Full-Contact Medieval Sword-Fighting Looks Utterly Terrifying
If you ever wondered how you'd do in a sword fight, watch this.
Look, Game of Thrones is, at times, a great show. There are few better things than watching an impressively choreographed fight scene between two burly dudes wielding gigantic pieces of sharp metal, full of danger and acrobatics, inspiring chivalry and making most people wonder how they’d do in a sword fight.
But the following video is not that. It is not choreographed, it is not pretty, it’s not even particularly acrobatic. It does, however, look extremely fucking dangerous. After watching this video, I can tell you with the utmost certainty that I would not do well in a sword fight, and that fuck everything about getting hit with large pieces of metal.
The 18-straight minutes of HD, often slo-mo footage comes from a renaissance competition in which two teams of soldiers outfitted in heavy chainmail, metal helmets, and plate armor are put in a confined ring and invited to beat the ever-loving shit out of one another. The “sport” (which we put in scare quotes because systematic attempted murder is kinda borderline) is played all over the world, including in the U.S. as the “Armored Combat League,” but this is some of the best footage we’ve seen yet. Apparently, there are some rules, but they appear to be mostly limited to “a player is ruled out if they have three points of contact with the ground” (so yeah, falling over dead probably means you’re out) and “try not to fucking die out there, k?”
Don’t take my word for it, but if you can make it through the first 30 seconds without cringing up like you’re watching a skateboard-fall compilation, then you’re a lot tougher than I.
