The definitive and comprehensive ranking of ‘American Gladiators’ events

American Gladiators was probably the pinnacle of television. It took the best parts of sports and the best parts of pro wrestling and combined them into an easily digestible, action-packed hour of entertainment. So let’s look back fondly, reminisce and run down every non-Eliminator event on the show, from worst to best.

(If you’re wondering why we didn’t rank the Eliminator, it’s because it’s the Eliminator, not an event. Separate category.)

The bottom of this list will be littered with half-formed events from the 2008 reboot of the show, all of which probably looked like great ideas on paper at the time. Like Earthquake, where a Gladiator has to wrestle a competitor off a tilting platform and into water. Except a suspended platform means cables that the competitors can hang onto and turtle around. Whoops! Hope you like people laying around, America!

This event isn’t TOO bad in theory, but it’s just sort of boring and silly-looking. It seems like there’s no way for anyone to actually be hit by one of those pendulums, but whoopsy-dunkles down I goooo.

It’s just a tug o’ war, bruh.

It’s a tug o’ war with the Gladiator on a higher platform, thus ostensibly negating their power and size advantage. This clip is from Australian Gladiators, which makes the event seem more exciting because Australians are calling it. Don’t be fooled.

What an awful, poorly constructed event. The name and the concept seem to largely revolve around those bungee cords, but there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of resistance at play. I want people flying into the dasher boards, losing traction and faceplanting, not “slight resistance.” The show isn’t called American Slight Resistance Guys. That’s coming this fall on TNT and stars Ray Romano and Scott Bakula.

In 2008, the reboot of American Gladiators was willfully stealing events from Nickelodeon’s Guts and just setting them to the Who Wants to be a Millionaire? lighting effects.

I have no idea what’s going on in this event, but at least it involves free-swinging musclemen and the danger of falling into water. Also, it’s not tug o’ war.

This event actually seems pretty difficult and terrifying. It’s something you could easily see today on American Ninja Warrior, which means it’s very cool.

Atlasphere, arguably THE iconic American Gladiators event, honestly always kind of sucked. Scoring was almost impossible, no one knew how to get up on those little octagons to trigger the sensor and -- as in the above video -- even when there was a THREE-ON-TWO ADVANTAGE, the competitors had no idea how to keep the Gladiators from schooling them.

Only ranking this high up because it has the element of “potentially see a dude get suplexed” that Atlasphere lacks, this was a confusing mash-up of American football and amateur wrestling that makes even less sense in hindsight. Why did they have to actually carry a legit football? Why isn’t this just The Gauntlet? No one knows.

This is actually a precursor of the Guts bungee-basketball thing, but it works a whole lot better than Rocketball and, as in the above clip, sometimes a Gladiator will haul off and pop a dude in the mush because of gamesmanship.

This event was much, MUCH better than I remembered it. It also lent great moments like referees admonishing Gladiators for just chasing down competitors for no reason.

Simple elegance. Nothing like watching someone try to evade four people wearing oversized boxing gloves. I’d watch a show that was nothing BUT that.

A deceptively great event. Combines something genuinely difficult (swinging on a rings course) with strategy (try to time and avoid the Gladiator) and raw strength (try to survive being pulled to the ground by the Gladiator’s unforgiving thighs).

Another better-than-remembered event and one that looks fun as hell. Check out the Gladiator just flinging that one dude down a 45-foot pyramid of wrestling mats. Wheeeee!

This event ranks high solely due to a combination of how much fun it seems and how completely nonsensical it is. Velcro and being upside down are the two hallmarks of the 1990s.

I honestly thought Powerball would be another “not as good as you remember” event, like Atlasphere. But look at Ted Papenhagen and Tommy Knox getting absolutely manhandled while trying to jam soccer balls into tubes. Even typing that sentence gets me fired up.

This one doesn’t get a lot of credit, but it’s pretty exciting and wonderful. Bonus points for having “own the bone” be a selling point and somehow, shamefully, not a worldwide meme.

Probably the most well-known of all American Gladiators events. The allure of two people whacking each other with a big dumb Q-Tip remains strong, even 20 years later.

Try to climb a wall before a steroids guy grabs your foot and sends you careening out into nothingness. We’ve all had that nightmare.

Swing on a rope and try to kick someone in the face. Stop drilling, American Gladiators, you’ve hit oil.

It had to be Assault. It was always Assault. Easily the best non-Eliminator part of American Gladiators and the one event I always, ALWAYS looked forward to and was excited about. The clip above features the weird pump-gun in the final stage, but it’ll always be softballs in my heart.

And no one ever, EVER tried to aim the cannon. Not ever. Just stick your hand out and pray.