Deadliest Warrior/Awesome

Season 1

• To test the killing power of the "Chicago Typewriter" in The Mafia episode, they set up 7 plastic dummies in suits in an over-the-top parody of an Italian restaurant. Then Tommy-gunned the hell out of it. Then showed it again in slow motion.
  • To make it fair, they then proceeded to do something similar for the Yakuza's Sten Gun^[1]. This time the simulation was four dummies in a simulated Japanese greengrocer's stall. It was a great episode for people who liked seeing exploding wine bottles and splattering fruit, as well as the destructive power of a submachine gun.
• The very first episode set the tone when the Apache warclub was pitted against a human skull and crushed it to dust.
• In The Mafia vs Yakuza the Mafia boss ice-picking the last Yakuza, lighting a cigar and sauntering away with a cocky smile.
• The Spartan's shield pretty much any time it's shown.

Season 2

• The finale of the battle between Jesse James and Al Capone was particularly awesome. Also, since the Jesse James gang is portrayed as sort of of a Band of Brothers as opposed to Capone's Bad Boss approach, it can also be seen as somewhat of a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming. Particularly when one theorizes that the surviving gang member is probably Jesse's brother Frank.
  • Before that, the way in which the Al Capone camp demonstrates the switchblade, by smugly carving up a (ballistics gel replica of a) person, finishing off by slicing its throat.
• The Aztec Jaguar gets two: To test an obsidian bladed club, they decapitated a horse. A gel torso replica, but still... Later, to test his knife, the Aztec expert carves open the gel torso's chest and rips out it's heart!
  • Which is then topped by the Zande, when their close range weapon decapitates a gel torso in one strike, and the resident surgeon Armand Dorian declares it to have, "surgical precision". And then the Zande representative starts drinking up the squirting blood.
• When testing Vlad the Impaler's sword, the kilij, a guy who looks more like a member of Dethklok than a weapons expert shreds a pig in a display that gets the weapon called "the first sword that can rival the katana."
• In SEALs vs. Israeli commandos, there was Rob Roy testing the SEALs' Recon 1 knife. Awesomeness ensued. The look of shock on Max's face and his complete speechlessness says it all.
  • Moreover because of how dinky it looked compared to the Ka-bar when he and the Israeli were standing next to each other. Think about it: that knife is about three inches long, and Roy did to the gel torso what most people would need a sword to do.
  • Of course, we also can't ignore the fact that the preceding test with the Israeli Ka-Bar was pretty damn impressive. Lesson learned: don't piss either of these guys off if they're holding a knife.
• When Abdi Ali (the Somali pirate rep) was able to hit four targets, 50 and 100 yards away, and kill them all. Made all the more impressive as he's using an AK-47--a gun that's usually considered inaccurate-- and also it was from a boat that was moving and unsteady. Then again, Abdi is an Iraq War veteran, leading to fans complaining that he didn't represent a typical pirate.
• Sun Tzu's leather armor stopping a bolt from a crossbow almost 2000 years more modern.

Season 3

• George Washington delivering a brutal left cross to Napoleon's jaw once their battle finally came down to crossed blades.
• Joan of Arc's siege cannon basically liquefying a gel torso it was used on.
• In the sim for Saddam Hussein vs. Pol Pot, rather than a dramatic fight to the finish, Saddam puts a bullet right into Pol Pot's skull.
  • You're only showing the tip of the iceberg here. It was actually more impressive than that: Saddam tied up the corpse of a fallen Khmer Rouge guard and used it as a decoy to fool Pol. When he took the bait, Saddam showed up behind him, fired off a pithy one-liner, and shot him in the head.
• During the simulation for Theodore Roosevelt vs Lawrence of Arabia, Lawrence kills Roosevelt's last soldier with his dagger. The soldier falls, revealing Roosevelt stading there, knife in hand, ready to fight.
  • Earlier in the sim Roosevelt gets shot by one of Lawrence's soldiers wielding a rifle. Rather than punk out like anyone else would Roosevelt gets right back up and says he's okay. A nod to real life when Roosevelt did get shot and finished what he had to do before anything else.
  • Similar to how Washington finished off Napoleon, Roosevelt gave Lawrence a stiff right hook before trapping Lawrence's knife with his opponent's cape before finishing him off.
• The U.S. Army Rangers representative pulling off a Scope Snipe.
• The inclusion of Max Brooks in the Zombies vs. Vampire episode.
• The fight between Vampires vs. Zombies. Gallons of blood. Unrelenting brutality. One. Awesome. Brawl.
• Also from Vampires vs. Zombies, for this troper, at least, was the way Mack talks about being a geek who's into comic books, sci-fi, and horror. The man is a Badass Navy SEAL, but he's still One of Us.

1. ↑ (for those following along, the Yakuza had largely postwar black market western firearms and Japanese close combat weapons. For this they had the British Sten and the German Walther P38, backed up by nunchaku and sai.)