I've watched a few episodes of this show already. The meatheads behind this are irritating as hell but the concept is great. The show itself is heavy on the alpha dog pissing contest factor...
Yeah, I was amazed last year when the local ren fest advertised a jousting tourney with 10K prize money. I had no idea folks were doing this competitively. However, with all the stuff my brother does in the SCA, I should have known it was only a matter of time.
Also, I'm more down with this than cutsy-poo, ironic, hipster shit like adult kick-ball leagues.
repoman wrote: Correction my friend, put a foot and a half of sharp pointy steel on the end of the lance...THEN it's the real deal.
Yea, I found myself irrationally--but thoroughly--offended at all the "we [chest thump] iz the REALZ dealz dude!" posturing. I knew I had to turn it off when I found myself yelling "the lances are balsa, the horses are too damned small, and the riders are way too damned big" at the television like this show actually mattered in some fashion.
(I'm sure this says something less than complimentary about me in general, but I truly do have a bit of a hard time getting beyond the fact that these guys are fairly enormous by *modern* standards while the horses seem to be closer in build to steeplechase racers than tournament destriers. Add to that the light lances and the heavy "target plate" and I find the attitude to be a bit disingenuous. That said, I do recognize that this is what happens when one tries to adjust to accommodate the pervasive influence of lawyers, insurance adjusters, and other liability-related concerns.)
No duh, they aren't tilting 15th century style. Obviously, there'd be liabilities all over the place like Dogmatix says.
Y'all are the 'wrestling isn't real' camp. Sure, but it's still athletic and hurts like hell (spent some time training at a pro-wrestling school in ATX, bought my share of bengay). I have no doubt this 'FMJ' is similar. It may not be 'real' but I'm sure requires a high pain threshold and a certain level of crazy. Props to these guys for doing something different.
Jeff White wrote: Man, you guys are a bunch of fun murderers.
No duh, they aren't tilting 15th century style. Obviously, there'd be liabilities all over the place like Dogmatix says.
Yea, I agree up to the point where the alpha dog bullshit (which is what most of my bitching is getting at--it's the chest-thumping bits that make me just a bit nuts) just overwhelms everything else on the screen. That said, this is probably more "real" than even high-impact wrasslin', so it really IS entertaining. However, those who don't feel compelled to club the top dog into at least silence, if not submission, by the end of episode 5 are FAR better human beings than I could ever be.
For all my whining, it really is worth the DVR space. Just watching these guys deal with the horses is worth it; makes one realize that medieval armored cav (1) had a much greater affinity for their mounts and (2) clearly had to make good use of squires and other such "poor bastard" labor to get around at all. Surely looks to me like a horse that doesn't agree with your plans will result in about as much havoc on your day as would actual contact with the enemy....
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