I'll be less mysterious.
The Bloodsands is a "legit" environment for fighting now. While it's not what it was pre-Calamity, it still gets a lot of service in ARR and beyond as a spectacle-fighter of sorts. Big gimmick matches, legitimate combat, but most of all: Stuff people want to pay to see. This is canonical.
On the off-canon side of things, there's an event called the Grindstone (and I apologize if I've mentioned this in your presence before, I kind of have a reputation for it). The links in my signature block will fill you in about it, but it's somewhat similar to the pre-Calamity spirit of the Bloodsands that 1.0 showed us: A gaggle of fighters specializing in different disciplines come out once a week and beat the shit out of each other, and there's a token cash prize at the end for whomever overcomes the odds and rises above the hate.
If you're interested, there's a bunch of info in those links to be had. It's not the straight-Gladiator combat that you're looking for, but there's plenty of people there who treat it as such. Check it out if it's a thing you might be interested in: Participation's free, spectating's free, and there's generally always a crowd to watch. Just don't mind the chatscroll...
Edit: At the very least, the guy who runs it was part of the Bloodsands roughly seven~ years ago in game.
The Bloodsands is a "legit" environment for fighting now. While it's not what it was pre-Calamity, it still gets a lot of service in ARR and beyond as a spectacle-fighter of sorts. Big gimmick matches, legitimate combat, but most of all: Stuff people want to pay to see. This is canonical.
On the off-canon side of things, there's an event called the Grindstone (and I apologize if I've mentioned this in your presence before, I kind of have a reputation for it). The links in my signature block will fill you in about it, but it's somewhat similar to the pre-Calamity spirit of the Bloodsands that 1.0 showed us: A gaggle of fighters specializing in different disciplines come out once a week and beat the shit out of each other, and there's a token cash prize at the end for whomever overcomes the odds and rises above the hate.
If you're interested, there's a bunch of info in those links to be had. It's not the straight-Gladiator combat that you're looking for, but there's plenty of people there who treat it as such. Check it out if it's a thing you might be interested in: Participation's free, spectating's free, and there's generally always a crowd to watch. Just don't mind the chatscroll...
Edit: At the very least, the guy who runs it was part of the Bloodsands roughly seven~ years ago in game.
![[Image: yEROfKO.png]](http://i.imgur.com/yEROfKO.png)
