Chris2K

Well that was a lovely performance. Thankfully Udogie seems to be OK after McGinn tried to end his career. Even Werner scored again, things must be going well.

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.

I have no regrets in stopping watching halfway through to watch Gladiators.

Hooray! It's my once-a-decade opportunity to celebrate Italian rugby!

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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.

I think there's a decent chance Ngannou knocks Joshua out. Meanwhile, in "boxing" news, Jake Paul is fighting Mike Tyson on Netflix later this year. What a sentence to write in 2024.

True, but Nyck de Vries wasn't a Williams reserve driver when he replaced Albon in Monza in 2022, and took over the seat at the same time that Bearman has here. This may just be part of my ongoing annoyance that F2 champions like Pourchaire and Drugovich have so many restrictions placed on them through a combination of them not being allowed to race in F2 again, and F1's refusal to allow any new teams in where these young drivers can get a shot. Or in Drugovich's case, being behind the boss's underperforming child.

It feels a bit weird that Ferrari's reserve driver is an 18 year old Brit, but good luck to Ollie, even if I fear he might be a bit out of his depth with such little prep time. I would have thought Theo Pourchaire would have made more sense given his links to Vasseur, and being the reigning F2 champion, but maybe Sauber have him locked down.

Maybe it's not over if Ant can keep doing this...

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?

KAT is out indefinitely with a torn meniscus. So that's this season gone, Ant can't exactly do much when he's being triple teamed on the perimeter.

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.

On a slightly related YouTube topic, my favourite video game YouTubers Outside XBox/Outside Xtra are doubling down on their D&D content (believed to be because they get paid independently from the Gamer Network for D&D videos), so their video game content has become gradually less and less, to the extent it's now 1 list video a week and 1 live stream a month (if any) between the two channels, with the occasional video sponsored by the game they're playing. It's a real shame that they seem to be moving on, particularly if, like me, you're not interested in D&D, but it's their decision at the end of the day and nothing lasts forever.

It's past the point of being able to make this stuff up. Red Bull have suspended the woman who made the complaint against Horner. Of all the options to take at this time, that is certainly one of them.

I've just bought Lost Judgement as it was on sale, but I know Judgement is the first game so I'm waiting for that to be on sale as well before I play Lost Judgement.

Next up on the "thank God the off-track stuff is so crazy so nobody notices how boring the races are" train is this: Mohammed Ben Sulayem: FIA president allegedly told officials not to certify Las Vegas GP There's no reason given as to why he would demand a circuit to found not safe to hold a race, but I think we're past the point of sense being a requirement.

Watching Otmar get sacked halfway through a race weekend last year is not exactly making me sad to see Alpine struggle this season.

No you're about right, certainly the biggest difference is that Wolf's behaviour was pre or post game, and whilst he lost quite a lot he rarely got intentionally disqualified or actively looked like he was trying to lose. Viper feels like he's gone off the deep end of being a whipping boy, to the point that it's just assumed he'll lose every time. They do really need to stop the best loser for next series, and I'm sure the BBC might be willing to give them more episodes. Doing it once for the 1/4 final is understandable, but again for the semi final is ridiculous. Imagine someone getting through to the semis after losing twice, but boy can they climb a cargo net quickly. On that note, I've just finished watching one of the 1996 International Gladiators semi finals...

The drama at RB was something worth watching at least. It continued on the cooldown lap as well with Yuki divebombing Danny Ric at turn 1. Meanwhile, Alpine's Technical Director and Head of Aero have already tendered their resignation.

Thank God Betti has gone. From pushing Fury's face into the mat during The Ring, to being the worst competitor in Duel history, in addition to her antics during the Eliminator in the first round, she may be the most unsporting and unlikeable contender from any series. That said, the editing made it very clear she will be the fastest loser, so I expect she'll be back. Kinda glad Ash didn't get through as well, I appreciate his representation but he looked constantly scared during every game against a Gladiator and offers barely any challenge until the Eliminator. Legend was my favourite Gladiator this week, got me to properly laugh twice with his interviews with Bradley.

Well... at least it was vaguely close?

Somehow they managed it with Bond in Skyfall, SPECTRE, AND No Time to Die.

Apparently it's not just a bunch of stuff, it's every piece of evidence from the investigation, and its been sent to every media outlet, team principal and F1 executive. This is going to be an interesting 24 hours...

Christian Horner set to be cleared of all charges of improper conduct. I'm sure this won't be the end of it.