By which I mean fights to the death for the purposes of entertainment; did other cultures throughout history ever go in for it? The closest I can think of is trial by combat in ye olde medievale tymes, although nominally for the purpose of justice one imagines there was an element of entertainment for the gap-toothed yokels at the time.
There’s also mesoamerican rituals around and ball games, where the loser (or winner, I dunno) was sacrificed and Aztec ‘flower wars’ to capture people for sacrifice. Any others that come close?
Some of the Inca sacrifices were like gladiatorial combat. A captured enemy warrior would have one ankle chained to the ground and be given a club to fight a warrior from the home team. If he won, he had to fight another, and another, etc… The more times he won, the better the luck it brought the captors when he eventually died. And yeah, it was definitely a spectacle for the masses.
The Romans themselves said that their gladitorial combat was an import, either from the Etruscans or Campanians. I thnk it was most likely from the Etruscans.
IIRC Tacitus said that the ancient “Germans” used to do someting like this, making prisoners (de facto slaves) captured from neighboring countries (tribal units, whatever) fight, each with their own native weapons.
Some of the names the Romans used for specific types of gladitors suggest a similar origin. For example “Samnite” and “Thracian”. Customarily, one would not match up two of the same, but always different types.
How about the American Empire? “Gladiator Days” at Corcoran State Prison.