I'm watching American Gladiator on Hulu and figured I'd post some thoughts. I was pretty excited about the re-release as I used to really like the show when I was like 6. I'm expeting this new version to be pretty bad, but in an entertaining way.

1. Two injuries in the first 20 minutes A female contestant was hurt in the first round ever and a gladiator hurt his arms on the first ring event) It is too rough? Are the people too big? The male gladiators are definitely more like bodybuilders than they are athletes.
2. Wolf? This is so stupid and contrived- it's a gladiator who has to howl like a wolf all the time. After he did it once it was tired, but he kept at it.
3. Pyramid This is brutal, there is no good way to score here unless the gladiators screw up. And you get thrown down a flight of padded steps if you are caught.
4. Hulk This guy is ageless. He hasn't changed at all in like 20 years and talks just like he did back then. I'm still waiting for him to call a female contestant "bro". It was weird how he kept pointing out how beautiful the female gladiators were.
5. Eliminator It's okay, nothing amazing, though the barrel roll is amazing. The hand bike seems too hard for the woman, as it requires an incredible amount of upper body strength, especially after climbing that cargo net. The reserve escalator (travelator) is a clearly a killer after all that.
6. Major Disappointments They killed two of the best parts of the show- the tennis ball machine gun and at the end of the Eliminator when they crash through the wall and possibly run into a gladiator. The tennis ball course (Assault) was the best part of the show, but I also like the one when they ran around in the spheres, which was also left out.
7. Announcers These guys are terrible. So cheesy and forced. They would be great it I was still 6.

Overall, after watching part one I am not impressed at all. I'll watch it, just for old time's sake but it's just as ridiculous and dumb as you remembered. It's really sad that it's on during primetime. So yeah, the only reason the original one was any good because we were in elementary scho at the time. Edit- apparently part 2 of night 1 DOES have Assault. How could you leave this out of the come-back episode?