Full Metal Jousting

[Big Tits n' Ass]

Anyone else watch this show. Wednesdays on the history chanel. Its done in "The Ultimate Fighter" reality tv show style where all the guys live in a house and they show the training / drama etc then have a joust or 2 at the end of the show. 16 man tournament and even the host tries a bit to act like Dana White. He's Canadian too so he's like "lets get ready for the joooost. How aboooot the joooost?"

All the competitors are professional horsemen in some way or another but none have any real jousting experience. They range from theatrical jousters to world champion cowboys.

Some of the injuries have been pretty brutal too.

 

[mandrill]

Being a history buff, I have channel surfed onto it a few times and found it less interesting than I previously would have thought. The skill set is definitely demanding, but seems 1 dimensional - i.e. guide the horse while aiming the lance into the other guy's chest protection. It's hard to keep involved for the spectator.

 

[rld]

I have seen it as well, and know one of the chaps on the show. I just can't get past the really ugly armour...

 

[Cardinal Fang]

Some of the injuries have been pretty brutal too.

It's just a flesh wound.

</Python>

 

[Keebler Elf]

Before watching this show I knew that there were real jousting tournaments going on out in the world and that they were highly dangerous (probably why there's not a lot of 'em). Combine the danger with the expense of health insurance in the US, and it's no surprise it's not more widespread.

Jousting was historically very dangerous. Kings even banned in due to the number of knights that were dying. Remember, back in the day they didn't have modern medicine so something as simple as a splinter cut could easily get infected and kill the knight.

I find it to be an entertaining show but the other poster is correct in that it will get tiresome after a while. It's like that show Swamp People; interesting at first but now it's just the same 'ol thing (hunting alligators) over and over again.

I find the rivalry between "show jousters" and "real jousters" to be interesting. I also think the show made a miscalculation early on (that they had to fix) re: eliminated contestants wanting to walk off the show because there was nothing further in it for them and they weren't going to risk bodily injury for nothing.