The Gladiators are BACK!!!

I am a child of the 80s. And with that comes a lot of favorite TV shows including the American Gladiators! I LOVED that show - the challenges, the eliminator, the beefed up Gladiators... My personal favorite was Laser - he was dreamy, although Nitro did have a certain quality about him and definitely got a lot of face time...but I digress. The point is, someone (smart) in the TV world brought it back and the new American Gladiators premiered this past weekend! The show has gotten a lot of hype and none of it is undeserving - it's awesome!

They brought back some old challenges with a new twist - for the joust and hang tough (aka - ring swing), instead of falling into gym mats if you get eliminated, you're falling into water...ooooooh. They also brought back the tennis ball machine gun in the assault, which was a 'must have' in order for my husband to watch it. When he saw a glimpse of it in the commercials leading up to the premiere, he was locked in. Overall, the challenges seem tougher, the gladiators seem bigger and the contestants seem smaller and wimpier, but that was just a quick perception on my part (about the contestants).

Let's talk about the Gladiators. Back in the original Gladiators, you had dudes named Gemini, Blade, Thunder, Nitro and Laser. The women were Diamond, Ice, Lace and Storm...not very scary or intimidating but whatever. The new Gladiators are made up of Hammer, Justice, Mayhem, Militia, Titan, Toa and Wolf on the men's side and for the women, you have Blast, Crush, Fury, Siren, Stealth, Venom and the biggest lady of them all...Hellga! Hellga is BIG and although she may look intimidating at 6'0, 210 lbs, she is quite slow and is pretty underutilized in terms of challenges. And of the new American Gladiators, there is that one, on the men's side, that makes you go 'hmmm....'. We'll just call him the 'Vanity Smurf' of the Gladiator Group. In case you're wondering, the 'Vanity Smurf' of the original Gladiators? That would have to go to Malibu.

The show is pretty fast paced and the hour goes by quickly. I have to say that Hulk Hogan and Laila Ali do a great job hosting...and although you never see the commentators, the voices remind me of the claymation commentators from MTV's Celebrity Death Match. But everything I listed above isn't the real reason to watch....the REAL reason you need to watch the new American Gladiators....although they don't have gladiators like Blade, Lazer, Tazer or any other kind of '-azers', they do have the referee from the movie DODGEBALL (as seen on ESPN, the Ocho!).
I think that's one of the greatest parts of the show! Within the first 15 minutes of the premiere, I turned to my husband and said, 'You know, that sounds like the ref from Dodgeball' and that made me go do some research to verify that yes, that is indeed the ref from the Dodgeball movie - awesome! Now I'm hoping, in one of the episodes he just yells, 'Sudden Death' like in the movie - but I doubt that will happen.

So I'm on board, with the new American Gladiators - I'm happy with it so far and I hope it stays for a little while so I don't have to get my American Gladiators fix from ESPN Classic.