no swords and sandals...
the fights were completely automatic, you just randomly could fight against 5 other guys of about same level a day to earn xp and possible random perk/weapon drop. you also could take part in one tournament a day (if i rememeber correctly). but even in tournament all the fights were automatic, you just could replay your fights to see 2 guys in 2d flash graphics beating the shit from each other.
the game was really popular like 2-3 years ago.
also if sbdy registered a new char from your link, he was giving you xp for fights he was fighting so that your char could level faster than from a tournament and 5 fights a day.
your char could have like 20 weapons but in fights he pulled them out only sometimes and always randomly... also he was using his skills he gained while fighting randomly. higher lvl char had more weapons/perks but it didn't mean he would auto-win the lower char. as the lower char could pull out his only good weapon in 1st round while the other "stronger" guy just randomly pulled out some crap weapon from a huge list he had.