Fox Sports News hired an MMA-trained American Gladiator to kick a guy as hard as he could in the balls, then explored the science of why the guy didn't die from the pain. Beyond the obvious WTF, we have questions.

With the book publishing industry cutting back, it's good to know that they can still step up and produce a quality American Gladiator tell-all memoir about man boobs and severe steroid-induced ball shrinkage:

The revisiting of gladiatorial TV trends championed by '80s-plundering perfect exec storm Ben Silverman has proven to be a non-risk worth taking for NBC. Now, with news that a British edition will be following suit, American Idol sourpuss Simon Cowell has announced plans to produce his own version of the arena bloodsport. While details are still under wraps, industry insiders predict Simon Cowell's Gladiators will veer from the original in several key regards:
· Cowell and his co-judges can emerge from behind their desk at any moment and bludgeon a contestant to death with a Coca Cola-branded baseball bat.

Having already ordered a second season of instant midseason hit American Gladiators, NBC now must undertake another nationwide search for both new contestants and candidates to replace whatever civilian-pummeling warriors eventually fall out of favor with their notoriously mercurial Peacock Emperor.

The runaway success of NBC perfect storm Ben Silverman's resurrected American Gladiators, the spandex-clad, suspiciously muscled new stud of his network's strike-crippled primetime stable, inspired studio MGM Television to scour its back catalog for a way to further exploit the just-revived brand. According to THR, that desperate hunt turned up short-lived 1994 spin-off Gladiators 2000, a Ryan Seacrest-hosted curiosity that pitted pre-teen competitors in scaled-down bloodsports from the flagship show and added educational quizzes about health and fitness (cower before the brain-melting nutritional nightmare that is the Food Pyramid!).

· NBC's Jeff Zucker has been strongly hinting that his network's upfront presentation to advertisers may be scaled back this year, if not eliminated entirely; in lieu of the customary "dog and pony show," Zucker may instead ask lieutenant Ben Silverman to show a 30-second clip of American Gladiators injuries to a ballroom full of media buyers, then circle the room with a burlap sack into which they can place the portion of their ad budgets they'd like to spend on the Peacock's new primetime schedule. [Variety]
· Stop the presses! Sundance's money-burning glory days may have briefly returned! Focus Features has reportedly closed an early morning, locked-in-the-CAA-condo-until-someone-wildly-overpays, $10 million deal for "high-school satire" Hamlet 2. [THR]
[After the jump: The WGA/AMPTP Talks: A New Hope; Selma Blair is close to joining the NBC family; Gladiators still popular. ]

The comparison of American Gladiators' winner-take-all final event, The Eliminator, to the Harry Potter series' Qudditich matches never would have occurred to us, but seem pretty apt: Something about the way that contenders with huge leads always seem to collapse in an exhausted heap at the foot of that conveyor belt obstacle to give their opponents catch-up time makes the whole thing feel just as fixed as the fictional contests J.K. Rowling has rigged in favor of her Snitch-collecting wizard. [Geek Toob]

Remember way back in the olden times when we had to be in front of an actual television at very specific times to see all our dumb shows? That sucked. Now we TiVo it or watch it on DVD or the web or whatever. And now, thanks to the magic power of market competition, even the horrible cable companies who feel entitled to a notable percentage of our monthly income are putting our shows on the internet for free. Well, free beyond the blood money you're already paying.

Ex-American Gladiator and ex-gay porn star Militia has been named the new "celebrity" spokesman for HeadBlade Razors. Um, looks like he's already been making [NSFW!] handy use of shaving implements.

· NBC's Billy Bush-enhanced Reading of the Golden Globes Winners telecast draws just 5.8 million viewers, lower Nielsen numbers than even last week's public-access-quality People's Choice Awards delivered to CBS. Meanwhile, the premiere of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was huge for Fox. [THR]
· Shaking off the disappointment of its Globes debacle, NBC orders another season of Proven Ratings Winner American Gladiators (surely, two episodes is all the evidence one needs to make such a commitment!), though the network is being coy about how many episodes it's ordered or when they might air. [Variety]

NBC 's Ben Silverman has heard your cries for more American Gladiators, TV fans starved for anything that's not a CSI rerun, and is now reportedly mulling how many more episodes of his just-launched hit series to order. (His initial instinct is restraint: "We don't want to order 60 of them.") Also, he's cooking up something so super-secret for the new show's finale lead-in to his upcoming Knight Rider movie that, "If I [told you], Wolf and Hulk would show up at your door." Our best guess: a live WGA Nerds Vs. Gladiators deathmatch between scribes kidnapped from the picket line and his well-muscled minions, during which the prom-ruining meanies he so disdains will be pummeled in front of millions of viewers for his amusement. [TV Week]

Decked out head-to-toe in the official, patriotically colored, star-spangled spandex unitard (with, of course, the optional "Milita's Howitzer" crotch-pad) and clutching the bludgeon-at-home Joust cudgel we'd purchased from NBC's online store months ago in anticipation of the network's relaunch of American Gladiators, we took in every last minute of last night's two-hour premiere in gape-mouthed awe. Imagine our delight, then, that it took merely a handful of minutes for the ravenous new Arena to gobble up its first contestant: the plucky Jessie, who was hobbled by Stealth's knee-decimating Power Ball hit (click the thumbnail to watch the shocking—just shocking!—footage).

Oh so the new American Gladiators redux premiered last night, starring contestants with wonderfully over-the-top nicknames. We were sad that one particularly hunky contender, Militia, was eliminated. Because this is the last excuse we'll have to show gay porn photos from this particular American Gladiator's past. (Maybe NSFW)

Well, that didn't take very long: The first new American Gladiator with a gay porn past has been revealed by our foam-baton -and- sandal-fetishist cousins over at Fleshbot. As he's described in his official website bio, Militia is a force to be reckoned with, measuring at "6-foot, 3-inch, 220-pounds," with "an impressive arsenal of skills at his disposal," including, but not limited to, the tennis ball cannon he appears to be smuggling in his shorts.

More American Gladiators:
Mayhem: We told you Isaiah Washington would land on his feet. [AmGlad]

American Gladiators first impressions, continued:
Toa: His bio states that "with his tribal garb and distinctive tattoos, he may conjure up images of an island paradise," although not with the force or immediacy that he conjures up images of a late-90's frat boy getting the "sweet ink" he'll come to regret when he starts going on job interviews. [AmGlad]

We get out of bed for days like these: The new American Gladiator bios are up on the NBC website. The return of American Gladiators. How has it taken this long? It's a mystery almost as profound as how a show about dedicated steroid-users shooting tennis balls out of a tennis-ball-shooting-gun at casual steroid-users ever went off the air in the first place. Regardless, it could not have picked a better moment for its triumphant return to the airwaves, as the unprecedented bloodlust of the American public's taste in entertainment dovetails perfectly with the unprecedented aversion of moguls and execs to give any money to talented people. We'll be glancing at the bios throughout the day. These are the real heroes. (Sorry, Hayden.)

When NBC's Ben "The Perfect Storm" Silverman appeared on Michael Eisner's talk show last week to serve notice to his network rivals that his resurgent Peacock would soon be feasting on their rotting, Nielsen-dead entrails, the full extent of his programming vision was not yet clear. But since then, Silverman has made two stunning moves that demonstrate he's utterly unafraid to strip-mine the past if that ensures a better-rated future: the revival of Knight Rider, and, according to TV Week, the appointment of '80s wrestling icon and recently recycled VH1 celebreality star Hulk Hogan to American Gladiators hosting duty:

After pummeling our readers with the endlessly depressing discussion of the ongoing, precipitous decline phase of a once-meteoric show business career, we suppose that it's time to offer them the uplifting stories of those whose dreams of one day having thousands of flashbulbs directed at their accidentally exposed genitalia are still very much alive.

Because we know that you'd never forgive us if we neglected to inform you of the opportunity to possibly fulfill your childhood dream of battling intimidatingly muscled spandex-unitard models while encased in an enormous steel hamster ball, we want to make sure you know that the Gold's Gym in Venice will be holding an opening casting call tomorrow for NBC's recently announced American Gladiators revival. Excitingly, they'll be looking both for potential gladiators and their civilian quarry during the mass audition: