Semi Finals - Week 2
Tuesday, July 29 2008 | Comments (0)
The contest proceeds with four returning combatants squaring off. Get ready America! It's time for more semi-finals action this week in our Gladiator Arena.
Last week the semi-finals competition got underway and we had two great competitors move on - Ally Davidson, and Tim Oliphant. This week, the ultimate hard hitting competition continues. For our male competitors we have James Ruggiero the 27-year-old high school English teacher from Yucca Valley, California going against Jeff Davidson, a 29-year old financial advisor from Dallas, Texas and also married to one of last week's winners - Ally Davidson. Our lady contenders this week are 27-year-old Lillian Thomassen of San Luis Obispo, California, twin sister of former contender Clinessa Burch. Thomassen is an artist for her sister's concrete business. She'll be going against Tiffaney Florentine, a 25-year-old business consultant from Royal Oak, Michigan.
Be prepared people! Our Gladiators are taking things up yet another notch and in the semi-finals, just about anything can happen! The Beast is back again, and supposedly the Eliminator competition is a MUST see too this week! The competition will begin tonight with our two male contenders. Jeff spent his honeymoon with wife Ally in the preliminaries, scoring perfect tens in Hang Tough and the Wall. James was one of our weight loss contestants losing a total of 65 lbs. before starting in the preliminaries. He went on to tear up the Gladiators (even taking our ravenous Wolf down). He also scored perfect tens in Joust, Hang Tough, and sent Toa flying in Snapback for another 10 points. James says he has his eye on the prize and will be a force to be reckoned with this week.
The competition begins first with Laila Ali interviewing our 2 male combatants of the night. Jeff's excited to be going against James and also feels lucky to be going through this experience with his wife doing so well right along with him. James seems to have gotten more cocky than before (if that's possible) and says in too many words he feels he has this competition beat already. I guess we'll have to wait and see if his cockiness will get the better of him. He seems to be going into this leg of the competition way too confident and sometimes that can really trip people up. I hope for his sake, that doesn't happen.
The action finally starts with the first event - Rocketball against Zen and Toa! James starts out strong and pulls quite a few fakes on the Gladiators to score 6 points. Jeff tried to score point after point but most of his shots were blocked by Toa and Zen. He did manage to finally score a total of 2 points for this event. Now onto the ladies and time for their first battle! Their event is Pyramid and Lillian will take on the devastating Crush, while Tiffaney goes up against the silent strength of Steel. Hulk Hogan asks the ladies what their mind set is for the finals? Tiffaney comments she's just taking one event at a time, and making that her primary focus. Lillian states it's much easier for her in the finals knowing she doesn't have to try and beat her sister this time around. Hulk also states the Gladiator ladies don't care who they're up against, they just wanna make these ladies suffer. Lillian starts out with a good pace up the Pyramid but Crush is close on her heels the entire time. Crush and Lillian battle fiercely and Crush finally gets in her famous backflip move and takes Lillian back down the Pyramid. Tiffaney battled well against Steel also, but didn't make it far up the Pyramid before landing right back at the bottom. Neither lady scored for this event.
Now it's onto Atlasphere! The guys have to go against Hurricane and Titan and boy do they have their work cut out for them. The Gladiators are fierce in this event and don't let James score but one time. Jeff quickly manages to roll around the Gladiators for a 4 point total. James now has just a 2 point lead over Jeff (8-6). The ladies take on Hellga in Tilt next. Tiffaney looked as though she may get Hellga off balance. But Hellga recovers nicely and pulls Tiffaney into the water in under 10 seconds. Lillian however put up a great fight, holding strong for the entire 30 seconds and earning herself 5 points for this event. She now leads over Tiffaney, 5-0.
Now the guy's are getting ready to run The Gauntlet against 4 of the Gladiators. Jeff is up first and has to battle Wolf first, Zen next, then Militia, and finally Justice! Jeff does well until he gets to Justice. Justice held Jeff and that didn't really didn't seem fair! They go ahead and give Jeff 5 points for the illegal hold by Justice. James is next in this event. He manages to power past both Wolf and Zen with ease, but then gets to Militia and has some trouble. Militia all at once grabs James and starts spinning him around and pushes him. The referee stops the event and learns there was an unintentional face punch to the face of Militia by James. So James is given 22 seconds to get past Justice (which I'm not sure was entirely fair to give him that much time to go through one Gladiator?) and he does it too with ease. James earns 10 points for making it through in under 20 seconds. He now has a 7 point lead over Jeff.
The ladies Gauntlet challenge is a tough one. Having to get through Jet, Crush, Phoenix, and Hellga too? That would put a hurtin' on most men I think! Tiffaney tries her hand first looking for a little revenge on Hellga for the Tilt incident. She struggles to get past Jet and burns up some valuable time. She finally manages to break through and gets around Crush and Phoenix more easily. Then Hellga comes at her once again. Tiffaney is beat down by Hellga and doesn't let her through. Tiffaney finally gets free and scores 5 points. Lillian doesn't have a much better result. She too struggled against Jet in the beginning, got around Crush and Phoenix, and then had a hard time with Hellga as well. Hellga I think was looking for redemption tonight against these ladies. Lillian almost made it under the 20 second time but it just wasn't so! She did earn another 5 points though.
The next events for the ladies are Hang Tough, SkyTrack, and Joust. Lillian tried to get away from Siren's grasp in Hang Tough, but was dispatched into the icy water instead. Tiffaney look like she had a shot but Siren proved to be too much and sent Tiffaney flying with only 2 seconds left on the clock. SkyTrack was up next and Panther made quick work of Tiffaney and dropped her from the sky; while Lillian tried to get away from Venom but to no avail - Venom took her down. And then it was onto the Queen of Joust - Crush's new nickname. Lillian showed alot of courage but not so much strength this time. Crush knocked her off the platform in just a few seconds. Tiffaney then tries to pound it out with Crush. And again, Crush is undefeated in Joust. There was no hope and no miracle for Tiffaney on this one. Lillian maintains a 5 point lead after this event, and will have a 2 1/2 second head start in front of Tiffaney in the Eliminator Challenge.
In the quest for the finals, the men also compete in Hang Tough. Jeff was able to keep Justice at bay for a little while, but didn't advance into the scoring zone as time expired. James on the other hand used some slick moves to get away from the long arm of the law and scored himself a big 10 points. Then on Tilt, Jeff was no match for the tough, grunting Toa. But James gave Toa a workout and earned a difficult 5 points as he stayed on the platform the entire 30 seconds. The score now shows James has a comfortable 22 point lead over Jeff (33-11). For their last event, the men take on Wolf, Titan, and the nasty Beast in Powerball. The Gladiators were out for blood on this event I think. Wolf and Beast especially. They really double teamed James allowing to only score 1 point. Jeff showed a few nice fakes and managed to earn only 2 points.
Going into the Eliminator, James will have a 10 1/2 second lead over Jeff. That is just unreal. I don't know if I've ever seen anyone have such a huge lead over their competitor! The ladies start first. Lillian gets going strong, but Tiffaney quickly catches up to her and then wow - overtakes Lillian in the hand bike. Lillian never gets a 2nd chance. Tiffaney finishes the Eliminator in the best women's time so far - 2 minutes 6 seconds. So she'll be moving onto the finale along with Ally. Now onto the guys! James goes first, and Jeff waits in agony for another 10 seconds. Jeff begins to make good use of his time though. He is neck and neck with James. This is the fiercest competition I've seen in the Eliminator so far! Jeff evens goes down the zip line backwards - a first in the Eliminator challenge - and was ahead of James for a few seconds. If Jeff wouldn't have lost his balance a couple of times he just might have beaten James! But James pulled it out and managed to get a time of 1 minute 43 seconds to be in 2nd place.
So there you have it. This week's combatants who're moving on are James Ruggiero and Tiffaney Florentine. Next week we have a two hour finale where another 4 competitors go head to head to win it all! Stay tuned - I'm sure it's only going to get more intense!
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