I've finally seen all of season one. I totally love this show, and can't wait until season two comes out on dvd.
I do disagree with some of the results from season one. The Knight vs The Pirate for one. The pirate had no armor to counteract any of the knights attacks. The crossbow, the morning star, the halberd, and the broadsword all should have killed the pirate. The pirate's grenade and pistols couldn't even penetrate the knight's armor. And the blunderbuss, while powerful if it hits, is notoriously inaccurate and unreliable. Even when they did fire, one out of every ten shots blew up in your face. Their computer program didn't take that into account.
I also agree with some of the posters on here that the show seems to discount the use of distraction tactics like the ninja's black eggs or the Zulu's poison spit. These are not kill weapons, but meant to set a person up for the kill. Essentially macing them so you can just walk up and slit their throat or crush their skull with little or no resistance. However, as my ancestry is Scottish, I'm glad William Wallace won against Shaka Zulu.
One thing that was neglected in the Apache vs Gladiator match was that the gladiators of ancient Rome never fought to kill, they fought to entertain. While deaths weren't uncommon in the gladiator arena, they weren't the goal of the gladiators either. It took many years of training, and a lot of money, for someone to become a gladiator. Thus fights would rarely be intentionally to the death. When a gladiator got his opponent down, he would look to the emperor for the thumbs up or thumbs down. Since the emperor understood what went into making a gladiator, especially one capable of providing the audience with an entertaining fight, he would usually give him the thumbs up to live. Thus none of a gladiator's attacks are going to be for a quick decisive kill. The Apache, on the other hand, only fights to kill. If an Apache gets you down, he won't wait for anyone's permission to kill you, he'll just kill you. So I totally agree with that result.
I'd be interested in seeing them revisit some of the previous warriors but giving them new opponents. Spartan vs Knight, Ninja vs Pirate, Viking vs Shoalin Monk, etc.
And Ratcrawler, what the hell is up with your capitalization of names? Not just in the thread title, but in damn near every one of your posts too! You keep writing "sPartan" instead of "Spartan", and other such mistakes. I mean I can understand an occassional typo, they happen to the best of us. But the same one? Over and over again? Do you actually think that that's the correct spelling? Should we start spelling your name "rAtcrawler"? Maybe I should change my handle to "tHundarr"? I don't mean to come off insulting, but seriously dude, what is up with that?