Who Am I?

Shame is an emotion that is foreign to no one. There are moments in everyone’s life that they regret. Things that embarrass you, which you hope no one finds out about. You look at yourself in the mirror and can’t meet your own gaze. You think to yourself, is this really the direction my life has turned, has it really come to this. These are the things I was going through last night while watching 2 hours of the new American Gladiators. Who am I? I’m better than this right? Apparently not. I just had to check it out; I loved American Gladiators as a kid and wanted to see if the newer version measured up. It did not. While watching the latest rendition of the show I recalled that American Gladiators was originally aired on Saturday mornings, meaning it was aimed at children and professional wrestling fans, neither of which applies me anymore (although some might argue that I am in fact still a child, at least emotionally). The question though is how you can actually get worse than this:



Basically the show is nearly identical to the original, with a few added wrinkles. Like water! And fire (but only from a safe distance)! Awesome. Also there is a new game where gladiators throw 100 lb. Nerf balls at contestants trying to run across a bridge. Just like in ancient Rome! The worst part about the show now though is all the trash talk. They tried to give it more hard edge by interviewing the contestants before and after every competition to let them talk smack to each other and the gladiators and it’s simply brutal. There is a very small percentage of the population that can talk trash and sound cool. None of them were on this show. They just sound like jackasses and it makes me cringe every time someone opens their mouth. Oh and if there is only a very small percentage of people who can successfully trash talk, than a very small percentage of that very small percentage are women. It’s just not in their DNA. Its science look it up. Next they mic’ed the Gladiators, which was just a horrible idea. If I wanted to hear meatheads grunting out stupid comments I’d spend more time at the gym. I’m not interested in hearing Titan wax poetic on is chances of tossing a 140 lb. asian man off of a 40 ft. foam pyramid. One more thing, Hulk Hogan and Laila Ali, you are no Mike Adamle and Larry Csonka.

Having said all that though, I think I might be hooked. It happened shortly into the second hour of competition. The first appearance of Hellga (not a typo) the fat gladiator. Hold on, let change that to Hellga the Fat Gladiator. From now on that’s her proper name on this blog. She was completely hapless and I loved every second of it. They stuck her at the end of the Gauntlet, I’m certain with the idea that after having three other gladiators pounding on the contestants with giant foam sticks their fatigue would balance out Hellga the Fat Gladiators shortcomings. Those being lack of lateral movement and overall athletic ability. Their plan failed. After struggling through Crush, Fury, and Stealth the contestant reached Helga the Fat Gladiator and zoomed by untouched as she failed desperately. They’re running between two walls maybe 10 feet apart and without even putting any kind of move on her the contestant just ran right by without even a tap from Hellga’s foam covered hands. The second contestant chose a different approached. She just powered right through Hellga, which you’d think given her girth would be a difficult task but apparently not. I loved outfit too; everyone else is wearing the tightest spandex imaginable to show off their physique, but she’s wearing a skirt. Which I’m sure together with the pigtails and the name is meant to infer some sort of Bavarian ancestry but I’m not buying it, I’m pretty sure is to cover up her ass. Needless to say I’ll probably tune in again just hoping for a Hellga appearance. I think that alone would be worth it. Well that and quotes like this from one of the contestants, “I was just trying to grab any extremity I could and hold on as long as possible.”

That’s what she said.