[Fair warning: There’s a little casual swearing]

It’s awfully hard to prepare for an apocalypse that hasn’t arrived yet. You never know if you’re supposed to hoard gold coins or toilet paper. I figure toilet paper would make a more useful coin of the realm than actual coins WTSHTF, but what do I know? When in doubt, I go down in the basement to sort all the wood screws and put them in baby food jars. In zombie times, a goodly supply of screws is bound to prevail.

But what about self defense? If someone decides to get medieval on yo azz, are you ready to thrust, or parry, or advance-lunge, or disengage and run away properly? Or in the case of these fine specimens of medieval combat, are you prepared to lean on a tubby guy dressed by an HVAC contractor for long periods without passing out from boredom, inanition, or nerd B.O. ?

You know, the portly need sports too. If the video is to be believed, they would have been in demand back in the day. They’d make the average Melisande week in the knees with their clanking and fist bumps and moob sweat. The modern selection of athletic activities doesn’t have enough big seats for all the wide butts who would like to participate. Everyone can’t be an offensive lineman. We need more portly sports, like this MMA with armor here.

This is the perfect sport for a new age, even if it’s a re-run. Nerds love the whole medieval thing. They’re proudly portly, and they have a lot of time on their hands after their NAS full of anime is properly organized. They dress in medieval clothing already. You know, wool socks and sandals, and an ill-fitting jerkin with the heraldry of their master emblazoned on it: Clan Nike, or the House of Che Guevara, or The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Three Wolves Howling at the Moon, or the Order of the Knights of the Vote for Pedro, or whatever. If they stop spending 1,200 man-hours designing a Boba Fett costume for their dog for Halloween, they can use the time to knock together a suit of armor. And they can have a blast, leaning on each other and panting like dogs in the summer, waiting for the first vaguely athletic person to show up and kick their asses. Just like gym class!