I watched the premiere last night, and all it did was remind me that Spike used to carry the demi-ancient American Gladiator reruns. That's what this show reminded me of: the return of AG, only things are set up so that the contestants have as little chance vs. the pros as possible.

Having seen some of those reruns: the old AG contests were designed to partially eliminate differences in strength and size, leveling the playing field. To appease the retired athletes who make up the core of Pros -- and stroke their egos a little more -- things seem set up to show up the contestants as much as possible. Wrestling with Goldberg? Covering Jerry Rice? Shooting better than Dennis Rodman -- wait. Cancel that last. Even so, the goal seems to be 'How close can you come to something less than total failure?', not 'I could beat them, couldn't I?'

The rotating core of Pros might make this kind of interesting -- gee, Jerry was a bigger DAW than we ever thought, and Dennis is really racking up the show count -- but it's hard to see this becoming a weekly interest unless they switch to Dodgeball and clobber Brian. Again.

And whoever the host is, he's really annoying.

• RE: Pros vs. Joes.,byoffer, 12:03 PM, 03-08-06

I hadn't heard of this show, but found a preview on the Spike website. I agree with your read that it is all about making the Joes look bad and stroking the Pros' egos. Mostly a "look how funny it is when Rodman out-rebounds some short guy", and "look how funny it is when Romanowski rips the head of someone who isn't mutantly large, and who isn't on his own team".

And the pros are all doing their specialty. What about football running against Rodman, and basketball rebounding against Rodman? Then it would be a test of athletic ability, not just trained specialty.

There will be a lot of Pro supporters on the sidelines laughing it up, and the only real interest will be to see if the Joes can get lucky 10% of the time.

I will look for it once, but likely pass.

At least in American Gladiator the contestants had a chance. And besides, who could forget the uniforms???
Who knew this existed?? http://www.agdomain.net/

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