Fall TV Blog

American Gladiator contenders Evan Dollard and Monica Carlson took home top honors on Sunday’s finale. Now that the series’s eight-week run is over (has it really been that long?), the long-standing promise to viewers that the champions have “a chance to come back as an American Gladiator next season” will be put to the test.

At 5′10″ and 160 lbs., Dollard, who is a Chicago retail manager (and teaches rock-climbing to children), would be a fraction of the size of his fellow gladiators. The next smallest is Militia, a former Marine who is 6′3″ and 220 lbs. By comparison, Justice — the show’s biggest gladiator — is twice Dollard’s size, at 6′8″ and 290 lbs. As for the female gladiators, Carlson, a 32-year-old mother of two from Chicago, also looks a bit smaller than her counterparts — surely not as imposing as Hellga, who is 6′1″ and 205 lbs.

“All I can say is, your mom knows you’re an American Gladiator,” host Hulk Hogan told Dollard on Sunday’s finale, after he won. “You have got gladiator blood running through those pythons, dude.”

But will they get their chance? A new season is in the works, according to the shows Web site. There’s even a call for auditions. Dollard and Carlson may not have to try out, but even if they’re not gladiators next season, at least they have $100,000 and a new Toyota Sequoia to take home. That beats another season of bumps and bruises. –Nicholas White

Trae Patton/NBC

Not many people know the stars of the new American Gladiators on a first-name basis. The NBC show just premiered Sunday night, after all. But after only two episodes a gladiator named Wolf has emerged from the pack as a distinctive personality among his 12 muscular peers — and he already has audience members howling his trademark call.

How did this scary and imposing character with wild hair and grizzled sideburns become a name? And why is that important to the success of the show? Just as ’80s pro wrestling was based on superstars such as Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant, American Gladiators is counting on its stars’ branding themselves for success, says show host Hogan.

“This man named Wolf came out first,” Hogan, 54, recently told reporters. “Basically, it’s a lot like character development with these guys. The wolf thing, he acted like a wolf, did his hair. This guy’s got it.”

So who is Wolf?

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Laila Ali, third-place finisher in ABC’s Dancing with the Stars last season and current undefeated World Super Middleweight Boxing Champion, is entering a different kind of ring next year. Ali, 29, will join Hulk Hogan as co-host of NBC’s American Gladiators, PEOPLE has confirmed.

“It’s an honor to be reintroducing this American classic to a new generation of fans,” Ali said. Although she competed on DWTS, this will be the first time Ali has ever co-hosted a TV series.

In the new version of American Gladiators, set to air in mid-season, eight new gladiators equally divided by gender will face everyday folks ready to take them on in unique challenges.

This past July, Ali married retired NFL star Curtis Conway in the rose garden of the Ritz-Carlton in Marina del Rey, Calif. She lost out to Apolo Anton Ohno and Joey Fatone in the fourth season of Dancing with the Stars; she was partnered with pro Maksim Chmerkovskiy. —Cynthia Wang

Photo: Mark Von Holden/WireImage; DR / Retna