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Previous Episodes May 12 May 19 May 26 June 9 June 16 June 23 June 30 July 7 July 14 July 21 July 28 |
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Forty men and women have come to Hollywood with one goal: to take on the next generation of American Gladiators for a shot at $100,000. Recaps by Joe Mello, GSNN FACT FILE: Hosts: Hulk Hogan & Laila Ali Gladiators: Gina Carano (Crush), Monica Carlson (Jet), Alex Castro (Militia), Robin Coleman (Hellga), Evan Dollard (Rocket), Breaux Greer (Hurricane), Beth Horn (Venom), Matt Morgan (Beast), Mike O'Hearn (Titan), Tanoai Reed (Toa), Justice Smith (Justice), Erin Toughill (Steel), Corinne van Ryck de Groot (Panther), Valerie Waugaman (Siren), Jennifer Widerstrom (Phoenix), Xin Wuku (Zen), Don "Hollywood" Yates (Wolf) Referee: Al Kaplon Announcer: Van Earl Wright Creators: Johnny Ferraro & Dan Carr EP: Howard T. Owens, Mark Koops, Johnny C. Ferraro, J. Rupert Thompson Origin: Gladiator Arena, LA Sports Arena, Los Angeles Packager: Reveille, Room 403 Productions, MGM Website: nbc.com/gladiators |
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Semi-Finals
3/Finals It’s finals night, thanks to those damn Olympics, but first, some unfinished business—the third and most intriguing semi-final.
Previously, Randee was on the first show of the 2nd season. Mike got ¾ of hit points from Hit & Run. We start with Pyramid. Mike gets Justice and Randee draws the Beast. (That’s 608 pounds of Gladiator for those of you scoring at home.) Beast kinda lets Randee get 5. Justice does a good job with Gamble until the afterburners kicked in. The Glad went for the finisher and missed, letting Mike score 10 with under a second to go. You know it’s going to be fun with a 10-5 score after Pyramid.
Round 1 for the women is Rocket Ball. Doing the aerial acrobatics will be Panther and Crush. Panther delivers a “wicked hahd” shot to the Boston collegiate, which causes the contender to pause. Luckily, she only got the wind knocked out of her and only lost by a score of 7-5. Men’s Hang Tough is next. Wolf doesn’t get Randee, but Randee doesn’t get points because he didn’t get a blue ring. The Glad redeems himself by dunking Mike, so there’s no change of score. Now it’s time for the women, and Atlasphere. In the big balls are Venom and Phoenix. Annie gets a buzzer beater to prevent the shutout, but it’s still a 4-2 loss and now an 11-7 deficit. Men’s Atlasphere now. Against the contender is 1200 lbs of metal and the 450 lbs of Hurricane and Militia. Despite a couple of misfires (gee, this really is classic Atlasphere), Randee is victorious 4-2. Mike’s advantage is now only 12-9. Round 3 for the women is the revised 10/5/0 Gauntlet. Our batting order is Phoenix, Venom, Siren, and Hellga. The back half gives Abbe a mighty dose of pain, but she still manages 5 points. Siren proves to be the MVP of the match, helping light up Abbe and keep Annie scoreless. So instead of 10-6, it’s 5-0 for Abbe and 16-7 for Abbe after three. Back with the men. Skytrack was Skytrack and Titan on Joust was Titan on Joust. No bonus points for the one-hit kill on Mike, though. No change in the score. Round 6 for the men is Power Ball. Titan, Toa, and Beast will be playing defense, and Titan says he shouldn’t be the concern. After some flash and panache, Randee wins 5-2 and take a look at this.
A 3 vs 4 match tied up heading into the last event? You can’t get more dramatic than that. Randee’s 8-second gap in seed time will mean jack tonight. Over on the women’s side, Crush yielded two draws on Tilt while Steel did Crush’s job on Joust. It’s 21-12 heading into women’s Powerball. Crush, Panther, and Siren are defending. Annie took the long way around to score a center bucket, but it was the difference in a much-needed 6-4 win.
They’ve been slow and steady, but Abbe has the lead. With their seed times separated by only 2 seconds, that may be enough. We start with the men’s Eliminator. No head start means it’s a good old-fashioned foot race. And it is a good-old fashioned foot race, but Mike gets priority on the Rolling Pin, and that was it for the race. The Gambler wins AND…
95 seconds is good enough to get him into the finals. Both he and Tim might have dodged a bullet because speed is no good when the other guy drops 40 on you. It’s not going to be that easy for the women, though. Abbe does have a 3.5 second lead and is able to keep her opponent at arm’s length despite a brief back-and-forth on the Travellator.
Unfortunately a major brain fart cause Abbe to almost skip the teeter-totter, pretty much costing her a spot in the finals. Speaking of which, let’s get to it!
Tim’s been the Eliminator minuteman, but Mike shaved off 23 seconds from his Eliminator time. Another 23 and he has the title. Mike starts off Gauntlet against Toa, Titan, and that’s as far as he got. 20 seconds with Titan means no points. Tim gets through those two, Justice, and Beast, but in 20.6 seconds. Instead of 10-4 Tim, it’s 5-0 Tim.
Tiffaney looks to be a big underdog here, but she had the faster time in the finals. We start with Sideswipe and those swingers of Jet, Siren, and Phoenix. Ally gets 2 before Phoenix clips her into the drink. Tiffaney got 4 before Jet kicked the ball out and Siren kicked Tiffaney out. It’s 4-2 to the underdog. It’s Men’s Swideswipe now. Militia, Zen, and Wolf will add to the difficulty. Mike had a ball kicked out at home base, so he picked another one up. You can’t do that, but he does stay dry with 5 points. Tim gets a personal best of 7 before getting blowed up [sic] by Militia once more. After two, it’s 12-5 chalk. Hang Tough is our next event for the women. Ally is first and faces Phoenix. She almost tries to grope the Gladiator for survival but it doesn’t work. Tiffaney, however, was able to get past Phoenix and score a 28-second win. Big ups to the little woman who now leads 14-2. Round 3 for the men is going to be interesting. It’s Pyramid—a contest in which both men have scored 10 previously (and Tim an extra 5). Tim gets a rubber match with Titan, and the Gambler wins Toa. Titan ends up in a two-Glad pile-up which means it’s a race to the top. Tim, being the immediate benefactor is able to slam the button to get the extra 5. The match was bananas, but Mike should be going ape over currently losing 22-10. Round 3 for the women is Joust. Crush is here to show her stuff one last time. Tiffaney got in the first hit, but Crush got in the rest. Against Ally, Crush says either she gets dunked or she jumps in herself. Ally’s defense fails, so Crush takes a dive (a round-off, no less). She leaves with 0 losses and Tiffaney leaves Joust with her 14-2 lead. In men’s Hang Tough, Wolf went another 2-for-2. Tim got cut above the eye, thanks to Titan, but he won Rocket Ball 4-1. With Tim holding a 25-11 stranglehold, we go to the Wall. Mike gets Militia and Tim gets the old champ, Rocket. By the time the latter got to the wall, Tim was already half-way up. Tim the SCUD missile gets to the top in 26 seconds for another 10. Mike…doesn’t.
Despite not breaking 20 in his prior attempts, Tim explodes for 36, scoring in 5 of 6 events. Mike’s going to need his opponent to lose a leg or something in order to claim victory here. Pyramid for the women was much less exciting, as it was another shutout. Rocket Ball was another story, as Ally was able to take a huge chunk out of her hole by winning 10-3. All of a sudden, it’s 17-12 Tiffaney before the Wall. Our leader gets Venom while Ally gets the women’s former champ, Jet. It’s a race to the top, but Tiffaney gets there first for the 10-5 win.
Ally underperforms while Tiffaney steps up. The lead is 10, but you never know. Ally was top seed for a reason. Now it’s time to see who gets $100,000 and a Toyota Sequoia. It’s the Eliminator. We start with the men and Tim’s 25-point lead. With a 12.5 second difference in start times, Mike will probably need to run the course in a raw time of 60 seconds. It doesn’t happen as Tim is just too much, claiming victory in another amazing time of 81.1 seconds. (Monster9, give this man a trip to SASUKE. Please.) It’s the women’s turn at the Eliminator. Tiffaney entered the tourney as the 5th seed, but she has a 5-second head start. Ally made a smoother climb up the cargo net to take the lead. She fell off the hand bike, but Tiffaney also fell inches from the end. That’s enough to prevent any drama as Ally, the wedding day registrant wins the championship in a women’s best 1:45.7. Jeff, husband and semi-finalist decides to dive in with her.
These are you champions for 2008: Ally Davidson and Tim Oliphant. It was close, but chalk prevailed. Will it do the same next time? Will there be a next time? Who knows, but so long from American Gladiators, brother! |
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