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Deadliest Warrior is a awful television show on Spike TV that portrays two combatants (or groups of combatants in some cases, such as with the IRA vs Taliban episode) that have no chance in hell of ever meeting one another, and pits them against each other, first by performing tests on a random selection of weapons assigned to each side and then by plugging the test data into a videogame.[1] All of this is accompanied by a lot of formulaic bluster by the self-proclaimed "experts" on each side about why "their" guy is better. It may cause some to lose faith in Western civilization.
Issues[edit]
The show has many issues with its testing and conclusions to say the least. Anything drawn from the show is completely worthless due to the incredible amount of method errors, and, intentional or not, rigged tests to favor an outcome.
The Warriors themselves[edit]
The first, and perhaps the most minor of the shows problems is the fact that they take fighters from all over human history to fight. Almost always, these are groups that have never, or flat out would never engage in warfare. While this is the very point of the show, and could be forgiven it leads to extreme problems very quickly. Another problem ends up being that the warriors are presented from their Hollywood stereotypes rather then any reality of how they behaved or fought.[2] The "vaunted" experts being little more then cheerleaders who know how to handle the weapons chosen for the fighter (most of the time anyway).
Due to the show's weapon fetish (see below) the warriors themselves are reduced to the gear they bring into the battle. Tactics, fighting style, level of education, and other much more important factors in a fight. Any military professional will tell you that weapons are a small part of the entire package and to focus on only weapons is already going into the hypothetical blind.
The last major problem is that all battles were simulated as a 1v1 head on fight (later changed for the most part to 5v5 squad battles). The VAST majority of the fighters not fighting one on one, and many would not even fight head on. During the first episode of the entire show, Apache VS Gladiator, the Apache expert comments on how unrealistic it would be for an Apache to engage in face to face "honorable" combat.
Weapons Fetish[edit]
This show LOVES weapons, and it shows. One might think with the shows love of them, this is where the real work happens, but you'd be mistaken. Testing methods run from worthless to little more then a weapons demo version of a show trial.
The first strike on the testing is the "experts" are the ones who are the ones to demo the weapons. This right away voids all data from the tests as the factors are now from the testers rather then the weapons being tested. These match ups, for lack of a better term tend to go from debatable balanced (Legit US Army Green Berets VS Legit GRU Spetsnaz) to completely one-sided (A world champion wild west firearms marksman VS a Fat idiot with a Tommy Gun)
The show also is very dismissive of weapons that are less lethal, or simply lack raw killing power. They ignore tactical use, ease of, and other factors besides pure damage the weapon can deal.
Another problem is that there is no control to the tests, and the way one weapon may be test, is not the way the apposed weapon is tested. Sometimes this is a necessity, as the two weapons are almost completely dissimilar[3] but many times, there is no reason.[4] Choice of weapons is also very bizzare sometimes. The IRA, for example, were giving a flamethrower (documented use once during the entire troubles) and a slingshot. Another example was in the Samurai/Viking battle, where the Samurai was given a Kanabō club. This would be the equivalent of turning around and giving the Viking a Mjölnir hammer.
Other Problems[edit]
The show is laughably nationalistic. All but one time any warrior even remotely related the United States won hands down. Poorly defining the Warriors themselves is another problem. One battle had the GSG9, the German Counter-Terrorism force face SWAT. Just SWAT. SWAT can run the gamete from para-military special forces, to the deputy with the Mini-14 rifle.
See also[edit]
- Mall ninja: The target audience.
External links[edit]
Footnotes[edit]
- ↑ Seriously.
- ↑ One of the biggest offenders being the Spartan VS Ninja fight. 300 VS bad Chop Suey films rather then a real though experiment on how Spartan Hoplies would fight Japanese Ninjas. It might be a short fight as the Ninja might be a complete fictional concept with no historical backing
- ↑ One may argue that the show should have put more work into finding weapons that were more like with each other to test
- ↑ One example. Two grenades, one was tested, hanging in a room with test dummies, the other? Put into a Washing machine.