Wall Banger/Live-Action TV/Deadliest Warrior

Spike TV's Deadliest Warrior, despite being loads of fun, tends to have several wallbangers per episode. Their testing criteria and procedures are questionable. For the most part, it's just people swinging various weapons at dummies as hard as they can. This leads to bizarre testing results. The show also plays loose with history and presents several Hollywood cliches as historical fact.

In the "Spartan vs. Ninja" episode, the Spartan shield was determined to be the deadliest offensive weapon in the show, receiving more kills than even the Spartan's spear. The only data used to gauge the shield's effectiveness was how hard the Spartan expert managed to swing it at the dummy. In a previous episode, the Viking's shield received hardly any kills because the expert chose to push it at the dummy, which resulted in lower readings.
In the "Apache vs. Gladiators," the gladiator is given a sling because he needs to have a long ranged weapon, even though gladiators didn't have slings. (Didn't matter much, as the Apache bow was about twice as awesome.) Similarly, the knight in the "Knight versus Pirate" episode is given a crossbow, even though medieval knights didn't use crossbows in battle.
In the "Yakuza vs Mafia" episode, the gangsters are treated like soldiers and use things like ice picks and molotov cocktails as if they were standard issue weapons of war that they just carried around all the time. You don't do that with molotov cocktails! The Yakuza are given a number of stereotypical kung fu weapons such as nunchucks and sai.
- During the episode's showdown, a Yakuza gangster uses Hammerspace to pull two giant sai from behind his back.
  - Actually, they can be seen tucked into the back of his pants whenever he's shown from behind.
- They said that they used them for when they needed to make a point, which is what they did. The real one is using a Luger when they were talking about a Walther P-38.
The ninja in the "Ninja vs Spartan" episode is presented as the cinema cliche right out of a Chuck Norris film.
- The Spartan was only momentarily inconvenienced by taking a powdered glass and pepper juice cocktail to the eyes. If you can shrug off glass in the eyes, then you are not human.
  - Of course not, you're Spartan.
Another source of wallbangers is their weapon comparisons, which can get ridiculous:
- In the "IRA vs Taliban" episode, they compared a rocket propelled grenade to a flamethrower.
- In "William Wallace vs Shaka Zulu", they compared the targe and dirk to poison spit.
  - In the same vein, they have the Ninja's black eggs vs the Spartan's FUCKIN spear!!
- In "Maori vs. Shaolin Monk", they compared the a sword's ability to break bricks against that of a jade club. Apparently, they wanted to prove that a weapon designed for crushing and breaking is better at doing so than a weapon designed for cutting and stabbing.
- Dividing weapons into categories seems more a convention for organizing the tests than anything else; presumably the show could simply test all weapons individually, than compare them however was wanted. But there is a problem with how the "edges" are given for certain of these weapons. Weapons such as Black Eggs that are designed for purposes other than killing will automatically lose because they cannot kill directly, even though they are valued because they make other weapons work better.
- Continuing on the "edge" thing, some of the other edges seem to be stretches, beyond simple disagreement. The IRA/Spetznaz seems to have a lot of these; the results were strongly slanted towards spetznaz, but the weapon edges were cleanly divided. Fortunately, if the aftermaths are believed, the "edges" don't come into play in the results.
In "Musketeers vs. The Ming", their medical expert identified a shot that went though the upper left of the torso as going "straight through the heart". Humans keep their heart protected by the rib cage, in the center of the chest.
The tests are not always on a level playing field even when they are supposedly comparing weapons directly:
- In the Jesse James vs Al Capone episode, during their melee/silent weapon test, a stiletto/switchblade goes up against a Bowie knife. Multiple things are off about this test. Their computer "expert" Max Geiger claims that with knives, size does matter. Not a few minutes later, he wants to test the Bowie knife to see if its SIZE IS OVERCOMPENSATION. Is knife size on a bell curve? Anyhow, the stiletto went up against one of their famous gel torsos. The Bowie knife? Against a skinned pig carcass. Two different test subjects, and yet they act as if that was conclusive. Now maybe they did the same test and didn't show it, but come on. Seeing a Bowie knife against a gel torso would have made the results more believable.
Giving the Roman Centurion and Alexander the Great artillery weapons. The best part was the Centurion's Scorpion, which were often about 4 feet tall and designed to be fired by a full, multi-man crew (here with only one person) was compared to a small, bladed, frisby-like disk.
And for some reason, "Intimidation" is a serious factor they consider tallying up a weapon's lethality, despite the fact that intimidation in a weapon design is nearly always achieved at the expense of practicality (Sure, a Bat'leth looks pretty sweet, but a trained fighter with an ordinary, boring Ka-Bar can easily take down someone wielding one). Plus, there's also the fact that a weapon's psychological effect on an opponent is not a measurable thing one can reliably depend on in a fight. When they say things like "Intimidation" or "Psychological effect," they're really saying "It looks cool."
The upcoming Vampires vs. Zombies match. Um...what? At least the other fights had some semblance of reality, but this? Unless they're testing methods for killing them, there's no real way to have this matchup, since most fights with vampires and zombies are hand to hand, without any weapons used by the monsters.
- While on the subject, which vampires VS which zombies? Bram Stokers Dracula VS Voodoo zombies? Underworld VS Land of the Dead? Edward Cullen VS Rage virus? There is no way to do this and reach a conclusive result, even within the limits of pitting fictional monsters against each other, because either side could claim to have been unfairly matched up.
- If you're wondering, it was 30 Days of Night vs. World War Z. The two most random and unrealistic franchises being presented as indisputable canon.
- This episode deftly removes any and all doubt that Deadliest Warrior is anything other than glorified Nerd Wankery over who's "cooler," without much regard for real science (that is, if the fucking "ballistic knife" thing didn't already convince you of that).
  - Worst of all, the vampires were presented as, to be blunt, morons. This trooper has seen better unit cohesion and superior tactical savvy from pick up groups in World of Warcraft! Frankly, if both sides had actually used the abilities they were explicitly stated to have, the vampires would have won fairly handily.

Back to Wall Banger

Back to Deadliest Warrior