CraveOnline: Which gladiators have bonded so far?
Fury: I've actually been really impressed. You get six women together and you feel like it might not be the easiest thing but seriously these women are phenomenal. We've been together now for a month and a half, into the breach.
Mayhem: Feels like a year.
Fury: But really, I don't have very many girlfriends that I could spend that much time with and these girls have been just phenomenal. I think also you tend to find people who are extremely successful here and extremely confident, and they don't have that similar competitiveness that you get in a typical group of women.
CraveOnline: Who's the worst at giving each other a hard time?
Fury: I think we're all really hard on ourselves actually and I think that's part of why we're here.
Wolf: I don't know, the other day, they didn't have Gina and I do an interview together because they said that we were the two in house badasses. I don't think any of us ever give anybody else a hard time about their performance because one, we all excel at everything. Everybody goes out, they do their jobs. Sometimes a contender will get by but most of the time they don't. So we don't really give each other a hard time. We all critique each other. We might say, "Hey, you almost had that guy. Next time try to do this." We're always watching each other's backs.
Mayhem: Wolf is the teacher. He pretty much got me through the joust and how to stand, how to do the pyramid.
Fury: I think it's constructive criticism and we're all pretty good at accepting constructive criticism. We all know how hard it is to. We're on it. We're doing it as opposed to some of the people who are saying, "Well, why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do that?" They haven't done it. They don't know. We've done it firsthand. We know that you can't just, "Oh, why didn't you?"
Wolf: And I tend to take care of the girls.
American Gladiator: Wolf
Mayhem: He takes care of the girls.
Fury: You better keep finishing that sentence there, buddy.
Wolf: I know, I am. But all the guys have played a lot of different sports. Most of the girls have but they haven't done a lot of the more physical stuff that we've done, so I've tried to take it in to analyze my background with rodeo and my injuries and also with professional wrestling. You learn how to protect yourself so I try to help them learn how to protect themselves while going 100% and going full out, but keep themselves safe so that they can not only make it through that event, but make it through the season, through the next season.
CraveOnline: What are your backgrounds in training. Particularly, Fury, how did you get those awesome legs?
Fury: Actually, my legs keep getting smaller and smaller every year. In college, I weighted 174 pounds. I squat 320 pounds. I played softball and I pretty much showed up to work every day and I did what I was told. Pretty soon, you just get bigger and bigger. I ate like a maniac. I think I was down to about two gallons of ice cream a week, because you burn so fast when you start putting on all that muscle. I was 10% body fat and 174 pounds. I lifted every day. We were just told what to do. We had a typical program so you're calculating your max and progressing through your max and retesting and doing the same thing again. That was when I played softball. I switched to pole vaulting for the track team and they said, "All right, let's take you down from the Mack truck that you are right now to a Ferrari." I came back down. I think as I finished, I was around 140-145. Then it's about speed and power. You still maintain all that going through, but every year, I don't lift as much. It's hard on your knees, it's hard on your joints so I have a different routine that I do now that keeps everything the way I want it to look without being so big and bulky. This year I decided to stick to my diet all year long. Off season, we all compete in figure for the most part so off season, you get a lot of the girls who tend to put on a lot of weight. I have never done that so…
CraveOnline: There's enough muscle to allow ice cream?
Fury: Yeah, actually I think in college I lived on top Ramen, cereal, chicken and pizza bagels. And ice cream.
Wolf: Romeo's got a great background.
Mayhem: Yeah, my background, I'm from Houston, TX. I eat everything. I have Siren who I stay away from because she'll find me eating candy or stuff and she'll slap it out of my hand. No one understands, I eat everything.
Fury: He'll pick it up off the floor and eat it.
American Gladiator: Fury
Mayhem: I cannot gain one pound. Like I said, I'm from Texas. We used to own a barbecue restaurant called Bill Williams Barbecue. I lived on barbecue. I'm the wild child, man. I have ADHD. I can eat all day long and I cannot gain a pound. I started kickboxing when I was nine years old. I started doing K1 kickboxing. I'm 34-0, never lost a found, in the street or the ring. Yeah, I was just born to be here. This is it. This is it for me. I am a gladiator.
Wolf: And my background, I grew up playing every sport known to man, was on my all star team and everything. Then started fighting bulls actually when I was in high school, became a rodeo clown/bull fighter. That's how I've made my living for the last 23 years. It's kind of baptism by fire. I've been fighting men, fighting animals my entire life. That's built me to be a gladiator. I've had over 130 broken bones, three knee surgeries. Last year was gored by a bull and almost killed. I came back bigger, better, faster stronger just like the American Gladiators. It's the new Gladiators. It's a new American Gladiators. It's bigger, better, faster and stronger.
CraveOnline: What are your favorite and least favorite events?
Wolf: I don't think I really have a least favorite event. I love every event. The rings tend to be one of my better events and I like it because everything else is so fast and hard. You don't get time to really mess with people's minds. On the Hang Tough, I get to talk a little bit before. Then as I'm coming at them on the rings, I can talk a little bit. I can stalk them. And then once I get a hold of them, I don't have to take them down real quick. I can sit there and taunt them and toy with them and play with my food before I sink my teeth into them. So it's a mental game for me.
Fury: Yeah, I think Hang Tough is my favorite event also. I like the aspect of the water now. We've tried some new things with takedowns which may or may not work but it's a lot safer falling in so you can try new things. I've tried a couple of them at this point. You'll get to see all of that when the show airs.
Wolf: I think I know what his favorite event is. I'm thinking yours is probably, because you excel at them so well, it's fun to see you on them, maybe the Pyramid?
Mayhem: Oh, King Tut it is. We can push, we can grab, we can roll and also the Joust. I like the Joust and I like Pyramid. The Joust, I like to throw bombs at your head, see you in the water.
Wolf: I also like Powerball. Anything with the physicality.
Mayhem: He loves the Powerball.
Wolf: I love Powerball because it's like football but you don't have pads, so you're not as safe. I get to put a hurtin' on you. I'm agile and I'm quick. I'm actually able to take a few guys down at the same time.
Mayhem: Yeah, you have.
Wolf: Any time I get to hit somebody so hard that when they come back for the next event, they're already remembering what I did to them the last time, that's fun.
Mayhem: His tolerance is crazy for pain. He loves pain. If he doesn't feel pain, he doesn't feel like he's alive. That's why wow, man, you're scary.
American Gladiator: Mayhem
CraveOnline: What went into choosing your Gladiator names?
Wolf: They actually are just who we are. My wife has always called me wolf, or not called me Wolf but she's always said, "You look like a wolf." I had a wolf hybrid. It was a Huskie or Malamute Wolf mix and she always said that we looked alike. Then when I get in here into the arena or any kind of event where I'm going against somebody, a switch just goes off. I attack and I sink my teeth into the competition and I do just try to rip them limb from limb.
Fury: Fury, actually I think I'm the only one who came with my name. We did abandon it for a while. NBC didn't really see it when I came in and I kind of have that alter ego, laughing here, having a good time but then you put me in the arena and I flip a switch. I play to win. When I was making my videotape for the American Gladiators, we had to send it in tomorrow. I was riding the train home in New Jersey, New Jersey transit, it's above ground. My girlfriends weren't helping me, I had four minutes out of the 10 minutes that they needed. It needed to go in the mail tomorrow and I was really furious. I was never going to talk to some of them again. I'm sitting on the train, I had my backpack and my hockey skates and I had this purse. I never carry a purse and I had the video camera in there. So I set it on the seat next to me like an idiot. I had my backpack on the two seats in front of me and I was reading a library book or something, just trying to calm down. This guy walks by and grabs my purse and runs off the train with it. I started screaming immediately, run off the train, down the platform, down two flights of stairs, he runs across traffic, this car slams on their brakes, I ran into the side of the car and ran a block and a half down the street after this guy. By the time I got to that, I was pretty furious. All I could think about was all the stuff I needed was in that purse. I was an idiot and I made copies of some things but I didn't have copies of other things. All I could think about was I can't buy a new video camera, charge it, make the whole tape and get it in the mail tomorrow. The guy finally just dropped it. I grabbed it, ran back to the train, I'm apologizing profusely to the poor people on the train and I don't know why, but I was just not with the program at that point.
Wolf: She got her purse back.
Fury: Yup, I came back with my purse and that video tape and got on videotape all the stories of all the people. Some woman was like, "You know, I saw you run off the train. I thought what is that crazy lady doing? Then I saw who it was and I was like I bet you she comes back with her purse." Sweet.
Mayhem: Now she's going to see you as a Gladiator, she's going to go, "That's why she chased the guy."
Fury: I hope that guy who stole the purse sees this somewhere and is like, "Oh my God, that is the woman who's purse I tried to steal."
Wolf: I've been around her for two months. The guy's lucky she didn't get ahold of him.
Mayhem: Yeah, he is.
Fury: By that point, I was pretty much screaming at him that he better be able to outrun me. I was so kind of oh my God, what am I going to do, what am I going to do, what am I going to do? And he dropped it. It never occurred to me that he might drop it. Oh, okay.
Mayhem: Don't let him get close to me and Wolf.
Wolf: He's just crazy.
Mayhem: Mayhem, we were looking at Wildcat, we were looking at Predator, we were looking at everything. They just came up with Mayhem because I'm all over the place. I'm everywhere. My ADHD kicks in and I'm loud, I'm goofy. I'm the goofy one but when you're in my house, it comes down to business. I'm serious about it. I'm not going to lose in my house. So Mayhem just fit me perfectly because I'm everywhere.
Wolf: Not only that, but he's 50% man, 50% machine and he's 100% mad.
Mayhem: Yeah.
