referee

Pula Coliseum Croatia
yes gladiator fights had referees !
this was a gladiator show put on in the coliseum. all the gladiators were practitioners of some other martial art such as wrestling or karate. the weapons were steel although blunt but the fights were not predetermined. the costumes and equipment was all authentic, clearly no one was put to death but the fights were as close to the real thing as you could get. it was bloody hot too ! the gladiators fort hard and as a teacher of karate I was impressed with all the fighters. the thing that got to me was that the coliseum in Pula was being used for the same thing 2000 years on from when the days when it was originally built and when the fights got tasty the crowed roared just like they did 200- years ago. humans don't change much really do they !? these were 2 big powerful men and they had a hard fight real warriors !