There was a programme about gladiator training last night - one of the things they seemed to be saying was that gladiator armour was mostly designed to "funnel" blows to where they'd do the most spectacularly bloody damage. Really not nice people, the Romans...
It was apparently quite rare for both gladiators to have the same weapon - more often than not they were matched by opposing styles, e.g. a retiarus (net fighter with net and trident) versus secutor (guy with heavy fish-like helmet, armour and dagger)
