PARIS: Guess we’re going mano a mano today, huh?
BRAD: Oh God.
In Spanish, mano a mano literally means “hand to hand”, used to describe a duel between two opposing matadors in a bullfight. In informal American English, it’s used in the same sense as “one on one”, a direct confrontation between two adversaries on equal footing.
Some people wrongly think it means “man on man”, since the Spanish word for “hand” is so similar to the English word man.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 