Why not just bring Mike Adamle and Larry Csonka back? They’re almost certainly available, right? Adamle is doing sports for the NBC affiliate in Chicago, so you’d think he’d jump at the opportunity. Doesn’t Hulk take more off the table than he brings? He was inappropriately over the top when he should have just introduced the upcoming event and always looked uncomfortable holding the microphone. Also, I don’t know if people noticed, but at one point Laila Ali was interviewing a contender from about 3 feet away, holding her arm straight out to put the microphone in front of his mouth. It was kind of awkward. She could have taken a page out of Larry Csonka’s book and stood super close to the female contenders and created weird sexual tension at every opportunity.

Watch the interview at the end of this clip to check out Larry’s technique. He would do this for pretty much every interview. Stand overlapping the woman, holding the mic in your right hand and with your left arm wrapped around her to ensure she can’t pull away. In this clip Larry even pivots after the first interview, and switches hands with the Mic to wrap his right arm around the contender’s mother. He truly is a master in his craft.
http://tinyurl.com/yse8gw

1) The ‘baskets’ in the Powerball are way bigger than on the original. I guess it’s not inherently bad, but no way could anyone have made a jump shot like the ones made last night. I think the smaller baskets would discourage contenders from trying to throw the ball into the basket, which, I think, would be a good thing.

2) I liked the events Hit & Run and Earthquake, but the Pyramid is preposterous. It’s almost impossible for the contender to score unless as happened in the first male pyramid, the Gladiator throws the event. Toa had no business jumping over Anthony near the end like that. He was just trying to add some intrigue to the event that is just plain too hard for the contenders. The Gladiator has higher ground, doesn’t have to go anywhere (only protect what is given to him) AND has to run less distance on the upper levels to catch up to a contender running around on the lower levels.

3) The Eliminator: Pretty much every element of the Eliminator could be improved. While not a total disaster, it was hard to watch at times.

The swimming portion should be removed entirely. The danger of drowning or hitting one’s face on the bar, the slipperywhenwetness and the requirement for additional equipment makes swimming more trouble than it’s worth. Also, swimming alone exhausts some people to an unnatural degree, which I think we saw in the first female matchup. The swim also made it much more difficult to hold on in the barrel roll and the handbike (which looked much more difficult than the handbike from years past) as well as making traction way tougher on the travelator.

The cargo net looked like a real struggle. It looked less taut than in the past and didn’t offer any yellow lines to help the contenders see the next step up the net.

Could the producers have chosen a less exciting way to finish the Eliminator than running through a wall of foam cubes? Why not have a finishing tape or something that could make narrow victories more exciting?

Also, where was the Gladiator involvement on the Eliminator? I know that’s something that the original show struggled with, but they could do something like the Hit & Run as the contenders run across the balance beam (which looks to be about 15 inches wide). I always liked the version of the eliminator on the original AG that featured the contender breaking through a paper doorway near the end. If he guessed right the contender would get through unobstructed. If he guessed wrong, a Gladiator would be on the other side, waiting with a padded blocker to slow the contender down. This added a nice element to the Elminator, I think.

All in all, it was an exciting show, but not all that much better than watching an old episode on ESPN Classic.