Medieval axes and swordplay cut it as a spectacle
Knight Fight’s mix of historical weapons and WWE makes for great TV sport, writes Alan Tyers
There are no easy bouts in international medieval cage fighting now
No question at all as to this week’s sporting highlight on television. May I present Knight Fight, which answers the question that was on everybody’s lips: what if they did mixed martial arts, only with medieval armour and swords and maces and stuff?
We have our answer. They have done, and it is tremendous. The series starts tomorrow on a channel called History, which used to be the History Channel in the days when people could be expected to sit through a, like, well boring informative documentary about the Corn Laws rather than a large man taking an enormous chopper to the face. Whatever, nerds. We won, you lost, get over it.
Thus, some burly gentlemen from an organisation called the Armored Combat League – not a fascist paramilitary cell as the name might suggest – are paired off each week in full plate mail garb, put in a ring and encouraged to have at it. This, they are only too pleased to do.
The traditional televisual exhortation “These are trained professionals, please do not try this at home” could have been invented for this, and I must confess to wincing regularly. And remaining thankful that whenever the next global war comes, it will all be over rather more quickly than being hacked to death with a blunted war hammer by a former pro wrestler.
The spelling of Armored tells its own tale: I was going to add that this Wwe-style extravaganza is an import from America, but well, of course it is. If this is the sort of free-trade deal we can look forward to in the years to come (we supply the history and rusty cleavers, President Trump provides the beefcakes and razzle-dazzle) then roll on March 29.
So if you have ever wanted to know who would win in a fight between a Viking and a Byzantine, then these are good times. That makes up episode one: historical reputation would suggest that the Vikings (pillaging, coastal raiding, beards) would have the edge on the Byzantines (complicated bureaucracy) but the lads from Constantinople have trained hard, they are up for it, and there are no easy bouts in international medieval cage fighting these days.
Week two features matters of more parochial interest to these isles with Knights of Braveheart, which takes as its inspiration the landmark documentary film Braveheart narrated by Sir Melvyn Gibson. And in week four, a local derby as the Normans travel to the Saxons. Sure to be a fiery affair, and the form book of course goes out the window for matches like this, particularly after that touchline incident with the arrow in the previous fixture.
There is a winner each week, who advances to a grand final at the end of the series where there are 10,000 somethings up for grabs (I think dollars, or possibly groats or ingots). Although there is no mention of the hand of a maiden fair, there is the chance for the winner to have his wounds tended with all the latest modern techniques (cauterising, leeches, overnight stay in almshouse not included).
“It’s pretty,” you concede. “But is it sport?” In as much as it is athletic people doing something physically competitive for a prize, sure, why not? Whether Knight Fight can be brought into the tent of Big Sport as understood by Super Sunday and Official Pet Insurance Partners is another matter.
Will ill-gotten petrochemical billions eventually skew it so Saracens and Cossacks come to dwarf all with their financial might? Will a latter-day Sieur De Brailsforde come to dominate the arena with his marginal gains of laser-sharpened halberds and special rejuvenating mead, only for a scandal to emerge later where handmaidens were chastised unnecessarily? Will an armoured Joe Root of the future be bravely acknowledging to the press that it was obviously disappointing to have been massacred in that fashion but there are a lot of positives for the English archers to take from the situation?
There is perhaps only one way to find out, and it involves medieval ultraviolence. Begin!