Like The Man We Call Daniels, I was a fan of American Gladiators growing up. I was curious to see how things measured up to the original (still showing on ESPN Classic, btw).
First, if you haven’t seen this show before, the concept is simple – regular people compete against each other in games in order to try and advance to the finals and win $100,000. These games generally involve going up against the in-house athletes whose job is to prevent the competitors from scoring – the Gladiators.
The events I saw were Gauntlet, Hang Tough, Joust, Earthquake, Assault, The Wall and The Eliminator, although I couldn’t tell if the men and women participated in all of the events.
Now, let’s break it down:
The Good:
– Gina “Crush” Carano. Hot.
– Joust and The Wall. Nice to see that they kept two classic events the same.
– Gauntlet’s still pretty cool.
– Earthquake. Basically a tougher version of the Conquer ring. I think they stole the idea from Battle Dome though.
– Hi Def. Hells yeah.
– The Eliminator. At first I thought it was a bit crazy, but 4 out of 6 winners have thus far finished the course in under 2:30, so it’s not altogether bad. What is bad, I’ll list in the next section.
The Bad:
– Gina “Crush” Carano. 155lbs. No wonder EliteXC basically created a weight class for her. There’s no way she could cut down to 135lbs.
– Way too many cuts. It wasn’t a seizure-inducing amount, but you don’t need to show 5 angles in 5 seconds. And in the case of the Eliminator, it gave off a feel that you weren’t watching things happen in real time (which it was).
– Hang Tough. The grid seems a LOT smaller than the original, I suppose to account for the action taking place over the water. But Assault was also in a tiny area, and it seemed like they could’ve made things a lot bigger instead of claustophobic.
– No Breakthrough and Conquer. Boo.
– No DQ? Justice should’ve been DQ’ed
– No time penalties on the Eliminator. This will play a factor on the barrel roll, as some competitors are more likely to drop off rather than induce dizziness by “riding” the thing.
The Verdict:
Not too bad of a show, although some improvements could be made. From the sound of things, it’s already better than the Sunday debut, but time will tell if this show has staying power. For now, it’s good enough filler until the WGA strike is done.
