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Gay and lesbian fave show returns!
Gladiators
Lycra lovers of both sexes get ready: Gladiators are back!
"They're back in outfits if anything even skimpier than before and with names that are every bit as ridiculous as they were"
For any gay man or lesbian growing up in the 90s, Saturday evenings were always something to look forward to. Not because it meant a big night out, but because it meant athletic men and women in tight-fitting Lycra outfits would be climbing walls, wrestling and generally putting out while the camera caressed their bodies. Yep, it was Gladiators, where female PE teachers and male fitness trainers would pit their buff bodies against the waxed, oiled and over-coiffed Gladiators in a series of contests reminscent of It's a Knockout, the glory years.
And the good news as of this afternoon is that... they're back! In outfits if anything even skimpier than before and with names that are every bit as ridiculous as they were (it can't be easy being a female Gladiator lumbered with the moniker Battleaxe, mind), the Gladiators have been revived by Sky One as one of their highlight shows.
Gone is Ulrika, the presenter with a bit of a penchant for the Glads with the crazier hair, in her place are Ian Wright and Kirsty Gallacher, ready to preside over grown men hitting each other with outsize cotton buds on podiums that wouldn't look out of place in a gay nightclub and muscular women dragging each other off of walls.
"Outside of something like the Olympics, this is the toughest thing you can do," said Gladiators trainer and referee John Anderson at today's unveiling. "Britain should be proud of them." Erm, OK then.
