Why deadliest warrior is biased

Most Israeli forces us M4. One of the spears can also be carried with the shield. His longsword is in its sheath. The great axe is on his back.

He's wearing the maille, so it doesn't count as carrying it. The samurai can carry his bow in the bow sheath which they had, his katana in the sheath, his tetsubo in his hands, however I will concede that having a naginata with him would be impractical.

They are still using the Galil however, which means that it is not inaccurate for them to be using one. It would only be inaccurate if it was completely out of use in the IDF. They did in the First Indochina War. Oct 4, Canada. I love the show, only for entertainment purposes and of course, watching ballistic gels being utterly destroyed. The crew claims it is a "scientific" show. However, the show is only scientific with regards to some of the hi-tech tools they use.

Here are a few problems that makes the show terribly historically-inaccurate and unscientific. However, they do not test the swords on the same test subject.

In the Viking vs. Samurai episode, the Viking sword was tested on ballistic gel while the Katana was tested on dead pig carcasses, which probably have dead bones. Another example is when they tested the Kanabo on a Viking shield held in a way where any heavy blunt force could bent the shield. Then when they tested the Kanabo on a Spartan shield, the shield was held up against a solid object, which allows it to take much less damage.

Is it really fair to test different weapons and armours with different tests? Attila with Alexander using a Gastraphetes and Ballista. Can you imagine Alex going to a 1v1 or 5v5 fight with a Ballista? A backscratcher which I doubt he used, an out-of-time-period Jian sword which would have not been available to him, and using both a bow and crossbow in battle makes the show historically inaccurate.

Perhaps one of the most rigged episodes ever. The Deadliest Warrior has experts on who give their opinions on weapons medical etc. The strongest part of the series is the demonstrations of what would happen with each weapon. The conclusion is a computer animated program which declare who would win the battle.

Something new, and educational for reality TV. Deadliest Warrior is better than other reality TV where one see science and reason instead big egos and shock; however the show is marred with personal opinion. I give Deadliest Warrior with my marred personal opinion a seven out of ten. This is a pretty entertaining show but a lot of the time it is pretty corny and the results don't add up in slightest.

They make silling jokes on it ridiculous match ups and completely unfair testing. Even with all that though it still makes a decent watch if you are a fan of weapons. They test a wide variety of weapons and test their effectivness. The only good part in the show pretty much is the testing even with how unfair and inaccurate the tests are. And some of the matches just make no sense at all. They are completely unfair and yet sometimes is ridiculous a oh lets say makes a 17 year old girl beat a 35 year old warrior.

Don't get me wrong. This ranks up there with my other low brow comedy shows on Spike like "1, ways to die. But accurate it is not. Their firearms knowledge is ludicrous.

For example, on the Yakuza vs. Mafia episode they stated the Yakuza used the Walther P pistol. Yet the graphics they showed were of a P Luger. These are two totally, totally different looking pistols designed close to half a century apart. I own both. There is no comparison between the Makarov and the Webley. You can't hit the broad side of a barn with a Webley. They do not test uniformly. In the Yakuza vs. Mafia episode, the Mafia had six machine gun targets they had to hit with the Thompson.

The Yakuza only had four they had to hit with a Sten. That gave the Sten an easier score. Worse still, they used completely different ways of testing the Russian hand grenade and the US hand grenade. Why not do something logical - put three pig carcases up in an enclosed room and see how each grenade does?

It's a uniform test? I shouldn't expect too much from Spike. It's unabashedly guy TV, and I like that. But they could do a lot better job with a little more care.

I must first say about this series that the premise is outstanding, and one that has crossed my mind on numerous occasions. What would happen if a medieval knight met up with a samurai? Who would be victorious in battle? The show then attempts to determine whom is the better warrior amongst two different kinds in history - in many cases two warriors that are separated by many centuries.

The arms and armors available to these warriors are demonstrated, both in their lethal potential or in their stopping power in the case of armor. The demonstrations are fascinating, including weapons experts that strike or fire their weapons at ballistics gel encased, and presumably reproduction skeletons.

A physician or medical specialist then examines the footage, or the dummy in some cases, and describes the type of trauma inflicted. At the end, we get a well choreographed fight between two re-enactors dressed in costume to simulate the potential outcome of such a contest, as well as a statistics model that determines the winner in 1, contests. I like this concept because despite the advantages a particular warrior might possess over another, the randomness of combat will ensure that even the presumably better warrior will lose at least a percentage of the time.

The problems with the show are many, however, and seriously challenge the credibility of the participants. As others have pointed out, a warrior is more than the sum of his weapons and armor, which the show spends the most amount of time demonstrating.

I think the premise could be dropped and have the show focus on weapons demonstrations only. Although the mindset, culture, tactics, and goals of each warrior are mentioned, these descriptions are brief and superficial. In addition,the hypothetical combats displayed are all duels.

The worst part for me has to be the banter or trash talk between the weapons experts representing each respective warrior.

At any rate, I do enjoy the show because it has many good aspects. But the flaws do not make for "must-see" TV. If they would focus a little more on the tactics, drop the banter, and perhaps consider tactical unit combat instead of duels, I believe the show would be much improved. The producers are obviously trying to cater to a younger, action thirsty crowd, perhaps in an effort to make history more interesting.

I applaud this rationale if nothing else, but the more discriminating viewers with a desire for logical and factual history, such as myself, are often left wanting. If any wish for a superior show with similarities to DW, check out an earlier History Channel series called "Conquest" with Peter Woodward. The latter is more mature, yet still with some light hearted moments. It covers nearly every criticism I have for DW and then some see my review.

The banter here has been toned down substantially and the combats all consist of units fighting each other. The warrior's mindsets, values, and motivations are explored with the addition of Richard Machowicz. I also liked the addition of the "X Factors" as well, or somewhat intangible characteristics such as mental health or physical fitness which could positively or negatively impact a side's performance.

Overall the changes added a more serious and scientific component to the show that was a substantial improvement IMO. There are still a few problems that I saw, particularly with the tendency to match two opponents who were not a very good matchup to begin with. Hannibal and Genghis Khan was a good example, as they were separated by nearly 1, years and Khan's armor and weapons technology was far superior.

Same could be said of William the Conqueror and Joan of Arc. It was a little silly to see a unit of five men firing a heavy artillery piece at each other as well. The elite modern soldiers did not have weapons that they most likely would have carried. In general, the format changes in S3 were an improvement and I enjoyed it quite a bit more than the previous seasons. First, let me say that I think revisionist historians and their ilk are some of the worst criminals on the face of the earth.

Anyone who contributes to anything related to revising historically known facts are contributors to those who would lie about history.

It is bad because it causes all sorts of problems that we won't get into here. These guys need an archaeological historian in a major way. The other suspicious thing about that particular travesty was the "Japanese" expert The naginata was not very popular with the samurai and the YARI would have been a more realistic choice but we can only guess why they didn't want to try a carbon steel straight blade with edges like razor blades, made with the same steel as a katana against an LOL animal hide shield with a bronze covering like a hot knife through butter, perhaps?

All in all, we can't begin to tell you how many, from a historical standpoint, gross errors and mistakes these guys have made but we can tell you to PLEASE don't use any thing they say in school These are just a few of the reasons we no longer watch this foolish cartoon of a show If I hear another "Pirate Vs.

So, I watched the pilot, which was "Apache vs. Gladiator" and overall, I am biting my cheek right now because I recall watching something similar to this on Discovery Channel a few years back called "Animal Face Off" where "battle data" is taken from the contenders and put in a computer simulation. I actually, have an episode of that show titled "Hippo vs. Bull Shark" and the result of that fight still annoys me, but still I can't stop laughing about it.

Another show, that similar that show is currently airing is "Jurassic Fight Club. It will irritate you, but at the same time make you laugh; thus pulling you as the viewer to watch the show for what its worth despite knowing how stupid it will eventually become as time goes on.

But you just can't help yourself. Man, I can just see something like "Deadliest Monster Face Off" in the future and it will feature stuff like "Mummy vs.

Zombie vs. Werewolf vs. Vampire" or something bizarre like that. Basic Story Guide: Everyone has asked the question: If such-and-such fought this guy, who would win? Well, this show puts these fighters to test. Two fighters from both the pre-gunpowder and gunpowder eras, they have their weapons tested, and then in a simulation run over times, the winner is the one with the highest score. Verdict: I kind of enjoyed this series for a while.

I really did. I enjoyed the series because it was fun, not because I am a history major, or ancient weapons expert, but because of what I am looking for when watching T. I don't care about the logic behind the stunt, as long as the stunt is good. I'll throw the B. Kind of a round about way to say I just want to be entertained. But I really hate the announcer who does the whole David Wenham from narration of the weapons. Overly exaggerating the weapons. Like saying "The Such-and-such spear, a three foot instrument of death.

Pardon my language, but they are constantly pissing and moaning, complaining that their weapon is better. God, it is so annoying. Some muscle bound jock who is either a member of the army, or just some know-it-all, arguing that an ax beats their sword, or that a gun is more effective than the other guys gun.

Either way I used to enjoy it, now it's just gotten annoying. And don't me started on season 3. The resident experts in "DW" uses computer simulations which pits warriors from different eras to see who would have the most victories. In doing so it informs, undoubtedly, but more importantly it entertains.

The furtherance of this goal is demonstrated in the contrived verbal sparring between rival teams, who predictably heralds the greatness of their respective warriors. This is the worse part of "Deadliest Warrior," a stage where participants play their respective roles. As an avid watcher of mixed martial arts and "sports entertainment" known as pro wrestling, two profession where there's no shortage of real and staged trash talking between competitors, this show is a tedious over saturation.

If you are a fan of history, the show is interesting, showing the cool weaponry and giving a little insight to the men using the weaponry. Plus, it's undeniably cool to see them test the weapons. But, the show does get a bit preposterous often. Some of the history is not accurate, the "experts" have shaky credentials some are just actors , and the battles come down pretty much to the weapons, not to the warriors, tactics or battlefields. The simulations at the end are entertaining, but they all follow the same formula: expect every weapon to make one appearance and a kill in squad battles and it comes down to one on one after a relatively even battle.

The action and costumes are pretty good, but the special effects can get a bit cheesy at times. There were a few seconds devoted to the history of the Troubles, and that was it. Nothing about the peace process, the different factions etc.

Simplistic views of history need to be challenged, not reinforced. Breathtakingly enough, despite this Geiger says —. Yet nothing in the show reflects this awareness of the sensitive issues at hand not his fault I suppose.

He goes on;. Guilty consciences about controversial weapons but not the murderous terrorists deploying them salved, we can all move on. Max, you seem like an intelligent and thinking chap.

Get the feck away from this trainwreck as soon as you can. On to the completely unscientific testing, which includes such choice quotes as;. Had they gone with a real IRA slingshot — ones used as petrol bomb projectors , it would have thrown out their back-of-a-fag-packet calculations.

It got worse. The Rocket Propelled Grenade test was faked. The backblast was rubbish CGI, and there was a careful and drastic cut to the projectile itself in flight, which flew in a most untypical manner with a suspicious-looking smoke trail, and might actually have placed the cameraman forward of the launcher.

No, it was fake alright. This is likely because actual RPGs are impossible to get outside of hot sandy places, and quite a lot more dangerous than small arms. These will have been different or cleaned weapons. The final giveaway is that after supposed firing, the muddy weapons remain just as muddy — none has been removed by the cycling of the action.

At least they tried to get real results and resorted to fakery, rather than planning it before filming even began. Honestly, it might as well have been against Chaka Khan. At least as far as the Scottish kit went, weapons, uniform, equipment and historical details were all wildly inaccurate. Kilt, spiked targe, dirk and claymore all date from a minimum of years later. The result of the zulu spear going through it is therefore utterly bogus, as the mild-steel links would simply open up and allow the point through, where the real rivetted iron or steel links would easily resist it.

Unrivetted mail is not represented in the European historical record for a reason — it would have been a lot of work and weight to wear for little actual protection. Absolutely bizarre. Worth watching only for connoisseurs of car crash TV like myself! However, the computer programme that he wrangles is highly suspect, involving punching numbers into a spreadsheet which is then interpreted over a series of encounters using a modified piece of computer game code.

At least he sounds Irish. Taliban Fahim Fazli — boy mujahideen he may have been he does seem favourable toward the Taliban , but he is now a film actor. Not one academic historian amongst them. Bigging oneself up over and above your experience and qualifications is common in entertainment, where you are after all only playing a role.

But if a programme desires subject specialists, it should hire them. But at least his role as host in such shows makes a certain amount of sense given his background as a stage and screen fight director, and he clearly does have a certain amount of specialist knowledge about arms and armour. Not so these people, none of whom could legitimately be described as historians, even if they do play one on TV.

Finally, there are many out there who study historical swordfighting techniques based upon primary source — why were none of them employed? Even as entertainment — recommended only for the terminally hard of thinking or those like me morbidly fascinated by bad TV. A student of the past with an interest in the weird things that so many of us believe in.

View all posts by bshistorian. The entire network seems to be filled with garbage programming. Sir, I salute you!

I feel honoured to have pipped the mighty Brooker to the post but heartily recommend said programme;. Although, unfortunately, Channel 4 On Demand can, and is. My favourite bit is where the IRA guy locks the Taliban guy in the bus and waves the bomb remote at him through the window.

After all, he is in Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel so he must know a lot about Irish history. By your faulty logic, it sounds like it does. Stop emailing you? I sent you one email to give you the chance to show some credentials — a published article, a book, any relevant background or experience.

You ignored it. As for Natalie, Frank has it covered. I care about the misrepresentation of the past for nothing but entertainment, ratings and profit. I will readily concede that Deadliest Warrior is very entertaining, but for all the wrong reasons.

Hmm, for not caring so much about this, you sure have a lot of time on your hands to research and write so much about it and the people involved in the production. To me, your article was not so focused on fact vs fiction, but rather more about putting people down.

All that does is make YOU look unprofessional. I bet everyone involved in this production is grateful for people like you. They pop up quite a lot, usually when someone takes the time to write a detailed, accurate, well-researched critique of a bafflingly beloved subject. What are the facts that the BS Historian missed? Stop wasting your life responding to a blog post! I bet everyone involved in this blog is grateful for people like you. The Viking vs.

Samurai Episode was terrible I have been a Viking reenactor for 25 years. I addressed the episode by a series of Youtube videos to defend history and my ancestors and to point out every ones ancestors where being debased. They addressed it on the aftermath but dint really answer mine or anyone else s questions. Here are my video links. Good luck with your acting career. But I have to state that when I raised the above and I think, very relevant points to you, your response was, and I quote:.

At least I asked legitimate questions about your professional background, rather than resorting to homophobic namecalling. In which people would either argue to the end, or until something better comes up? Based on what Frank said earlier? In addition, could you site sources of information that I could use in regards to the history of William Wallace? In my research, I am finding conflicting information as to what kind of weapons that he utilized; Particularly the Claymore sword.

In some cases, Wallace is portrayed as using a Claymore of the design seen in the aforementioned episode. Other sources display a uniquely designed Claymore that appears to be a Lowland Claymore.