Anyone up for "The Deadliest Warrior World Cup"?

And do take into account the different doctrines and battle drills that stood behind their historical effectiveness. You could probably read some historical documents and figure out how a thousand-man Zulu impi could conceivably try to encircle and rush a hill pa defended by a similar-sized Maori contingent (assuming neither side had firearms), but one-on-one combat is typically much more random. In story-telling terms, this means that the former case would work on well-defined mechanics and thus hold a unique selling point to the audience, while while the latter would simply be the author's personal fantasy sandbox.

And best of luck taking on a Pa - those things were built on the same sound principles as Celtic hill forts and Early Medieval castles... ditches and ramparts designed to slow and disadvantage attackers while giving every advantage to the defenders.

Sure, they were wooden pallisades and earthworks and wouldn't withstand more modern weaponry, but against people armed with spears and hand weapons, they were quite effective.

I've visited ancient Pa sites and a modern reconstruction and they weren't trivial things.

Not to mention that many weapons just aren't meant for use in one-on-one combat (spears would be an obvious example).

Since the Zulu were mentioned, I would like to note that the Zulu Iklwa was an exception to that point: a short spear intended for melee-range combat.

edited 12th Jul '15 6:18:35 AM by ArsThaumaturgis

And the spear-shaped taiaha of the Maori was a wooden staff weapon with a hardened, sharpened edge at the non-pointed end - designed for cracking skulls open. It was not made to be thrown.

It's already been mentioned above by someone else, but it's a good point so it's worth making again—when shows like Deadliest Warrior opine on what a man trained for army vs army combat would do in a one-on-one fight they are, with rare exception, talking out of their asses. Nothing throws official combat doctrine and training out the window like man-to-man single combat does.

All that said, what are some combats, be it individual or group that people would like to see done right, whether on their own, or in a tournament scenario like the one suggested by the OP? Tell us who you'd like to see face off and why, and maybe the rest of the thread can offer their opinions as to the way it would go. I know none of us are genuine experts, but God knows we're less biased than many and it could be fun.