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Post by Jessie Spano on Mar 1, 2003 22:42:47 GMT -5
*Note: That third option should say "('real')" at the end.
"Knights and Warriors" - Basically, American Gladiators with a medieval theme; instead of "contestants" and "Gladiators" in normal-looking (well, RELATIVELY normal-looking) outfits, there were "Knights" and "Warriors" in black leather and outfits straight out of "Medieval Times". The games were real.
"Blade Warriors" - American Gladiators on Rollerblades. Think about that. The games were real.
"WMAC Masters" - This was more like pro-wrestling than AM; instead of wrestling, they'd use martial-arts to put on fake matches. The first version was more "old-school", where everything was focused on the competition between the two, and kayfabe was held; the second version was more like "sports-entertainment", complete with ridiculous storylines and over-the-top characters. To give an idea: "Warlock" was just a normal guy with a cool name in the first version, whereas he actually used black-magic to beat his opponents in the second version.
"Battledome" - This was basically AM with cartoonish "Gladiators" and insanely over-the-top (and dangerous) games. Because the show featured many (horribly-acted) backstage skits between the Dome-Warriors (or whatever they were called), alot of people didn't realize that the GAMES themselves were legit. To add to the confusion, in addition to all the bad skits, sometimes they would hold CHOREOGRAPHED games between the Warriors themselves, thus discrediting the legitimacy of when the games were played for REAL with the contestants. Basically, if it involved a contestant, it was real, but if it was just between the warriors, it was scripted. The second version of the show ditched all the skits and storyline-Stewff, and concentrated solely on the legit competition.
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Post by Some assclown on Mar 2, 2003 0:26:32 GMT -5
I actually had a WMAC Masters web page. Ever time I watch Mortal Kombat a root for Machine when he fights Liu Kang hoping one day he'll win. Funny thing is that the guy that played Liu Kang in MK 1 and 2 (the video games) was Superstar (Ho Sang Pak).
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Post by HeartBurnKid on Mar 2, 2003 0:34:44 GMT -5
I actually thought WMAC Masters was kinda fun, in a way; sorta like WWF-meets-American Gladiators-meets-Power Rangers.
But still, American Gladiators was really the only one of those shows worth a damn. And it's also the only one of these shows to give us a great WWE superstar (namely, Rico Constantino).
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Post by Jessie Spano on Mar 2, 2003 1:34:39 GMT -5
What do you mean the ONLY one?
Need I remind you of the WCW/Battledome storyline...
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Post by Jessie Spano on Mar 2, 2003 1:39:52 GMT -5
Personally, I voted for the second version of WMAC; I thought the storylines, while cheesy, were very entertaining. I STILL want to know what happened after Tsunami stole the championship star, dammit! /// Just found this pic:  That dude on the bottom-left looks a hell of alot like Matt Hardy, doesn't he? |
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Post by TheJedi2 on Mar 2, 2003 2:18:34 GMT -5
And the guy on the upper left has a body sorta similar to RVD's (the tights also made it seem RVD-ish), but his face is nowhere near the stoned look of RVD's.
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Post by Some assclown on Mar 2, 2003 9:29:56 GMT -5
The single coolest thing ever about WMAC Masters is that they actually fought a match at the Earthquake ride (subway train that derails and ceiling collaspes) at Universal Stewdios.
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Post by The Nectar of the Mods on Mar 2, 2003 14:04:17 GMT -5
Battledome's the only one of those I've heard of.
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Post by FakeRazor on Mar 2, 2003 16:06:04 GMT -5
The only one I ever really liked was American Gladiators, but like Knobbs, the only other one I've seen is Battledome.
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Post by HeartBurnKid on Mar 2, 2003 22:36:33 GMT -5
A brief description of WMAC Masters: Basically, the idea was that there was this group of 10 or so martial artists were in this big competition, and every week, a group of 4 would face each other in various events and attempt to get a higher score in each one. The only ones I can remember were one where they'd put two fighters in a given set (back alley, jungle, etc.) and have them fight "ninjas" (i.e. white belt martial artists in black pajamas) and the person who knocked down the most ninjas won the event, and the final event of each show, where all four men would fight each other in a dome-shaped steel cage. The guy who scored the most points on a given episode acquired symbols from the 3 guys he just beat. Once a guy collected all 9 symbols from the other guys, he got to fight the champion (the fight took place on top of a circular platform that constantly rotated), and if he won, he was the new champion and no longer competed in the day-to-day events (he only defended his title).
The events and fights were rigged, of course, and they played out little angles through them (I remember one episode where one of the guys put itching powder in another guy's gloves in an attempt to sabotage him). The storylines were definitely written for the kiddies, make no mistake; after all, this did air on FOX Kids. Nothing was too complicated, the characters were rather one dimensional, and good always triumphed over evil in the end.
This is all describing the first iteration of the show. I don't think I ever saw the second. The version I saw was cheesy, yet plausible.
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Post by TheJedi2 on Mar 2, 2003 22:42:55 GMT -5
I saw the first iteration also. I rember them attempting to do a storyline of someone taking the belt for the evil group, but it seemed like a bad ripoff of a bad wrestling storyline. Still the show had a few decent moments. Heck I even went on a focus group before the show came out.
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Post by Jessie Spano on Mar 2, 2003 23:30:02 GMT -5
Yeah; the first version was very "Old Memphis", while the second version was very "Vince Russo".
As Heartburn described, each fighter had an "emblem" based on their gimmick; a small, metal disk with their logo on it. After a fight, the loser would hand their emblem over to the winner; after collecting ten emblems, you would face the reigning champion.
Now, instead of a championship belt, they used a large metal star; kinda like a trophy. That's important to know to understand the next part.
The revamped version of the show featured certain fighters who were trying to "take over" the WMAC, in something very similar to the nWo. It started off with only two guys: "Tracer" Tracy Swedom, whose name was an anagram of "Destroy WMAC", and Warlock, who was an embittered veteran who didn't like how things were going (similar to Bret Hart's heel-turn). Eventually, the championship star was stolen, and it was revealed that the two of them were behind it. At the end of one episode, it showed the two of them ready to flee the country (yes, it was totally over the top) with the star, only to reveal that there was a third member who helped pull it off; that third member was a guy named Tsunami, who, during the entire run of the show, was the Hulk Hogan-esque, super-ultimate-truth-justice-and-the-american-way babyface. His "heel-turn" was basically their version of Hogan joining the nWo.
Then... nothing. That was it, the final episode. As you can tell, it still bothers me to this day.
I'm such a loser...
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Post by TheJedi2 on Mar 2, 2003 23:43:09 GMT -5
I thought that was the final episode.. It bothered me thast it ended as such also. I searched for a while to find out if it continued, since I wanted to see how much more like wrestling it would get.
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Post by Some assclown on Mar 3, 2003 0:03:19 GMT -5
I thought me and my brother where the only two people on earth that actually cared to know what happened with the dragon star. The rules of the bouts to my knowledge was that each fighter had a power bar and hits would reduce it and the person the power went to zero lost. I think the only way to win the match against the champ was knocking him off the platform. The itching powder happened to Red Dragon and his thing was he got screwed a bunch of times during his matches but finally did win the dragon star (I think he was the last one or it was Olympus).
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Post by HeartBurnKid on Mar 3, 2003 0:12:04 GMT -5
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