[Nathan Robinson]

[Joshua Connolly]

"William Wallace versus Shaka Zulu"? Are they actually trying to determine if individual warriors would beat each other? This had to be a joke. What's next, "Miyamoto Musashi versus Jeanne D'arc"?

[David Sutton]

I just watched the Viking vs Samurai episode on youtube.

What can I say? Between bouts of irritation at the usual cliches, fantasy presented as fact and absurd conclusions, I was laughing my head off!

Some of this stuff is really hilarious, the fighting is so terrible its almost pythonesque, actually, I think Monty Python has more convincing fights! The script is dire. I really feel sorry for the narrator (who sounds suspiciously like David Wenham from LOTR?) who had to read it as if he was taking it all very seriously (I love the way he says Naginata!). I almost sprayed the screen of my computer with Diet Pepsi when he compared the Viking and the Samuai to 'fire and Ice'! The banter between the two teams is very wooden and so obviously staged.

The editing is pretty sloppy too, in one of the 'after commercial break recaps', the narrator is describing how great and honourable the Samurai were etc, while its actually showing a guy dressed as a Ninja! Did anyone notice the Samurai resheathing his 'diamond hard' razor sharp Katana by casually grabbing the blade with his bare hand? Just a couple of the inumerable 'gaffs' I spotted.

The fight at the end tops it all off. Of course the Samurai had to win, everyody knows he was the greatest warrior in Anime.....I mean history! Right?

This show entertains for all the wrong reasons.

BTW, Joshua, I'm genuinely hoping they make that episode, Miyamoto Musashi vs Jeanne D'arc, would be awsome

[Tony Brass]

I was going to comment that any show about weapons and armor must be entertaining, and that being so critical of this show might be a symptom of forgetting how to have fun with our shared interest in historical weaponry.

Then I saw the show "Viking vs. Samurai." It is diffcult to defend. I simply found it wasteful. They have all of those fun replicas, all of those resources, and all of that equipment. They really had to go out of their way to make the show bad.

If they simply experimented, and stopped pretending to be scientific, and historically precise, the show might not be so insulting to one's intelligence. Too bad.

[Nat Lamb]

[Gavin Kisebach]

I think the problem is that they sank thier entire budget into the sweet dummies and couldn't afford to hire any historians.

Having already bought the dummies, they had to make a show so they found a few guys from the office who like to watch the history channel (and have a couple of Osprey books for toilet reading) and asked them about samurais, pirates, and vikings.

[Chuck Wyatt]

I agree with everything posted. The show is just an excuse to wail on Ballistic jell dummies.
But I do plan on watching the knight vs pirate episode, just to prepare myself for any new myths being developed that will eventually need debunking.

[Peter Fuller]

The real problem with this kind of program is that there are a lot of uneducated people out there who will watch it and take the information provided as gospel truth. Then they'll go and spread what they've seen around (the worst kind of scenario for this is a teacher watching it and then sharing all of the misinformation with their class). I've had my share of folks who've watched something like this and then proceed to tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about because "they watched a program on Discovery Channel, and therefore it must be true."

I really wish that somebody would have the good sense enough to produce a program like this, and at least do their homework, which means hiring competent reasearchers, and then use the information they provide. I mean, come on! there are enough people in this industry who actually know what they're talking about who would love to be interviewed for a program like this, and be able to provide accurate information. But then again, we're talking about a program that is pitting a ninja against a Spartan to see who can beat whom. Based on that thought, kindly disrgard everything I just said...

[Jon Wolfe]

Ya... the Samurai vs. Viking episode... 'bout that...

I'm done with the show now, not that I'm spiteful, its just like watching some other kind of show, and then it turns out to not be all that interesting or entertaining, and then just changing the channel or picking up a book. Its funny, "Deadliest Warrior" reminds me a lot of a card game I used to play call "Anachronism" http://www.trikinggames.com/oracle. I remembered about it after hearing that the 4th episode was going to be a knight vs a pirate.

[Gavin Kisebach]

[Nathan Robinson]

Regarding what Peter and Gavin have said:

I think it would be interesting to have a person involved in a project like this who can do some decent research simply to avoid getting anything wrong. I don't expect an entertainment program to include a lot of factual info, but I would like to see it deliver what info it does in an accurate manner.

In other words, if they were to simply avoid all the wrong crap and use the same limited time (about 5 minutes in total, for hte show) to accurate info and then improve on the entertainment aspect of things, this show wouldn't be bad.

Stop calling a Viking sword a "longsword", as only one example, and simply calling it a "sword" would not take any more time or anything away from the entertainment aspect of things but would at least make it less wrong.

[Gavin Kisebach]

Viking longsword does make me facepalm. I can see them making the common "claymore" and "broadsword" misnomers, but viking longsword? That's pretty bad.

[Sam Gordon Campbell]

I concur, this show is very basic entertainment. I watched the Apache vs. Murmillo(?) and the Viking vs. Samurai ones though it got boring after a while when I realised it's basically all talk, but not saying much.
Basicaly it's cool to wonder and muck around with the whole 'what if...' notion, but how can you compare a 10th century warrior with a 15th century soldier?
And Maori vs. Shaolin Monk, I wonder how many people they'll offend with that one

P.S. At the least they could have Googled or used Wikipedia for some info... Any info... At all...[/i]

[Bill Tsafa]

O... what the hell... since were all having fun here...

Aliens vs Predator !!!!

[Colt Reeves]

[Reinier van Noort]

After reading about this show on ArmourArchive and here I decided to simply ignore it and flee from it like it was a plague. Then somebody posted a link on my group's forum. That meant I had to watch it simply to know what misinformation would have to be countered. I saw the viking vs. samurai episode. It made me make really nasty posts on our group forum.


The one thing I did like to see was that a swordstrike with poor edge alignment still does massive damage to a dummy.

[Taylor Ellis]

Why it wasn't knight vs samurai I'll never know...

Seriously though, who wouldn't like a few of those gell dummies?

[Nat Lamb]

I think my biggest problem with this show, after watching on youtube, is that the winner is decided by the "computer simulation". (well, classifying a shield as a "special weapon" for a viking was a bit of a streatch, as was giving the samurai a tetsubo, I thought they were a pretty obscure weapon)

Reminded me of a funny incident a few years back. A friend of mine wrote his own "combat simulator" then programmed in his assesment of his friends' and his own speed, skill, fitness, strength, body weight, techniques (and their percieved merits, once again, his assesments) into the combat simulator and then ran it. You will never guess who won according to the simulator...

[Jon Wolfe]

The idea that others have previously mentioned of putting together some kind of counter to the faults of "Deadliest Warrior" may not be that bad an idea, especially if it could save the folks that are inspired by the show, and take an interest in historical arms and start doing their own research into it. It could never probably reach all of those who have been exposed to the program, but it could "save" a few from going down that path of a poor understanding.

[Marcos Cantu]

its best to just tune-out the trash talking and combat recreations and just enjoy the weapon tests. i've stated here before that i think that the best way to do weapon vs armor test would be with ballistic gel like they do for firearms. the weapon affects on the gel dummy are pretty interesting. seeing the way that the viking axe was partially deflected by the samuri helmet was also interesting.

i would have liked to see how the viking 'longsword' did against the samuri armor though...