Uh... my fairly decked ogre warrior, wielding a nodisarm staff died to Azantar. He caught me unprepared, without sanc, just like Avar said. UndeadSkilled, tripped, dead. Plain and simple.
Hell, people used to call Nortak a beast. I killed him with my avian thief.
That undeadskill is a real bitch to be hit with for a warrior, especially an unprepped one. Hence why I think there's a logical fallacy in claiming that, based off experiences as an undead caballed thief, it's easy for a thief to outmelee a warrior in straight combat.
Hence why I provided the second example, with an uncaballed avian thief against the fire giant warrior Nexus leader.
Yeah, but did you just upfront melee him?
Hehe.
Backstab with dual vuln weapons and a brambus needler, in a one-exit room.
I mean... yes, I did.
My fire war barb Leader(charim) was ultimately killed in his near prime by a slith thief (eac). Had something like a 70/60 hit/dam(without spells), weapons of thief smiting, smoking barb L skills, and prepared up the wazoo. Of course, I absolutely refused to use poison back then, being as viri blatantly called it a bug and cheasy.
Needless to say, I was smoked. 
(yes, he used blackjack--not exactly a straight melee)
BUT
In my REAL prime of melee EQ (75/70?---75/65?-Something like that), I made the mistake to agree to fight a certain ninja in a straight up melee only duel. Being my ultimate melee combo, I thought: oh yeah! fresh meat! ninja eatin time!
In reality, I chose to use a flail + some other weapon (another flail--some blinding weapon I think?) and go for a straight bashlock. Of course, this 'warlord' had his rump handed back to him on a not-so-silver platter.
So, I was a FIRE (strongest race = straight out strongest offense), WARRIOR(highest average offense/defense in game), BARBARIAN (spelled up wazoo), LEADER (ok--L skill (didn't use it here) was really buggy and actually got me killed to SOMEONE who KNEW I had it and chose to abuse it, repeatedly). Once more, perhaps the strongest(not BEST) flat out melee combo in the game. I also had about the best EQ in the game (for a warrior). Also, I'm fairly experienced with warriors.
Anyways, I got smoked. I think I got this avatar ninja sigil L (perhaps he was still using the old sigil bug++old shadowstrike) down from small wounds on the last round of combat. Straight melee--just lagging skills + caltraps--no healing, etc. I was sad. It hurt. A lot.
I believe that knight ninja got ninjas toned when he outmelee'd a vamp.
Or am I confused? I could be...its been a while.
Ninja melee skills were toned a good deal after that guy, Celerity. Shadow arts was weakened, and ninjas lost autothrow on murder/flee unless they chose doublesheath as their ninjitsu.