American Gladiators is back with more awesome
Season 2 of American Gladiators came back this week, and it’s certainly at least as enjoyable as last season. The new season has all the gladiators you loved from last season (AKA Crush, Wolf, Titan), plus eight new gladiators including both winners from last season. (I guess being a gladiator pays well.) The women’s winner, Monica, is now called Jet, basically the same annoyingly perfect woman from season 1, now more manly and with blue streaks in her hair. She looks mean in the pictures, but isn’t really in person; she needs to get mean fast. Otherwise it’s just contender versus another contender on steroids.
Evan, the hyperactive, hypercheerful blonde-headed speed demon winner for the men last season, is now Rocket, a slightly more steroid-ed version of his previous self.
While it’s only been a few months, I don’t think any amount of training will get Evan to fit in with the rest of the male gladiators. I mean, look at the stats for this season’s roster so far:
6′2″, 230 lb
6′8″, 290 lb
6′3″, 220 lb
5′10″, 160 lb
6′3″, 251 lb
6′3″, 240 lb
6′4″, 225 lb
Guess which one is Evan :P
The new season has a few new events, but the first episode only showed a couple of them (and only 3 of the 8 new gladiators). I’m not impressed with any of them, but I do like the changes made to the old events. Basically, everything is like twice as big/wide/tall now. It seems like they got more money, cuz the number of arena spotlights seemed to have doubled too. What’s crazy are the changes to the Eliminator (final event). In season 1, when a contender fell off an obstacle, it was easy for them to just get right back out and climb out of the pit they fell in. So many people cheated on this with the handbike, which should be grueling, but isn’t when you just immediately let go, sprint across the pit, and climb out to continue. Pretty much zero punishment. Now the pits are deeper, and the handbike has a bunch of plastic balls in its pit.
American Gladiators: where a kid can be a kid.
So, a little bit harder, but not as good as having a gladiator run out and grab you for a time penalty. They also added a barrel run where people run down a spinning, slanted, large plastic tube. What’s fun about this one is that contenders lose their footing, slide down the tube and hit the end with their crotch. Awesome. However, the best/worst addition to the Eliminator has to be the finish line. After pushing the physical limits of your body and completely exhausting yourself, instead of busting through some cushions into some giant cushy mats at the end of the Eliminator, you instead have to rope swing through the paper finish line into a pool of water, where instead of catching your breath you drown because you’re shocked by the coldness of the water and are too tired to lift your head above the water. It’s cool tho; American Gladiators has ya covered.
He looks happy to have finished the race.
There also seems to be a little less talking this season, and I’m very thankful for that. I still hate contenders who are so frickin’ motivated and so frickin’ inspired by their kids; nobody cares. Instead, I love American Gladiators‘ editors, giving us wonderful moments such as the following:
Cute girl raises up sign to encourage her mommy.
Mommy is moved by sign.
Mommy is now encouraged and motivated to face the undefeated Crush in Joust.
Mommy gets owned by Crush.
Girl’s heart
By the way, I still have a crush on Crush. *gush* I’m quite satisfied with the first episode of the new season. I mean, how can you beat broken-hearted children and contenders with disabilities? (Dude, one guy has a freaking prosthetic leg in the first episode!) Apparently, most of America disagrees and decided to watch shows with “writers” this week. And I use that term “writers” loosely. (House has been total crap since it came back from hiatus.) America would rather watch Two and a Half Men than watch people getting beat down. What is the world coming to?
New thing I learned today: The UK and Australia each have their own rendition of the show, simply called Gladiators.
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I love Crush too!! =) And I missed “Jet” but “Rocket” was awesome. I think he should be used only to race other people to the finish line. He’s a fast motherf’er. I wonder how much they get paid…
I hope this show lasts… the rating sucked much genitalia for episode one.
1That photo montage is hilarious.
2Lol i know the photos are hilarious and have you seen the first ever season of A.G. its preety cool i guess.Sometimes i feel sorry for the helpless challengers thhat have tiface the gladiators.
3sorry for the typos above :o
4