15 years on, Dark Souls 1's best boss is nearly undefeated fighting Elden Ring's bosses, and one of his KOs definitely doesn't count

"Who would win in a fight, this guy or this guy" is one of the most worthy questions you can ask, so I love those YouTube channels that do NPC battle royales⁠—the Oblivion Imperial City Arena walked so these guys could run. The channel "Elden Ring Fights" is exactly what it says on the tin, and it recently uploaded a banger: Dark Souls' Artorias vs. the bosses of base game Elden Ring.

FromSoft dusted off the venerable swordsman to serve as a boss in Elden Ring Nightreign's recent Deathly Forsaken Hollows DLC. He's effectively been "ported" to Elden Ring's iteration of the FromSoft game engine, allowing Elden Ring Fights to pit him against the Lands Between's finest.

And boy, for a battered veteran coming out of retirement, Artorias fares better than all those tomato cans they kept setting up in front of Jake Paul. Artorias went on an absolutely brutal tear through the bosses of Elden Ring: Early terrors like Margit and Godfrey don't stand a chance, with single hits from Abyss Artie chunking their health bars. If you have a real job and don't like watching 30-minute YouTube videos, here are the highlight battles I'd recommend skipping to:

• 8:22 - Maliketh the Black Blade
• 13:31 - Dragonlord Placidusax
• 16:53 - Radagon & Elden Beast
• 24:06 - Malenia

All four of these were fun to watch because they're quite dynamic, close fights. Maliketh delivers one of only two L's to Artorias, coming from behind in spectacular fashion in his second phase. I don't think I've ever once felt in control of the Maliketh battle across five playthroughs, and if he had a beefier health bar, I think he'd be the toughest guy FromSoft ever made.

Malenia is Malenia: The fact that she can be flinched gives her a huge disadvantage in these boss vs. boss battles, which do really boil down to facetank DPS races. But her health back on strikes, plus the (mostly) uninterruptible Waterfowl Dance, make up for it.

Placidusax and Elden Beast are notable for being come-from-behind victories for our boy in blue. His AI clearly wasn't designed to handle their mobility or brutal AoE attacks, not to mention the Radagon - Elden Beast fight's marathon nature. And yet, he still squeaked it out. The Fire Giant fight is similarly close, but it's a slog to watch.

I have absolutely no respect for Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy, née Praetor. He's a big dumb blob of snake with two health bars and an AOE fire damage effect, resulting in an unentertaining, unearned victory over Artorias. That's a Mickey Mouse title belt he's wearing, I tell you.

But this video also doesn't tell the full story: We don't know how Artorias fares against Shadow of the Erdtree bosses. Another Elden Ring Fights video shows him getting beat by Carian Knight Rellana in a different context, which doesn't bode well for his chances elsewhere. Still, Artorias risks sullying his legacy as a fighter, preserving a 20 - 2 - 0 record by not taking fights he might lose.