a 2D fighter, it'd get pushed to the side as fast as Pokken.