Masters Of Combat

In 2001, I decided to give learning Jujutsu a go (it didn’t last long in honesty, I gave it up after a year and a half, just wasn’t enjoying it). Anyway, a few short months after I started, BBC Two launched a Martial Arts based gameshow called Masters of Combat! It was presented by Gail Porter, and Trey Farley, and as you would probably expect, it was a pretty weird show, but also decently entertaining too.

Basically each week, two teams made up of martial artists in different styles and disciplines (three males, one female), would compete in a series of games, and even the occasional fight. In many ways you could consider this to be the transitional show, between the cancellation of Gladiators on ITV, and the approval of Britain’s Hardest on Sky One. Over six rounds, the teams would try to score 8 points, with the first to achieve this, winning the episode.

The rounds were as follows :

• 1st (Bull, they were all loosely named after animals) – Game (I am using the word game loosely, as they weren’t combat based, more like challenges. Think Gladiators, but more intense),
• 2nd (Tiger) – Fight between two males,
• 3rd (Dragon) – Game,
• 4th (Panther) – Fight between two females,
• 5th (Cobra) – Game,
• 6th (Wolf) – Final Fights.

Each episode was broken down between the above rounds, with a series of vignette’s starring ‘actors’, pulling off a series of martial arts styles and moves (and some with the aid of guide ropes). All the while the show was narrated by someone I am pretty sure was a voice over on the E4 (later Channel 4) series Banzai, whilst the ‘Supreme Master’ of proceedings was another ‘actor’, who I have only ever seen in another BBC Two’s Monster Night.

There were a large variety of martial arts styles and disciplines over the series run, with teams being given wicked names to fight under. Those teams and styles were:

• Lightning Strikers (Kickboxing),
• The Death Squad (Freestyle) – Series Champion,
• The Shadow Warriors (Tae Kwon Do),
• The Venomous Blades (Wu Shu),
• The Caged Elite (Ju – Jitsu – The same one as I did above, but spelled differently…? This is how it appeared on the show!),
• Fists of Fury (Jeet Kune Do) – Series Runner-up.

So, that’s basically the show in a nutshell. It was a martial arts based gameshow, with more intense based challenges than you would see in Gladiators, with some good old violence, like in Britain’s Hardest. Think of it as the polar opposite to ITV’s Celebrity Wrestling. In this show, Masters of Combat, there were several martial arts masters engaging in combat. Where as Celebrity Wrestling, did involve celebrities, but had NO WRESTLING, it was just Gladiators, with a different name. If you wanted to bring back Gladiators ITV, you should have just brought back Gladiators!

OK, so now I have explained the base outline of the show, now onto it’s weirder points. I have already mentioned it’s weird choice of casting an extra from a one night BBC Two production as it’s ‘Supreme Master’, and a voice over from Banzai on narration. But even weirder, was it’s six week format.

It featured three heats, two semi-finals, and a final. Now; anyone with any understanding of how tournaments work, will realize that with one of two teams winning each week, over three weeks, means that there surely isn’t enough teams, for two semi-finals. Well, you would be correct. But that is what happened. Three heats, producing three teams going through to the semi’s. So where did the other team come from?

Basically, they chose one of the runner’s up from the three heats (at random I’m guessing) to take the other spot. The reason given:

“The ‘Supreme Master’ has chosen them out of all our heat runners up, to return for the semi-finals, for they showed true strength, wisdom, and above all honour!”

That ‘lucky team’ being The Venomous Blades, rather than, you know, finding two other teams showcasing other styles of martail arts (I mean there must be more than six surely, enough to take it up to 8 teams).

Then there was the potentially unfair final round. Basically, the two teams would have one on one combat’s with each other, when one team loses, their fighter leaves the field, and another replaces them. Winning a fight also scores a point. Now this sounds all well and good, except it’s also rather unfair, to the female fighters. The female fighters would start off first, and then the winner would score a point. Then the winner would face a male fighter, and then lose, always lose. Now it could be a possibility of course that the man was the superior fighter, but given that the female warriors were never given another fight in this round beyond that point, you can’t help but wonder whether it was fixed, so that the females would always lose against a male, as that was seen as wrong…? But as a result, whichever team’s female fighter lost and didn’t score a point, would autmatically gain a point anyway from the following male winning against a female, which just seems unfair, and pointless. If you wanted to prevent the females from fighting the males, why not just withdraw them after their fight altogether, and so then the other team wouldn’t score an automatic point?!

So yeah, it had it’s weird production decisions, from the potentially unfair and uncompetitive final round, to it’s potentially stereotypically chosen narrator, to it’s conclusion that there was only 6 styles of martial arts in the world. But, despite it’s issues, it was very entertaining. Yes it had it’s silly moments thanks to it’s ‘cast’ and production decisions. But the games/challenges were always interesting, and fun to watch. From punch bag based challenges, to weapon based ones, and even board breaking in the grand final. Not only that, but the combat sections were pretty cool to watch too, from all combatants involved.

Masters of Combat is one of those weird one time shows, that only those who saw it would probably remember it, but to me it was memorable, because it was so cool. Yes it could be seen as a failed experiment, but given that there was still a period in the year when Robot Wars wasn’t on, it was nice to have some form of prime time combat based entertainment on the box, and one that sort of attached itself to something I briefly gave a go, at that time too!