Top 10 Gladiators Scandals
For this list, we're looking at the biggest controversies that struck the UK version of “Gladiators”.
Let us know in the comments who your favourite Gladiator is!
Top 10 Gladiators Scandals
Welcome to WatchMojoUK and today we’ll be counting down our picks for the Top 10 Gladiators Scandals.
For this list, we’re looking at the biggest controversies that struck the UK version of “Gladiators”.
Let us know in the comments who your favourite Gladiator is!
#10: Filming While Drunk
It’s no secret that being on “Gladiators” in the 90s was a wild time. There were parties, late nights, and drinking for many of the cast – but perhaps none as much as Cobra. Cobra, real name Michael Wilson, revealed in recent years that he was actually drunk for many of the recordings. He and fellow gladiator Shadow used to knock back pints before the show – and we’ll be hearing much more about Shadow later. Wilson explained to the Daily Star that the performers often got “hospitality beer”, making it all too easy to over-indulge. Eventually, the producers got involved and told him to sort himself out.
#9: Forbidden Love
As well as free booze, many other vices were indulged on the set of “Gladiators”. The cast had many dalliances with each other according to presenter Ulrika Jonsson, including one star who bedded four different people in one night – though, Jonsson understandably didn’t name who this supposedly was. Jonsson herself got involved in the love fest, however, starting a relationship with James Crossley, known to fans as Hunter. The pair denied this for years, particularly when the show was still on, but now enough time has passed that they can be open about the truth. Yes, they were in a relationship during the heady days of “Gladiators”, for about eighteen months.
#8: Injuries Galore
Did health and safety exist at all back in the 90s? Frustrating as pointless red tape can often seem, we can’t say it WOULD be pointless when the risk of injury on the “Gladiators” set was so high. Some of the injuries sustained on the show included debilitating torn hamstrings, major neck injuries, and broken bones. In 2023, the “Gladiators” reboot was still plagued with injuries, with multiple competitors on the BBC’s latest iteration having to leave the show entirely. Comet and Sabre both left with Comet suffering a serious foot injury with multiple broken bones, and Sabre tearing a hamstring of her own.
#7: Wolf Turns on the Presenters
Every show needs a villain, and for “Gladiators”, that was Wolf, who made his name on the show being a fierce participant but a very sore loser. How much of this was his real personality and how much was just trying to play a character, we don’t know, but eventually, he let things go to his head and ended up attacking Jeremy Guscott. He went after Guscott and eventually tackled him on one of the mats. The audience loved it, but it was clearly a step too far, especially when Wolf also went after Ulrika Jonsson on another occasion. The ref had to separate Wolf and Guscott eventually.
#6: Voted Out
Many of the Gladiators became icons of the 1990s; figures like Hunter, Jet, and even Wolf were all wildly popular, with many licensed figurines being made. But Hawk, Phoenix, and Flame weren’t some of the lucky ones. A magazine poll was run in 1993 to see which Gladiators were the most popular, with those three coming right at the bottom. Bosses decided that rather than support the stars by promoting them more, they’d give them the sack for coming last. It was massively controversial at the time and a deeply cutthroat thing to do. It’s hard to imagine stars being dismissed like this today, for no good reason.
#5: Panther Falls
We already talked about some injuries, but Panther’s fall was perhaps the most serious incident the show ever saw. She fell head-first from a tall platform and suffered major neck and back injuries, requiring five months of rehabilitation. Remarkably, she did return to the show for a while, and then left for good. But, of her time on the show, Panther – whose real name is Helen O’Reilly – says she doesn’t regret a thing and is pleased that “Gladiators” got a whole generation of kids interested in sports and athleticism. And she’s still trying to get people into sport today, running her own gym.
#4: Greased Legs
We didn’t find out about this incident until the videos for the first-ever series were released. Scorpio and Nicola Bawden were racing to the top of the climbing wall, with Scorpio trying to grab Nicola’s legs to pull her off. That’s all good in the rules of “Gladiators”, but it later came out that Nicola had greased her legs, meaning Scorpio’s hands slipped off easily. But this was the first series, so over-oiling one’s legs wasn’t actually against the rules, despite being clear cheating. However, the ref decided it was unsportsmanlike regardless. Eventually, there was a rematch on the Wall between these two, where Nicola was knocked off.
#3: Jet’s Near-Death Experience
Yet another unpleasant injury, this one struck arguably the show’s most popular gladiator, Jet, whose real name is Diane Youdale. She fell from the pyramid during a recording in 1996 and severely hurt her neck, even saying afterwards that she heard it “crack”. This moment was never aired, thankfully, but she has talked about it extensively in the years since. She said the injury ended up being a compressed spinal cord and she very nearly could have died that day, as she narrowly avoided breaking her neck. That marked the end of Jet’s time on “Gladiators”, as she made the decision to retire for her own safety.
#2: Doping Scandal
Jefferson King, AKA Shadow, was axed from “Gladiators” in the mid-90s, following a 1995 scandal where the tabloid presses found out he’d been taking illicit substances, with steroids among them. Sadly, King’s difficult life – which saw him grapple with addiction from an early age – didn’t necessarily improve when he left the show. Though he did get clean many times, including in 2011, a decade on, and was sentenced for kidnapping and false imprisonment. He plead guilty to the charges and in 2021 was given over six years in prison. This is certainly an unfortunate and tragic story.
#1: Warrior Gets the Sack
Much like Jefferson King, Warrior, real name Michael Ahearne, also fell in with criminals after his rise to fame. Though he was certainly raking it in in the 90s, he got involved in a scheme to stop a known criminal, Philip Glennon Junior, from being prosecuted. Ahearne got involved because he knew DCI Elmore Davies, a real-life bent copper. But they were both caught and sent to prison for various offences. A police raid on Ahearne’s house in the 1990s found many bags and boxes of steroids, and during his sentence, he was also found guilty of manslaughter. Apparently, though, Ahearne has turned it around since being released.