Pussycat Sharpteeth---Redclaw runs away from fruit that gets thrown at him, and ran away from Spike just cause he was stinky---what a sissy, where the hell did Chomper and Ruby hear that he's the meanest, most feroscious sharptooth ever? I bet the only thing he could really ever manage to kill is a yellowbelly...and even those ***holes might fool him by doing that thing of sticking their heads into the ground...
Well keep in mind that the creators at the time were trying to make LBT out to be even more kid friendly, so the sharpteeth were made to be even less dangerous as to not scare the children. So in other words, Redclaw probably really was one of the most dangerous sharpteeth at the time, but because of the studio trying to make LBT more kid-friendly, he comes off as a joke when compared to some of the older sharpteeth we've seen, like the swimming sharptooth of LBT 9.
And in Redclaw's defense, both those behaviors make sense.
First off, the fruit made him sick. Very sick, as in as soon as one was tossed into his mouth, it was obvious how much pain he was in.
And secondly, predators do run away from things that smell. Why do you think skunks use stink spray? If something smells very bad, it could be a sign that something is wrong with it, and chances of getting sick may be high, thus the predator leaves anything that smells bad enough alone.
It's called survival. Predators don't have pride; all they care about is surviving. I doubt Redclaw really cares about being the "biggest, baddest sharptooth" that Ruby and Chomper claim he is. All he wants is a decent meal. And like any predator, Redclaw would want to avoid injury if possible.
Being sick would mean he'd be less likely to hunt effectively, and he wouldn't be able to eat. Predators eat less than herbivores because they have to kill their food to eat. And who knows how long Redclaw goes without eating.
So frankly, he wasn't really being cowardly when he ran away from the fruit and bad-smelling Spike; he was surviving.
And survival is more important than pride.