The Human Weapon: What They Don't Know Could Kill Them

While the UFC is certainly great entertainment, I must say that the fight show I enjoyed watching the most was a History Channel production called The Human Weapon.

Two men, Bill Duff, a former wrestler and professional football player, and Jason Chambers, a Jiu–Jitsu student and MMA fighter, traveled the world studying different styles of martial arts.

At the conclusion of each show, one of the two men would face off in a real fight against a master of the style they had chosen to study for that particular episode. The results of these fights were often not pretty, and the two men suffered several defeats, but it was always a fascinating thing to watch.

The show would educate the viewer on various styles of martial arts practiced throughout the world. From Karate to Sambo, Krav Maga to Savaat, every show was both a great learning experience and fight show.

The viewer would be not only educated on the various techniques used by the different forms, but also the history of the art and its place within the culture of the people that developed it.

Technology was also employed in order to show the way strikes would damage an opponent—the breaking of ribs, the loss of equilibrium in the brain—all digitally represented in an almost matrix like format.

One episode that struck me as particularly interesting was the show covering the Russian art of Sambo. There they were trained for a month by Sambo instructors and had the honor of fighting an individual who was hand picked by Fedor Emelianenko.

Fedor boasted that they were likely to get their collective ass kicked, and this “friendly” threat can be seen on YouTube. He promised, however, that the fighter picked would not be one of his brothers, much to the relief of Bill Duff, who was going to face the Sambo fighter at the end of the show.

Most of the time, the two fighters were defeated by the various masters of the style they were engaging in. It became almost comical in the sense that they would travel to a new country and openly discuss how they would get their asses handed to them this time.

The Sambo episode was an exception, however, as Bill Duff not only defeated Fedor’s hand-picked fighter, but soundly destroyed him, 9-0.

I miss this show and hope to see those guys at it again; there are still many countries left for them to visit and get beat up.

While I love fighting, I also LOVE history and culture. The show really brought to life the various ways and customs of the people they met, in addition to providing very interesting information on the background of the style and country they trained in and visited.