I'm closer to ending the samurai/katana debate. My two new favourite anecdotes are from the 16th century.
At 1604 a bunch of English pirates [bunch of English knobs] sailing in the tiger, a small galleon, bumped into a junk [small sailing ship of Chinese origin] commanded by Wakos, Japanese pirates [bunch of Japanese knobs]. It was a friendly meeting between pirates of the East and West, with the Wakos drinking on Sir Edward's ship, the tiger. Then the Wakos drew their swords on the English, killing many until Edwards rallied his men and they drove the Wakos into the tiger's cabin with pikes.
Pikes > Katana
And it doesn't end there, because they then turned two 32 pound culverins [cross between a cannon and a musket] onto the cabin at point blank range.
The second would be at 1610, the Portuguese duel I was originally searching for. And to my absolute surprise, I gave the samurai far too much credit because they also lost to the Portuguese sailors while they were drunk.
The Captain, Pessoa got into an argument with a local governor at Nagasaki after allegedly killing some Japanese sailors at a previous year. The Japanese governor responded by sending 1200 Samurai with 30 ships to attack under cover of darkness.
The Samurai felt confident, and shouted insults at the Portuguese in the dark.
With the element of surprise having been squandered, the Portuguese galley opened fire with two broadsides, ending the first attack.
The Samurai tried the same thing the next night.
And the next.
And the next.
The final assault on the day after the last failure 1800 more Samurai were hired and they attacked the Portuguese ship with some sort of naval siege tower. The Portuguese fought and killed many Samurai, who were also using muskets along with their katana. They killed many Samurai, but after a grenade explosion set fire to the sails Pessoa realized the ship was lost and ordered the powder magazines to be set alight, tearing the ship apart in a massive explosion.
Checkmate Atheists