Gentlemen! Have you ever found yourself watching a real man’s game – like, say, rugby – and thought, “y’know what, this would be even more interesting if it involved men dressed in full plate armour, fighting one-on-one, with mediaeval weapons”?
No?
Oh, so it’s just me, then?
Well, apparently not, because ARMOURED MMA IS IN FACT A THING!!!:
Guess where this INGENIOUS idea originated?
Yep – RUSSIA.
Only in freakin’ MORDOR would the people there be drunk, crazy, and brilliant enough to come up with something this epic, this awesome, this BATSHIT INSANE YET TOTALLY BRILLIANT.
I think we can all appreciate a good knight fight – especially when you consider the history the Russians have with this sort of thing. It was Aleksandr Nevskiy, after all, who defended the Russian homeland against the Teutonic Knights, over 800 years ago.
(Depending on whose side you take, it was either a moderately important skirmish that settled a border dispute, or an epoch-defining event that partitioned Europe permanently between Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Though, from my point of view – and this is going to piss off people on BOTH sides – I don’t really see a whole lot of difference between the two.)
History aside, let us all take a moment to appreciate the sheer majesty and brilliance of watching two dudes in armours swinging swords and shields at each other:
I am sure you will all join me, brothers, in telling Dana White and the UFC that they cannot possibly claim to be the Ultimate Fighting Championships, until and unless they include ARMOURED MMA on their cards.
2 Comments
Didact
Guess where this INGENIOUS idea originated?
Yep – RUSSIA.
.
eh, HEMA has been a thing in the West for 40 years now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mQfaog_JPE
Hema, Markland, the SCA, Dagorhir, Darkon to name a few examples, and most of them have been around for more than forty years (although admittedly, Dagorhir and Darkon mutated more into ‘combat larping’ than live steel.)
I started that when I was 12 years old, more than 40 years ago, the SCA was started in Berkley in 1966, although they did shift to Rattan Weapons from live steel in ’72’.
https://www.sca.org/about/
Sorry, batshit Russians didn’t invent it, nerdy hippies invented it, and even THEY owed the idea to games like “Killer” and, of course, the live-steel traditions of various Military academies across both the Americas and Europe.
Not to mention Kendo.
But I am very glad you enjoy it, I have been fighting in armor for over 40 years myself 🙂
Did you know that the SCA is on the FBI watchlist as the “largest private military on Earth?”. Basically, every single combatant requires heavy training in both melee weapon combat AND combat safety.