American Blogiators: season two power rankings #1

1) Crush
Last year's MVP is off to a great start. She's two-for-two on her event, Joust, with two vicious knockouts. Crush has two ties on Earthquake - a tough event - and one hold on Pyramid. Her KO in the seemingly unbalanced Skytrack (Gladiators are a ridiculous four-for-four with four KOs and no points allowed so far) barely adds to her case to be number one.

2) Venom
Tied with Crush for the AG lead in appearances (6), Venom is the second-best female gladiator and could challenge the much more one-dimensional Crush for best. The two Pyramid holds in two chances are her least impressive numbers. The perfect record on Wall (two-for-two, no points) and one KO with five points allowed on Hang Tough in two tries is very solid. In a Gladiator fantasy league, she's a three-category stud.

3) Justice
The most ridiculously proportioned Gladiator has been dominant on an event I don't think it should be physically possible for him to do - Hang Tough. Justice is two-for-two with no points allowed in the event not made for 7-foot, 300lb behemoths. If he keeps it up, could be the male version of Crush - a one event monster.

4) Rocket
If there were margin of victory in events, Rocket would be higher up. Last episode, he climbed a full length past the guy he was racing on Wall and taunted him for a while. If you're facing him on Wall, you better be comfortable swimming. I forecast that he goes something like 8 for 9 on Wall with five points allowed all season. If Rocket does anything in other events, he'll remain high in the rankings.

5) Wolf
Wolf has started off alright in season two, and he will get Hang Tough appearances. He's got two already, with on KO and five PA. Couple that with a KO on Wall and Skytrack (yawn) and Wolf may live up to his hype.

6) Titan
Continued face-smashery on Joust + one Pyramid hold + nothing else = number six.

7) Phoenix
One of the new female Gladiators, Phoenix intro'ed the new event Vertigo and summarily iced all-comers. It's unclear whether or not this event is fair or not, so Phoenix gets number seven. If it turns out she's just really, really good at it, then she could move up.

8) Hellga
Hellga and Wolf are the captains of underachieving Gladiators. For some reason (presumably because she can do little else) Hellga's game is Assault - and she's terrible. She hasn't been awful thus far, managing to stay dry. But in four shots, she has one KO and 16 PA - nothing impressive. Maybe intentionally, no one else has had a chance to shoot NERF balls at skittering math teachers and garbage men, so Hellga's numbers have no comparison. They're still bad.

9) Militia
How Militia managed to keep his job over Mayhem is a mystery to me. So far he has a Skytack KO. He barely even gets to espouse awesome military puns! Bland in every possible way. Militia really has gone AWOL (see, not so hard).

10) Zen
The mysterious (see: racist) Zen debuted last episode - to little fanfare. He did OK on Wall, getting the KO. But did nothing else and I guarantee he's not good at any strength game, a.k.a. all the cool ones. Thumbs down.

11) Toa
I think this is the fault of the rules more than Toa, but he's 0-for-2 on Earthquake with 20 points allowed. Now, both humans took him down, but they also fell in the drink. To me, that seems like a tie and they should only get five points. But I am not that judge from Dodgeball, so the "Islander who doesn't like tourists" is twelfth.

12) Jet
Gladiators are seven-for-eight on Wall with 10 points allowed. Guess who has allowed all ten and didn't get the one KO?