Were there Gladiator like sports in societies aside from Rome ?

Well, the point of the game was the gore anyway, so it didn't matter too much if the ball didn't work well (not like the Aztecs had rubber anyway), and if the players wore padding it would kind of defeat the purpose.

The players were usually prisoners of war told that the winning team would be let go, IIRC.
The point was the gore? Not much gore from bouncing a rubber ball around, the point was the entertainment of the sport itself as all accounts attest to. You don't watch football or volleyball for the blood, do you? And the Aztecs did seem to wear pads. And as I said, games were played by professionals, and enthusiasts probably played informal games as well. Sometimes rulers would play eachother to settle a dispute. But prisoners would not play eachother. Not sure where you're getting this from. And in response to the skull thing, none of the books I have mention that at all, even the ones about Aztecs. And apparently professional Mayanists refute the idea, stating the only evidence are images from Chichen of a skull superimposed on a ball. That's not really much to go on. Images also show captives superimposed on a ball, but they obviously weren't put into one. They were just tied up into a ball.
 
lol what happened to my thread
Well somebody insisted that the Mesoamerican ball-game was just like a gladiatoral game, and that is incorrect. I had to correct them. Although I will admit it is a tad strange for a thread not only to derail while still on the first page, but to continue on the same tangent for three more pages.
 
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