As the revival of Gladiators lands on TVNZ+, we meet the star of the original 90s series who now calls Aotearoa home.

This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here.

During the 90s, there was no more exciting show on television than Gladiators. It was the fast-paced, high energy British series that saw everyday people take on “superhuman” athletes in a series of brutal and bonkers physical challenges. These brave contenders hung in the air, raced up steep walls and ran through gauntlets in a desperate attempt to prove their physical prowess against the all-powerful gladiators. It was frenetic, it was fierce. It was literally survival of the fittest.

Thirty years later, Gladiators is back, and it’s as much of a cheesy delight as it ever was. This is pure, unbridled entertainment with more muscles than you can shake a pugil stick at, and somehow, the revival feels both fresh and nostalgic. Nearly 10 million British viewers watched the 2024 series, making the show the BBC’s biggest entertainment hit in years.

Nobody knows the power of Gladiators better than Michael van Wijk, aka Wolf, the biggest and baddest star of the original series. Having emigrated to New Zealand nearly two decades ago, van Wijk was busy cooking a hearty meal when I called him to reminisce about his time on one of Britain’s biggest ever TV shows. What exactly does a gladiator eat for lunch? “Chicken, eggs, every vegetable going,” he tells me, his voice warm and friendly and nothing like the scary Wolfman who used to growl at that nice Scottish referee on the TV.

In the early 90s, van Wijk was working in a health club when a client suggested he apply for a new TV show based on the popular series American Gladiators. Having already missed the closing date for applications, van Wijk simply sent in a poster of himself from the cover of computer game Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior. It did the trick. After competing against 800 others in a series of intense fitness trials (“I won every event, except one I came second in”), van Wijk was one of 12 athletes chosen to be Britain’s first ever television gladiators.

At 39, van Wijk was the oldest of the bunch. While his younger colleagues embraced powerful gladiatorial names like Amazon, Vulcan, Cobra and Panther, van Wijk was determined that Wolf would be the show’s big, bad villain. “I thought, what can I do to stand out among these very talented, good looking people? I’ve got to make my character so strong that they’ve got no choice but to keep bringing it back.”

Initially, the producers were reluctant for the gladiators to have a negative image, but playing the pantomime villain worked a treat for van Wijk. From the very first episode, Wolf trash-talked his competition, broke all the rules and threw tantrum after tantrum, and the crowd couldn’t get enough. They booed his bad behaviour and roared when he was disqualified, giving him a hearty thumbs down with their giant foam fingers. Beneath his terrifying demeanour, van Wijk was delighted. “The result [of the game] was irrelevant. If they were entertained, then they enjoyed themselves.”

There’s no doubt that Wolf’s unpredictable antics helped to make Gladiators a huge hit. Premiering in October 1992, the family-friendly show quickly became appointment viewing every Saturday night in Britain, and at its peak, pulled in an impressive 14 million viewers each week. In an era where there were only four TV channels to choose from, Gladiators was everywhere: action figures, books, CDs and cassettes, T-shirts, collectibles, board games, a children’s TV spinoff and even commemorative clocks.

It all meant instant fame for van Wijk, who suddenly couldn’t walk across the street without being mobbed by Gladiators fans. “If I went to the shopping mall, there were hundreds of people who recognised me,” he recalls. That recognition followed him around the world, even during a holiday to Aotearoa. “I went into a gym to buy some protein bars, and a guy said ‘oh, hi Wolf’. I thought, ‘how do you know who I am?’ The show was on here, and I didn’t realise.”

10,000 frenzied fans filled the Gladiator arena for every live show, and Wolf never missed an episode during the show’s eight year run. Even when van Wijk was injured, Gladiator producers wanted him out in the stadium, knowing that people had come especially to see Wolf eat the referee’s yellow card or throw his helmet at the camera or wind up the crowd. It was a role van Wijk was happy to play. “You’re the main character,” he says. “The others just had to accept it. The baddie is number one, because people love a baddie.”

Gladiators ended in 2000, although Wolf returned to the lair in 2008 for a special Gladiators Legends revival. After he packed his lycra leotard away for good, van Wijk took another holiday to New Zealand with his family and decided to stay. He went on to open a series of gyms in Auckland, as well as a Chipmunks Playground, the original gladiatorial arena for preschoolers.

Wolf’s legacy lives on in the Gladiators revival, with new gladiator Viper channeling Wolf’s iconic villain energy. As for van Wijk? Despite no longer having Wolf’s trademark long hair, he’s still recognised in Britain (“the minute I get off the plane,” he chuckles) and the photos on his Instagram suggests the 71-year-old would still thrash any contender in a pugil stick challenge. “Just because the series stopped, doesn’t mean I stopped being an athlete,” van Wijk tells me as we end our chat. I believe him, of course. Who would argue with the big bad Wolf?

Gladiators screens on Thursdays at 7.30pm on TVNZ2 and streams on TVNZ+.