mamflo wrote:jackie chan??? Bruce Lee??? Did you forget?
... that they were movie stars? The whole of history... did you forget? I'll not even address jackie chan, since he's not particularly impressive, but even bruce lee against a moderately skilled swordsman in a fight to the death would be taken apart (literally) if he was armed with nothing but his hands and feet. Swords are better than fists, and that's a fact, no matter what popular culture will tell you. Bringing your fists to a swordfight is more or less the same as bringing a knife to a gunfight. Yes there are very very very narrow situations in which you can win if the guy with the superior weapon is incompetent, like in extreme close range (which the swordsman would never allow you to approach), but assuming similar or even close skill levels the sword is going to win over the fist 99/100 times.
That's just fact. There's no reason to argue it. The sword takes all the strength that can be applied to unarmed fighting and add hard sharp metal to the equation.