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"albeit ya reference the princess bride is there one good movie "best" sword fight you'd recommend"

I'd recommend two: Stewart Granger and Mel Ferrer in "Scaramouche," and Stewart Granger and James Mason in "The Prisoner of Zenda" (Although Cohen disagrees with me on that one). Some people like Flynn and Rathbone in "Robin Hood," although Flynn wasn't really a fencer.

They are Hollywood fights, but the actors were actually fencers (except Flynn), and the movements are correct. You can describe the action just as if you were an official at a competition. "Attack from the right by beat disengage, parried in six, reposte by coupe, parried in four, counter-riposte one-two arrives, touch against the left."

If you watch Granger and Mason in slow-mo, you can see one place where if Mason hadn't given ground, Granger would actually have opened his stomach up. Can't do that with actors today; if you're not a fencer, it's just too dangerous.

One of the things I really get a kick out of in "Prisoner" is that at one point Granger uses an unconscious gesture with his blade that means, "What the H$ll do I do now?" I've seen it so many times in practice and in competitions, and just get a real bang out of seeing it in a movie scene. It shows you that the guy has really studied and practiced.

There are two scenes in "Scaramouche" that show how helpless a fencer with little training is against someone who has really worked at it, which is a welcome contrast to Hollyweird's "Karate Kid" crapola, where a rank beginner beats a master after 15 minutes of lessons.

Fencing is, IMO, the most rewarding of all sports, and that is perhaps because it is the most difficult of all sports. Take an athletic, coordinated college kid, give him three tennis lessons a week for six months, and he can play at the country club without embarrassing himself. Oh, he's not going to win Wimbledon, but he's pretty effective for an amateur.

To get to that point in fencing takes about three years. And you can continue to enjoy it into old age, unless something happens to you like osteoarthritis of the spine.

Know what a lot of world-class fencers do to take a break from training and rest? They play tennis. Compared to fencing, tennis is a dawdle.

"Albeit just a graduate of E-Tool 101 fighting"

Whazzat?

"I was impressed with the old highlander series .....how did that rate for accuracy?"

Disclaimers: All my fencing has been with light, one-handed swords. In fact, as the article notes, no one in the West has used a two-handed sword in real combat for centuries.

That said, I think any martial artist (and fencing is a martial art, even though most people don't think of it that way) could point out a number of problems with the way they fight in Highlander.

The closest comparison might be Kendo. Not the movies, although Japanese movie-makers take a lot more care than Hollyweird (if they didn't, the Japanese nazis would stick kitchen knives in them), but competitive bouts between serious students of Kendo.

Just as any serious student of karate will tell you that those spinning roundhouse movie kicks to the head would be suicide against a skilled practitioner, this movie crap showing people spinning around while fighting with swords is just nonsense.

Even a fist-fighter will tell you that you shouldn't draw back your right hand for a roundhouse and telegraph your punch, because your opponent will sting you with three left jabs and be gone before your fist ever travels around that wide arc. The same principle applies when you're trying to cut or stab someone with a sword.