Sex? Intrigue? Political machinations? Whatever. Xena had all that and more way back in the mid ’90s.
The intro had proper talking in it.
...none of that pretentious "huge CGI cities being winched into place" nonsense you get in Game of Thrones. Xena's intro told you what the show was about and - more importantly- that it had both passion and danger in it. Game of Thrones tells you nothing: it's like fancy advert for a cog and map shop.
Source: youtube.com
Game of Thrones has too many characters.
...Xena only has two. Three if you count the horse. Who's this guy with the deer hat on? Don't even pretend that you remember.
Xena is a delicious variety pack of historical periods.
Game of Thrones is rooted in one time period: a sort of gritty medieval version of 80s kids' TV show Knightmare (but with more incest and fewer geeky 11 year olds). Xena, on the other hand, isn't restricted at all. One week she's fighting in the Trojan War, the next she's being crucified by Julius Caesar. Does she have a time machine? No. The writers didn't have Wikipedia in the '90s so they couldn't check their facts.
Xena contained way more girl on girl, er, wrestling.
Women really don't get to do much in Game of Thrones. Apart from secretly rule kingdoms behind their son's back, command an army of fearsome Dothraki warriors or disguise themselves as a boy and....ok, fine. They get to do quite a lot, but at no point do any of them put on saucy leather armour and kneel on each other, so it doesn't count.
