Alright, now that I've read a little bit more on the Gladiators, I have to agree that the Apache definitely had more of an edge than I originally gave them. It's still a tough call for me but I don't completely disagree with the outcome.
A more recent fight was a Samurai v.s. Viking. In the show, they tested several of the weapons that both warriors would use. In all the tests, the Viking weapons performed much better than their counterpart. The biggest sham was the fact that they gave the Samurai the advantage because of his bow and the only ranged weapon they gave the Viking was a spear. It was complete crap if you ask me. How can they possibly pretend that Viking's didn't have bows just so they could give the advantage to the more popular warrior? Anyways, the "simulation" took place and the Samurai ended up winning... despite the fact that this wouldn't have happened in real life. They did a simulation where the Samurai's sword couldn't even get through the Viking armor! Of course they continue to overrate Eastern warriors and give them both a fictional and mythical advantage over who clearly would have been the better warrior. They displayed the Viking's as moronic brutes who ran around smashing things with hammers and drooling all over the place while they displayed the Samurai's as super elite warriors who defied physics and possibility with their mystical fighting tactics.
After that I believe I saw what was a Pirate v.s. a Knight. Once again, they misrepresent one of the sides by portraying the knight as a turtle on his back with his armor. It was equally annoying when they displayed the pirate with multiple flintlock rifles and pistols which he carried around his waist and furnished on command... of course they fired instantly despite the fact that you couldn't carry them around loaded because the gun powder would easily leak out and cause the weapon to either misfire - or even more likely - not fire at all. If the gun misfired or the pirate missed with the bullet (which was likely to happen given the unreliability of those weapons) then the knight would surely dominate the pirate. It's hard to say who would win given the variable of the guns but they portrayed the flintlock as a modern gun which simply isn't true. They made the pirate a winner which again, is obviously the more popular choice. One thing I will add is that they didn't display the pirate as a brute, they portrayed him as the well trained soldier that they usually were.
Ninja v.s. Spartan was the next battle and in my opinion, one of the most annoying. They gave the ninja almost every single edge in all of the weapons and tactics. They simulated a battle not of stealth and surprise, but a one-on-one battle face to face. To think that the mythical ninja (who actually didn't exist one the scale that people believe - they were typically just farmers who would combat train with guerilla tactics) would have any kind of edge against the perfection of a warrior that was the spartan is just foolish. Spartans were an elite warrior culture; raised as children to become brutal warriors. I'm not going to be a hypocrite and overrate the spartans since I discredited the Samurai but it is historical fact that they were a trained elite warrior state. The ninja used things like eggs filled with chili pepper, nanchaku, and some other crap I can't remember. The spartan used more useful weapons like the spear and shield. In the end the spartan one because of the obvious advantages he had: a shield, the spear, and superior training. I agreed with the decision but didn't appreciate the fact that they called it a "close call".
There's more that happened but I'll write about those later. My hands are tired.
