Knives are fine if you know how to fight with them.
I’ve never seen anyone not on TV who actually could.
The techniques are not very difficult. The first thing to understand is that you have to get really close, so it is a weapon of desperate circumstances, and that it is best if your opponent doesn't know that you have a knife until it is way too late. There are a couple of simple techniques that work very well.
Once I started studying the subject, It was interesting to find how much has actually been written on the subject. Knife “fights” are almost never as depictied on television or the movies. It is very rare for two people with knives to fight each other with full knowledge. Usually it is a person with a knife up against someone without or someone with something else, and the primary advantage of a knive user is surprise.
In fiction, the Matt Helm series is recommended for knife usage.
I'd reverse that statement. TV has people who brandish the weapon before using it. What little reality I've seen was followed by "where the heck did the knife come from?"