Anti-Last-Stand Strategy?

[Kreegan]

All of my non-Theatrics gladiators have identical problems vs. opponents (Rages in the vast number of the cases, naturally) with well-developed Last Stand. The fight goes smoothly until the point when the skill triggers and then my gladiator suddenly finds himself on the ground, tears in his/her eyes, etc. It's getting rather irritating, especially against 2H Rages who are winning in exactly the same manner against me for quite some time now - i.e. get beaten to very low health while scoring about 1-2 big hits in the meantime (still my own gladiator is well on his/her feet and can take some more), then their Last Stand strategy kicks in, they immediately score no less than 2 consecutive very heavy hits (less than 400 damage per hit and I feel lucky) and bring my fighter down. The only ways to avoid this scenario is either to respective Rage to miss one of his attacks; or to get kicked back if Create Distance triggers; or to be stunned before Last Stand triggers. Apparently all these are based on "luck" and I need something controlled.
So, in Rage vs. Rage there doesn't seem to be much room for experiments, it seems like whoever's Last Stand kicks in first (and provided that the opponents has suffered some damage prior to that) wins the battle - of course I'm open to suggestions how to turn this in my favour where possible. Theatrics and perfectly capable of countering most of Rage's strategies, including this one, so I'm skipping it. The only thing which comes to mind about War vs. Rage is to make a trigger for "Opponent is very injured" like 8-10 - Tank - 1-2 and hope that the Last Stand hits will get absorbed, then set a strategy for some counter-attack but I can't really figure out which trigger to use and where to place it so both can kick in when necessary (i.e. first defense to reduce the damage, then offense to bring down the opponent). Also, it looks counter-productive vs. other Wars and Theatrics and generally in close battles. Suggestions?