This article was first published in the September 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online

Australian startup Chiron Global wants to bring back gladiatorial combat -- without the blood. Its new sport, Unified Weapons Master, combines weapons-based martial arts with sensor-lined armour. The aim? To emulate the success of the mixed martial-arts Ultimate Fighting Championships. "Of the 303 martial arts, about 96 of them are weapons-based. These are fading into obscurity, because there's no forum where these athletes can compete safely," says co-founder and CEO David Pysden, who, along with Justin Forsell, first came up with the idea in 2009. "We contacted every force-measurement company we could find, and they all said, 'It can't be done, you're crazy'," says Pysden. Undeterred, they built a prototype using a motorcycle helmet and managed to raise seed funding.

The team consulted with martial artists and armour experts -- including a designer who built suits for the Lord of the Rings films -- to develop the Lorica armour (pictured). "We studied designs from the Roman army through to the 15th century and up to modern-day motocross and ballistics gear," says Pysden.

The Lorica's plates contain sensors that measure the locations and force of each impact; the data is then fed into a medical database. "We're collecting data on fracture profiling, soft-tissue damage and concussive force," says Pysden. "That forms the basis for our scoring system." Wearing the armour, fighters will use their choice of non-edged weapons from an array of combat styles ("We don't intend to use real samurai swords, for obvious reasons"), with successful blows determining the winner. Chiron will host closed test events in Australia and New Zealand this autumn, before launching Unified Weapons Master globally in 2016.

So how does it feel to wear? "You definitely still know you've been hit -- this is for world-class athletes. But it's better than the alternative."

This article was originally published by WIRED UK