The Gladiators Thread

[K]

On Richard Osman's podcast, Osman revealed that they have booked a gladiator for the next series of House of Games.

[Chris2K]

This week's show has been postponed due to the Man City/Newcastle FA Cup tie.

The folks on Reddit have gone nuclear about "sports always ruining the TV schedule", and my attempts to point out that more people like football than Gladiators haven't gone down well.

[K]

Legend telling Bradley Walsh his segment was bad is probably my #1 moment of the whole season.

Also Sabre continues to be an absolute megababe

[Benji]

Honestly, I've been on the Diamond and Dynamite bandwagon, but her rant about Betti may just have pulled me over.

[Chris2K]

From a pure Gladiator standpoint I remain firmly on the Nitro train, he has shown himself to be good/great at every event, and has so much personality and charisma to make a name for himself outside the show.

Legend has done a great job as well, Diamond and Sabre are stand-outs too but don't really seem to have found their role on the show yet. Fury is probably the best female Gladiator in that regard as she's constantly being the friendly tough girl who'll play hard then hug you afterwards. Viper certainly has his role, but it's really not working.

Those six, Apollo, Giant and Dynamite have been front and centre, but that has left Bionic, Fire, Electro, Athena and Phantom on the outside, mostly taking part in group Gladiator events or short individual ones. And Comet as well, but her leg was in multiple pieces quite early on. I feel like they need to something to level out how often each Gladiator is featured, otherwise what's the point in having more than 10?

[Benji]

100% on Nitro, his energy is infectious and he is simultaneously very good and has no real ego but plenty of cheeky chap about him.

[Chris2K]

On 07/03/2024 at 21:09, Chris2K said:

This week's show has been postponed due to the Man City/Newcastle FA Cup tie.

The folks on Reddit have gone nuclear about "sports always ruining the TV schedule", and my attempts to point out that more people like football than Gladiators haven't gone down well.

My bad, it's next week's show that's delayed, the first semi final is tomorrow at 5:50.

Also, as expected, Betti's in it as the fastest runner up. Hope she loses. Again.

[Bobfoc]

18 hours ago, Chris2K said:

Also, as expected, Betti's in it as the fastest runner up. Hope she loses. Again.

Just wait for her to get into the final because someone drops out.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

I hadn't realised this thread was here.

 

Firstly I agree with Keith that Legend saying the segment was bad was legitimately great. he plays the role well and is decent on the mic.

I also agree with him about Sabre being a megababe and gutted she got injured tonight.

 

Our whole family are enjoying it and have our fave gladiators. The Edge is a great event. Gauntlet needs a rethink or to get dropped for season 2. Shame that Comet got injured early as I liked her as a wall/hang tough specialist. Giant's a great big man. Fury's rugby skills always look brilliant on the events that can showcase it.

 

As for contenders, less fussed. We all want the Scottish woman to win it (taking part in semi 2) as she's been brilliant all the way through and is ridiculously rapid on the Eliminator.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

I think the Gladiators to build the franchise on are probably Legend, Giant, Sabre and Fury. Giant's not used as much on the mic as the other three who are all good on it (Legend especially) but has a role as a Shadow-like character. He's just huge and having him on Duel or at the end of Gauntlet just works visually.

Long term you're gonna want to keep Phantom and Nitro from the men - both are extremely athletic, Nitro's got great energy too and Phantom has a bit of edge to him. I feel the women are less clear cut. I'd like Comet to get another chance if she returns because I think she would have had a niche. I think Electro is worth keeping on long term too.

I think next up you have Apollo who is decent enough and Steel who is alright too. If I had to replace two men it would be Bionic (the worst of the big men) and Viper (Legend is the better heel, his schtick isn't working and he loses too much. Also him causing events to be restarted isn't fun and is dangerous when contenders cool down during the pause).

For the women I like Athena but it seems like they're not pushing her on the solo events. I know they'll keep Diamond but she's quite similar to Sabre who is better. Fire also doesn't have her own niche. I'd imagine they'll keep Dynamite but I'm not totally sold on her yet.

[Chris2K]

It's amazing, no matter how many times Betti keeps coming back, she still shows the grace and sportsmanship of a fart in a lift. First quite clearly cheating in Powerball, even admitting it afterwards, and then kicking Dynamite in the face on the Wall which got even the usually sweet-natured Dynamite to throw some shade at her. But hey, at least she stood up during Duel. Jake was just as obliviously obnoxious as ever, and it was nice of Finlay to bother with playing Gauntlet this time.

Looks like this is where Sabre tore her hamstring so she's done for the series, I can't help feeling that her taking part in four of the five events might not have helped her body. In all the episodes I've watched I've never known the same Gladiator take part that many times in the same show. The good folks at Reddit and I have theorised that there are female Gladiators unwilling to take part in the height events like Hang Tough, The Wall and The Edge, so once Comet went down it was left to Sabre, Fury and Diamond to cover them every show.

Speaking of The Edge, it seems pretty clear that the Gladiators have been told not to throw contenders off the extreme edges if possible, as Legend was about to then just stopped and let Jake go through. It's possibly because that safety net doesn't seem to cover much more than the surface area of the beams, so anything outside of that could be catastrophic.

Viper not talking was a great idea given that his voice has the threat level of a marshmallow. 

And Nitro on the wall was absurd. 

[Benji]

Betti wins me back by having a great Duel showing, then proceeds to ruin the good will by kicking lovely little Dynamite

Also, I love that the male contestants this week are Finn and Jake

[Chris2K]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C4YTmcbCFpW/?igsh=aDJzOTBhamlrYXd1 

Poor Viper.

[Chris2K]

Shameless plug - I have done the data for how the Gladiators are doing in the series so far, which is here:

 

[Cymbols]

Tremendous content. 

Really surprised me quite how many games Electra and Fire have played. Feels like they’ve not been super prominent, but guess they’ve been in the background of the multi Glad events.

[Chris2K]

That's what surprised me too, which pointed out to me just how important it is for a Gladiators appeal for them to have single player matches. Not only do they get the screen time all to themselves, but they also have an almost guaranteed interview afterwards to get their personality across.

I can't remember a single thing about Athena this year other than one interview where she said how much she loved Gauntlet after letting both contenders go by her like she wasn't even there.

Also, it was obvious that the rebooted Gauntlet was far less of a challenge than the original series, but for the original to have an average time of twice as long is crazy, even with one extra Gladiator.

[Chris2K]

On 17/02/2024 at 18:49, Chris2K said:

- Apparently there's a rule that says you can just decide not to do an event if you don't want to, which is new to me. Amazing how you can close an 11 second gap in the Eliminator when you have the extra energy from not doing the previous event.

Finlay, the contender who did this (who is now in the final) did an AMA on Reddit, and because I am unable to let things drop, I wrote a four paragraph question to him regarding this, asking how it happened and if it was a difficult decision.

I was under the impression that the producers made the suggestion based on the rule, but apparently not. According to his answer, he's the one who approached the production team and asked if he could skip the event, and there was no rule to say that he couldn't because it had never happened before. He took on my point that other contenders could try that on other events like Duel, where your opponent is also unlikely to score points, but was adamant that he did it due to fear of injury. I'm sure it was, but the answer hasn't helped my annoyance at this being allowed.

[Chris2K]

So many injuries in the men's competition, to the extent that we've ended up with a replacement facing a fastest loser in the final, in a rematch of a quarter final.

Wesley was already my favourite, but his Eddie Guerrero homage at the end sealed the deal.

[Tigerstyle]

Chung was my favourite for all of this. Sucks he got hurt. The lad who doesn’t do rounds is just going to win this

[Benji]

Apollo busting out the wrestling references, I get the feeling he and Wesley may have been chatting before The Edge

With the amount of subs and replacements in this first year of revival, I almost feel like they'd be better off having a three person format, but that would be more expensive and thus almost certainly won't happen.