Shaolin Vs Samurai - Who would win?

The Samurai because Samurais were the best fighters in history!

Both train from a very young age. Today, samurai training is less popular, where the shaolin monk temple is still very much like it always was. In this day and age, a shaolin monk would have the upper-hand i believe. Go back in time, one thousand years, and the shaolin would likely have won as well. In the tenth century, samurai were just beginning, where the monks had been practicing martial arts and learning and teaching for several generations, almost three hundred years. One-on-one, if you took a warrior from each from the time of their peak, it would most likely be a close battle.

The samurai would win, and did win against Japanese warrior monks in Heien Mountain.

1185 during the Gempei Wars the Buddhist 'warrior' monks of Heien Mountain put up stiff and fanatical resistance but were defeated by the Samurai.

The samurai were full-time warriors, Shaolin monks are 'priests' first, and fighters last. Shaolin learn to fight to defend themselves against bandits when traveling far from home through ancient China, it was an exercise in self-sufficiency. There are Shaolin monks who never learn to fight at all, and at Shaolin Temple, if you do nothing but learn how to fight, you will be considered a bit weird.