Originally Posted by
lawow74
Balrogs were servants of Melkor, corrupted fire-spirits of the order of the Maiar. When Gandalf said 'This foe is beyond any of you' he was not joking. Only something equivalently powerful in the supernatural heirarchy, which as a Wizard and Maiar himself Gandalf was, stood a chance. And even he fell(temporarily)after fighting it for three days and nights from the roots of the mountain to its very peak where, in his own words, he 'smote its ruin upon the mountainside'.
The question becomes 'Do Dragons rank on this level of power?' Certainly Smaug was powerful, he was described as the greatest of the firedrakes of the North still living, come down to nest within the Lonely Mountain, and having armored his soft underbelly with the gold and gems he slept upon for so long. But compared to the ancient dragons of earlier Ages, he's not so much of a much.
I think Smaug could put up a good fight, certainly, but as one of his chief weapons is fire and Balrogs ARE fire, he would be forced to come close to stand a chance of harming it. There it would be easy to melt off the underbelly armor enough to land a killing blow and lay Smaug the Golden low.
Now if we were talking about someone like Ancalagon the Black, might be a different story.