“Deadliest Warrior” is what happens when barstool arguments get out of hand. The guys at Spike are determined to find out which historical bad boys kicked the most butt and took the most names. Throw a ninja and a knight in a ring and let ’em duke it out; what could go wrong?

Well, a lot, apparently.

With all the gratuitous slow-motion tomahawk throwing, spurting of synthetic blood and pervasive, testosterone-fueled sense of one-upmanship,  this show was definitely produced with the “300” crowd in mind, right down to the grisly-voiced commentator, a knock-off of the “300” narrator. Unfortunately, the whole act becomes childish, essentially devolving into a name-calling “my-rifle-is-bigger-than-your-scimitar” match.

In the first episode, this materializes as a hypothetical match between an Apache warrior and a Roman gladiator. An army combat instructor (named Snake Blocker!) and a champion knife fighter represent the Apaches, while Team Gladiator is comprised of a weapons historian and mixed martial artist champion Chuck “The Iceman” Liddell. But the weapons demonstrations quickly dissolve into alarmingly serious taunts that become awkward to watch. Think “Mythbusters” with no sense of irony.

The weapon demonstrations themselves are hit and miss. Most viewers, I’m assuming, are familiar with the basic precept of a bow and arrow and don’t need to be subjected to (several) slow-motion shots of an Apache doing target shooting.

Others were pretty fun though, especially watching Liddell pummel a side of beef with “scissors,” essentially a covered gauntlet with a crescent blade on top. In three jabs, he literally cuts a cow in half.

But the truly disappointing aspect of the show is that the fighters never actually battle. After 55 minutes of watching the experts crack some model skulls with tomahawks and exhibit the deadly prowess of a gladiator with a trident and net, the climax is a staggeringly dull computer simulation, which is never explained and merely crunches some arbitrary numbers invented by the core panel of a doctor, biomedical engineer and computer programmer—which raises the question: Why does a computer programmer get a vote, anyway?

The results are then performed by reenactors, meaning that watching The History Channel for about six minutes would give you a better chance of seeing some brutal, historical (scripted) violence. If you’re interested, the computer thinks an Apache brave would beat a gladiator, presumably because in the reenactment, only the Apache retains the ability to move laterally while the gladiator voluntarily removes his armor and is momentarily confounded by a tree. Upon victory, the wildly ululating brave fulfills xenophobic renderings of Native Americans by drinking the blood of the defeated.

If you love non-self-aware comedy or are a 12-year-old boy, stay tuned for upcoming battles such as Yakuza vs. Mafia, Maori vs. Shaolin Monks, William Wallace vs. Shaka Zulu, Ninja vs. Spartan and Taliban vs. IRA.

“Deadliest Warrior” airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. (CDT) on Spike.