User Reviews

Part 1 is about John Ferraro and the beginning of American Gladiators up to the end of Season 3 and features 8 gladiators,mostly B and C-list gladiators that you may not remember unless you've seen most of American Gladiators from 1989-1997.

The gladiators featured are Gemini (an OG,original Gladiator Season 1-3 and to me an A-lister),Sabre (S4-7 A-B),Elektra (S4-5 B),Titan (AG 2008-09 B),Viper (S3-4 C),Dallas (S4 I think C),Malibu (S1 B) and Thunder (S2-3 B) before he passed away in 2021.

When you think American Gladiators most of the people here are not what immediately comes to mind like Nitro,Laser,Zap,Ice,Turbo,Tower,Siren and Sky. Some of these gladiators will be featured in the Netflix American Gladiators documentary possibly coming out in 2023.

I imagine that many viewers will be a thrown a bit by the nature of "The American Gladiators Documentary", as it won't be what is expected from this type of material. What it will do, however, is tell a compelling redemption story of a man lost to the sands of time given the credit he rightfully deserves.

For a very basic overview, the main subject of this documentary is the origin of the popular late-80s/early-90s TV series "American Gladiators". Though fronted by enigmatic (once an Elvis impersonator!) showman Johnny Ferraro, the concept was largely established by Dan Carr and other members of the Erie, PA steelworkers union--a series of challenges to determine the toughest individual. But until this point, Carr's story was largely lost to history--eclipsed (if not out-and-out erased) by Ferraro's flamboyance and egotism.

Interspersed with this material is indeed what traditionally might be expected of this doc--footage of the classic show, stories (from triumphant to tragic) of the gladiators/contestants, and the basic overall purview of the entire project. It's not like the actual event and people are ignored--they simply take a back seat to the Ferraro vs. Carr drama.

Now, don't get me wrong--"The American Gladiators Documentary" is a tremendous redemption arc for Carr. It is sort of "Batman & Bill" (a doc shedding light on Bill Finger's creation of the Batman character) meets "King of Kong" (hero/villain archetypes at play in real people). Viewers will almost certainly smile seeing Carr finally get some credit for what he helped create with Ferraro.

Overall, I give this doc an 8/10. It probably doesn't focus as much on the "gladiator stuff" show-wise as perhaps it should, but instead the Carr vs. Ferraro arc is pretty compelling in its own right.

Saw that the second part was playing on ESPN and was immediately intrigued. Of course, like any kid growing up in the 90s I loved American Gladiators and I was in the mood for a documentary so I flipped on the first part.

I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting; of course something about how the show was created and how it was run behind the scenes but one of the first interviews was with Malibu and I realized that yeah, profiling the Gladiators themselves was a really cool idea. The doc touches on the production of the show itself but like every kid I idolized the Gladiators and it was great to see the human side of them

The main conceit of the creator of the show being a complete scumbag helped really drive a lot of the narrative and made the doc into something I wasn't expecting at all but was really relishing. The show itself is always fun but I have to admit, my heart broke a few times watching it after seeing some of the Gladiators be vulnerable about what they went through, physically and emotionally, and where they ended up.

Brilliant doco. Seeing it I thought of other stories of commerce exploiting art, Elvis and Col Tom Parker in music, Jack Kirby and Stan Lee in comics. I wrote a blog about that on my Occasional Murmurrings page, 'Jack Kirby, American Gladiator vs Snowman the Impersonator. The doco is a human fable about the strain success puts on friendships when one friend is more talented than the other and the less talented friend can't cope. The real creator always has to fight for recognition and the film makers show us just how hard that journey is. Some critics say the doco is too long but I enjoyed the detail of it and the unconventional approach.