Rage 2:2 Glad He Hater

As a baby of the 80s, my fond childhood memories have been vigorously skullfucked by the studios in the name of remake.  What could have been a renaissance of nostalgia has all the warmth and aplomb of being teabagged by Jack Frost.  It’s not the same as it was, it’s bigger, it’s faster, and it’s shinier.  And so, though I held a modicum of breathless anticipation that the reincarnation of the American Gladiators on NBC would be fantastic, my hopes were dashed to bits like a elementary schooler sledding into the highway during the morning commute. 

The show returned with a bevy of new gladiators, 24 new contenders to compete in a tournament style showdown for a measly $100,000 (which might very well have been the same amount they fought for last time) and a little of the old and a little of the new.  The format of the show is still the same, four games and then the eliminator.  They’ve kept the concept of the ladies and the men matching up in some differing contests.  Which I was all for.  I like that you might get to see some six or so challenges in the course of an hour.  Unlike Deal or No Deal, which has all the variety of “You pick box!  Now pick other box!” like something you’d see on Taiwan cable access, it helps the hour move along. 

Serving up hosting duties instead of Sportscoat McWhatshisface like the last series, we’ve got Hulk Hogan and Leila Ali.  Honestly, I don’t know what woman would work for this format.  I’m all for putting in a gymnast, like Kerri Strug or someone tiny, and having them leap to try to communicate with the gladiators (or be the same size as the fucking contenders, but we’ll get to that).  Leila Ali can throw a brutal punch, and maybe if she were beating the fucking shit out of the contenders it’d be interesting, but instead we’ve got her awkwardly smiling her way through the cue cards like one of those nerds at the Scripps Howard spelling bee.  Hulk at least is a natural choice, and fits in for the carnivalistic bullshit of the new show.  I think they need to mine the WWE for some talent, or at least scab up some writers. 

The new gladiators are for the most part lame.  I mean, they’ve got names like Militia and Fury.  Titan looks like Henry Rollins in drag, with that dimpled chin and blonde sweepback.  And he’s potentially the least offensive.  Justice and Mayhem are excellent, just giant towering monsterish freaks of nature.  When they stand next to the contenders, they actually look like they might eat them.  The ladies at least look like ladies for the most part, which was obviously what they were going for.   They knew that would be part of the criticisms.  But the lady gladiators for the most part have no personality or charisma.  They look like they creatined up a couple Miss America castoffs and told them to punch people.  It’s sort of a low grade bimbo, not what we expect thanks to Vince McMahon. 

Then we’ve got the gimmicky gladiators, the poorman’s wrestler.  Wolf at least has the decency to own up to sucking.  If he howls one more fucking time, I’m seriously going to kill something small and furry with hammers.  No worse an offender than Toa, who’s apparently the Rock’s cousin.  I hope someone snaps his fucking neck by grabbing the tribal beads in the middle of one of his Maori chants.  But the greatest disappointment of all is Helga.  Seriously.  You’ve got a giant blonde gladiator with pigtails and a skirt.  She’s got all the Viking fervor of Lars Van Trier.  Except Lars might cut a motherfucker.  He crazy like that.

The gladiators were never dressed up like characters.  They were giant pumped up superathletes, who talked trash and fought hard.   This time, there are no personalities that leap out, and the ones that do are marketed to the point they’re probably already got action figures.  It makes me long for the days of Killian bringing out Subzero. 

The games aren’t as exciting.  I’m honestly pissed they got rid of the hamster cages.  That spectacle was well worth the event.  But the ones they decided to keep are the boring ass ones.  You’ve seen more exciting challenges on Dog Eat Dog.  Hang Tough was never a good event, neither was Pyramid.  It was only amusing because of the puny contenders getting hurled through the air.  The new one, Hit and Run, is shit.  It’s great on MXC, when small Asian women are hurled to their doom in rivers of shit.  It’s less impressive or gladatorial to see these massive muscle mound hurling giant beanbag swings at people scampering on a drawbridge.  Get rid of it.  And Earthquake would be good if there were no pussy ass wires hanging around.  It should be illegal to grab the wires.  Then it’s a match.  I don’t understand the water obsession.  Why does everyone have to fall into water?  That’s not athletic.  That’s what happens at Splash World.  And why the fuck do they insist on playing “Another One Bites the Dust” when it happens?  What is this, a fucking high school football game?  Next up, Rock and Roll Part Two! 

But nothing pissed me off worse that what they did to my beloved Assault.  What kid did not want to fire Nerf guns at someone shooting at them with a fucking tennis ball cannon?  That’s the bread and butter of America, son.  But no.  The weapons are all kinds of stupid fucked up.  They look like props left over from a bad Sci-Fi Channel movie.  And the contenders have to load them themselves?  What the fuck is that?  They couldn’t even figure out how to fire the second gun.  And they made them jump into a sandbox to dig up an arrow for the crossbow?  What the fuck is that Muppet Baby shit about?  At least the gladiator now gets launched four thousand feet into the air if you can figure out how to shoot them.  It’s like those Atari games you’d get where you couldn’t figure out how to start the game or what you were supposed to do, because there were no instructions. So you’d play for five seconds, get frustrated and throw them away. 

The Eliminator is new and combines every single piece of gym equipment they could burgle from Bally’s and mount on giant girders and set on fire.  There are no more Gladiators involved, which I found disappointing.  It’s not so much what they had done in relation to the action as what they had done when they were hurling their balance beam beanbags (see there, it makes sense, not as a fucking event unto itself).  The Gladiators would shout and cheer on the fucking contenders.  That was awesome. 

And then we’ve got the biggest problem.  The fucking contenders.  These pussyrags are crap.  One gets ankled out during POWERBALL.  For fucks sake.  They don’t stand a chance against the Gladiators.  In any match of strength, they were getting tossed like fucking salads in prison.  The guys only won the Joust because the fucker stepped on to their platforms because he was whooping their ass that hard.  The Eliminator has them fucking staggering to the finish line, like they ran the Boston Marathon carrying Mario Batali on their backs.  I’m sorry, it’s really nifty that the Asian kids are strong willed and can do backflips and shit, but they’re built like popsicle figures. 

At least the second batch starting talking trash and mixing it up.  That’s what we want.  Violent confrontation, coupled with backpats and headbutts.  You want them to kill each other, talk smack, and then fucking punch shoulders after the battle.  I want battle.  None of this new age, life coach shit I was getting yesterday. 

I have little hope for this being much better, but it’s early in the taping (they taped everything for competition over three or four weeks).  So maybe the Gladiators just needed some time to get into their own.  They need to cut out the goddamn reality TV, “I’m doing this for my momma who’s dying of cancer/new baby girl/beautiful life partner Guido/country/Jesus/fat kids everywhere” speeches before each show.  I don’t need to know what these fucks do for a living.  I just want to see them fight in foam rubber and take on giant sweaty mongoloids. 

And if you don’t think we need writers more than ever, just listen to the banter these fuckers “spontaneously” spout before competition.  I’ve heard better lines from the boxers in Punch-Out.  Bring me the head of Soda Popinski!

ADDENDUM:
I watched last night’s show.  They definitely ramped it up.  It was fun to watch.  It seems like they’re at least trying to make it a little more entertaining.  I still hate Assault (and it was sponsored by Nerf), and I still think the female gladiators are lacking in personality, but it was a much more aggressive contest.  The contenders were by far better this time.  And I guess that’s what’ll do it.  If you’ve got people who will throw down. 

American Gladiators should be like wrestling.  I want spectacle.  I do remember the original Gladiators, and what made that fun was the same thing that makes World’s Strongest Man or the Stihl Outdoor Games fun.  It’s not that we’ve got dudes who are strong or good at lumberjacking.  It’s that they are competiting in brutal challenges.  It’s impressive that a guy can lift a fucking 350 lb. keg in the air.  It’s better when he’s racing other guys to see who can throw the most kegs into a beer truck.  What bothered me about the first night’s show was that there was no contest.  The contenders sucked and the gladiators were not very interesting either.  Monday’s show was much better.  When Wolf (howling aside, he’s growing to be my favorite) reached out with his legs to grab the contender from the platform and pulled him free, I was stunned.  When the two women were grappling in Hang Tough in a leg lock, that was awesome.  I know, Hang Tough, right?  That’s what I mean.  I want there to actually be a chance.  Yeah, as funny as it was to watch the little dudes get hurled off Pyramid, you want them to have a fighting fucking chance. 

I want this show to make it.  I love stuff like this.  And last night’s show gave me hope.  Viva los Gladiators!