Knight Fights

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Steve

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Yes. But same concept. What is technically technical may not technically work at speed.
I agree. After chewing on the various comments in this thread it struck me while reading your post how similar the comments are to comments made about the early UFC events.
 
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Okay. I paid attention and it looks like most of the fighters are active in the armored combat league,.
Armored Combat League

They also don't wear full plate, and they suggest that the team combat includes historical arms and armor.

So, I'd really appreciate some insight,. If it's not accurate, how so? Could any hema guys hang with these dudes? Would they do well?
 
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Okay. Historical elitism aside, I thought this was a great show. Just watched the tournament finale on the TiVo. The more I watched it, the more I could see that there was a lot of strategy and technique demonstrated. Those are some tough dudes. Yeah, they're bashing each other. But they're doing it with some style. :)

The last episode took the 7 winners of each episode. They were all wearing their own kit, and choice of weapons. Some had small bucklers and shorter swords or maces. Others had two handed weapons with greater reach. It was really all over the board.

The first round was a "grand melee" 3 minute long. Everyone against everyone else. They ended up ganging up on the most inexperienced fighter, and he was the first to be eliminated. They then paired up the remaining six fighters into three teams. These guys really worked well together. They had different strategies. For example, one effective strategy was bait opponents into following you, so that their back was to your teammate, who would charge in and just lay the other guy out.

A team was eliminated, and they were down to two teams, and then finally, the winning team dueled each other for the championship.

As others have said, this probably isn't historically accurate (though just saying it with confidence doesn't necessarily make it so), I thought it was a really fun show.
 

Martial D

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There is almost nothing about it which is historically accurate. It's just a bunch of people bashing at each other.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk
Which would be pretty historically accurate. Real fights don't look technical, especially when most involved are terrified of dying.
 

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How would HEMA fighters do? Not so well, as it doesn't correspond to the formats HEMA fighters train for. Armoured combat is very thrust oriented, which is banned in this competition, and rightly so. The armour is also not historical. It's essentially unarmoured style combat done in armour. HEMA folks who focus on unarmoured combat generally wear very light gear and aren't conditioned to fighting in 60+ lbs. of kit.

Could a HEMA fighter do well? With enough training, sure. Just like a field hockey player could excel at ice hockey with enough training, but it's not the same sport.

Are ACL fighters skilled? You betcha. Some have some HEMA training or crosstrain with HEMA folks for fun. It's an awesome and rough sport, not for the feint of heart. The crossover with mainstream HEMA is very slight, however.
 
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Thanks! That all makes sense.

Can you share some more information regarding historical accuracy of the armour? A part of the show has them donning what they say is historical kit. Is that stretching the truth?
 

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