** Fredric Brown's "Arena" (novelette, free)

A rather complicated version of gladiators' fight to death for amusement of onlookers in ancient Rome.

A decisive war is about to be fought between humans invading aliens from another galaxy beyond the orbit of Pluto. But god-like aliens with powers similar to Arisians & Eddorians of E E Smith's Lensman series have intervened: a single human soldier & a single soldier of invaders, stripped of their weapons, must fight to death in an "arena" - a very exotic environment. Winner's race will live; other's will be destroyed by these gods!

Collected in.

1. Robert Silverberg (Ed)'s "The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Volume One, 1929-1964".
2. Isaac Asimov & Martin H Greenberg (Eds)' "Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 6 (1944)".
   

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, June 1944.
Rating: B.
Download full text, or comic book adaptation.

Note: Why is this post so short?