FDR would lose.

Ulysses S. Grant only because I'm related to him and he was a complete asshole and sounds like a fighter. Zachary Taylor had a long military career and Andrew Jackson organized an internal genocide in the USA. He sounds like a real rough guy to me. I'd bet Jackson would win though.

TR would take them all out and make them like it.

Washington. The man was a soldier and general first in a time when knives and bayonets were weapons of war.

Bit if Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer is any indication, honest Abe might have held his own. Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, and Andrew Jackson would have done well as well. Nobody from the last half decade would stand a chance though.

The article's pretty weird on what condition they'd be in. Up top it says they're in the best physical condition of their presidency, while the Harrison entry says he's in his prime, implying he's not a decrepit old man with one foot in the grave like he was a president. Which is it?

George Washington is the easy choice. He was a big, strong soldier in great shape, and even when older he would be formidable. At his best, no question. Lincoln, Jackson, and Lyndon Johnson are my second, third, and fourth choices. These are true either at the time of presidency or at their lifetime physical peak.

Overrated: Teddy Roosevelt. His lifelong toughness is both overrated and more mental than physical, which will take you only so far in a battle royale. Some other guys you might think would be good bets (like successful military men Wm Harrison and Zachary Taylor) are small guys from a less healthy period.

I'm going to throw out an unlikely candidate: Gerald Ford was an outstanding college athlete, much under-appreciated because of the SNL skit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbRom1Rz8OA

In support of Washington. Relevant!

Theodore Roosevelt in his prime would have taken them all down. He boxed and wrestled as a youth, and was a stick-swinging certified badass as an adult.

Yeah I'd say Washington. He was a tough dude who lived through things nobody should have through exceptional physical prowess. It does seem easy. That said, TR is a decent choice, and I could see either Grant or Jackson if GW were having a bad day..

Aw, no, what am I talking about? Obviously it would be William Henry Harrison.

Teddy Roosevelt, George Washington, Andrew Jackson, and JFK would be my picks...

First 3 obvious, and then JFK...as much as I admire him, gotta think he could play dirty if he wanted to... ;)

@ semck83

Don't underestimate Teddy. He was a tough MFer too. He charged up San Juan Hill. He got shot in the chest before a speech and still made the speech with blood seeping through his shirt. He and his expedition killed over 11,000 animals on a safari immediately after he left office. He went on a two year expedition in South America. He volunteered to go to World War I.

You guys are way off. Andrew Jackson would easily win. Guy was hard as shit. Him or Taft. Fat fucker.

^TAFT?

He's literally the biggest target there!

OK. TR is a valid answer, but the real answer is Andrew Jackson

Jackson once had a duel against the best shot in Tennessee. He decided to let the guy shoot first. The guy shot Jackson in the Chest. The ball wound up so close to Jackson's heart they never took it out. Jackson never left his feet. He lifted the gun, aimed, and killed his opponent in one shot.

Roosevelt took a shot in the chest and finished his speech.

The final two would be TR and A Jackson. Jackson would take it

he also got scarred in the face in the revolution, and lost a duel but survived to tell the tale. In a knife melee everyone is going to get shanked once or twice. Jackson has the stamina to see it through the end.

for the purposes of this article, they are in the best condition of their life, not just presidency.

i thought is said it was in their presidency??

Jackson is a much worse vote if it's during their presidency, because he was a kind of sickly fellow.

James K. Polk deserves to have his name tossed around. He was an officer in the militia during an era in which he probably learned how to use a sword. He was young and energetic at the beginning of his term. He was a relatively small guy, which means he probably had plenty of speed and finesse. He was smart, and everyone knows that the mind is the best weapon. He'd probably be one of the last three or four guys standing.

But we can all agree that a knife fight between Theodore Roosevelt and Andrew Jackson would be epic.

I think that I would give the edge to Jackson because he would have accumulated more formal close combat training in his military career, but if both men lost their knives I would give it to Theodore Roosevelt easily. As I said, he was a seasoned amateur boxer and wrestler.

Poke

for purposes of this thread I have changed the rule, at their prime.

Cmon, you're all players of diplomacy. How could you think that the toughest president would win this fight? It would have to be the craftiest bastard of the lot of them. Someone who could convince others to do the killing for him.

GW Bush?

Craftiness can't be too relevant in a knife fight. It's about brute force and, well, skill with a knife.

The bigger guys have longer reach but since knife throwing is not forbidden, finesse is also important. Plus they can reuse their opponents, meaning the heads of the long-haired presidents can be used as blunt weapons with longer reach in the off-hand or they can just charge at the opponent, throw 2 knives in a quick succession and then unsheath their own. Since the Colosseum is quite large and alliances are allowed, the weaker guys can be used as scavengers and quartermasters, providing the brawlers with supplies necessary for delivering more punch - again, the heads can prove useful as a basis for some crude bolas.

The only problem with reusing body parts is presidents generally don't sport long hair and there is not much to substitute them for. Wielding a head-mace where the handle is made of spine is uncharted waters. All the more reason to elect some hippie, his head would be a valuable resource in a presidential knife melee.

@ dD_ShockTrooper

Which is why James K. Polk deserves to have his name tossed around. He basically talked the British into giving up half of the Oregon Country. He could probably convince other presidents to fight for him.

Obama would jist have his Chicago connections see to it that the other Presidents ran into some "trouble" along the way to the arena so that he would win by default. But the real fun would be watching George HW Bush take out his son. Or Carter and Ford teaming up to take out everyone else and then vote for a two way draw.

Taft would no doubt be big target, but all that fat would provide quite a bit of protection to his organs.
Jackson may have been tough and good in a pistol duel, but he was also rash and didn't always pick his battles well - he once picked a fight with the frontiersman Simon Kenton and got his butt royally whipped, Kenton would have killed him if his friends hadn't pulled him off.
Grover Cleveland deserves a mention, he personally hanged two men while he was sherriff of Buffalo NY, that shows an ability to do his own dirty work and take a life. He was also pretty fat, so again some protection for the vitals.

Alright, Santa. Enough stalling. Who are your picks?

Fat is only protection from short blades. K-BARs are long blades with a jagged back and the fat would provide little protection.

Obama would win, because he's a nigger.

Bounce

Carter would win because he and i have the same last name.

I have a good friend who once rescued his neighbor lady from a murder attempt, she had been stabbed several times with a 7" blade but her fat protected her vital organs. Maybe a K-BAR is longer than 7", but Taft was a really fat dude. He got stuck in his bathtub, for crying out loud. I still think it's an advantage.

Of course, he would be quickly winded, a decided disadvantage.

KBAR to the throat or in the eye. Fat or not, you ain't surviving that. And some of our presidents knew how to fight.

I'd bet on Michelle Obama with a tennis racquet against pretty much any president I can think of with a knife. Who's with me??

I think it's a pretty easy bet. lol! She'd bop 'em till they drop. :-)

@Invictus
The only time this would become an actual knife-fight where the strongest/fastest man wins would be in the final 2, provided one of the presidents hasn't found a way to conceal himself and perform a sneak attack. Until then, given the sheer number of people, it will be a battle of negotiation. Even Jackson could not take on 10 wimpy presidents at once. The weaker members of the battle will undoubtedly team up on the favorites early on, and the smarter ones will avoid being killed in these gank squads and sink the knife into their fellow members where necessary.

Yeah, hate to say but most of this thread is being done really wrong. Teddy Roosevelt and Andrew Jackson would be obvious favorites if this were a 1v1 tournament, sure, but it isn't. It's all of 'em in the ring simultaneously. And I'd say it's pretty hard to make a concrete argument for any of them - for the most part they're indistinguishably good at negotiation, which would matter far more than their actual physical capabilities.

I think it's hard to say. I'm having trouble logically justifying one "right" answer here. The first step is obvious - a 1v1 disadvantages the majority of the presidents, so those presidents would team up. Since each individual member, though, would not want to be the one stuck having to engage the strongest presidents directly, the resulting teams would operate defensively, as no member has incentive to try to engage the other presidents directly (ergo no incentive to launch an offensive). The strongest presidents also would not go on the offensive, because it's likely that they would, at best, trade life-for-life - not helpful when you only have one life. So the different factions would remain on the defensive. The problem is the next step. I can't see the heavyweights teaming up in response, but they certainly wouldn't take the chance to try to take one another out, since any in-fighting would probably lead to the death of both of them.

Much like Diplomacy, it should be an X-way draw, where X is, of course, the number of resultant factions of presidents. The trick would be which presidents could successfully fool their arenamates into ignoring the logic presented above and get them to act against their self-interest. Since such action would invariably lead to an offensive, there can be only two outcomes - someone dies, advancing the fight to an endgame, or the offensive stalls with no casualties on either side, in which case the situation reverts to the stalemate before.

tl;dr: Should be a multi-faction stalemate; whether it is or not depends on whether the presidents can successfully talk one another into ignoring what "should" be.

But all the presidents have the knowledge that the brawl will not end until only 1 remains, so they will likely use that fact as a negotiating tool as they do not have the water supply to last a long time in there. Eventually someone will make a move or they'll die of dehydration until only 1 remains.

So this thread is really about which of the Presidents has the largest capacity to store water in his body. Taft?

Yes! Taft wins!

Stop saying Taft. I'm already buried under tonnes of Taft MS analyses at work, no need for more Taft at home, really. Heidi is cool and whatnot but no.

The proponents of the stalemate solution should also take into account the uncompromising rules creating a very stressful situation. At least some of the weaker guys would be pretty gloomy when presented with the need to outlast tens of stronger men, resulting in their fatalistic approach allowing Jackson to mercifully slaughter them in one fell swoop.

The Washington factor is also overrated, it's a decidedly Highlander situation, so the first one to decapitate him could pronounce himself the new Washington by virtue of besting him. Why allying with Washington when you can BE Washington?

Though I would have thought by now that the only real answer is the only US President that can never die.

Still here to be picked, y'all.

Oh, PE, you must mean President Bird?

http://threewordphrase.com/presbird2.htm

see also http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9ovsoVoaU1ryzi3wo1_1280.gif

no, roberts, cleraly he means Carter. Can't get much more immortal than him

Don't be silly.

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100403125615/fallout/images/d/d9/President_eden_mainframe2.jpg

Can we set up a bracket instead of a melee? Then we can take bets, set up rankings, and determine odds of winning. Give each contender strengths and weaknesses. For example, Washington is a 7/7 Unblockable, while Taft is a 1/10 but comes into play tapped due to his presumed slowness.