John Fashanu has disclosed a dispute between footballer Vinnie Jones and Gladiators hero Wolf, in which they planned to ‘bash each other’s brains out’, resulting in ‘one of the most popular shows’.
Former professional footballer Fashanu, 61, co-presented Gladiators with Ulrika Jonsson and has recently remembered a spectacular fight between two great personalities on the ITV show.
Wolf, actual name Michael Van Wijk, was on the successful programme for all eight seasons, from 1992 to 2000, and established quite a reputation for himself.
Wolf is claimed to have feuded with football player-turned-actor Vinnie during the 1993 celebrity spin-off, in addition to developing rivalries with his opponents.
Fashanu stated, “What really made it special was that we had celebrities on.” Vinnie Jones, one of the other football players, and a few other television personalities were all competing in the Gladiators.
‘Now, Vinnie Jones and Wolfman is a recipe for disaster. Seeing Vinnie Jones on the show going through, bumping people with elbows… then you have Wolfman the other side.
‘That really was one of the most successful shows of our time.’
He added to The Sun: ‘And that’s because you had two people that didn’t know each other that wanted to go on there and bash each other’s brains out, which, at that stage, was quite fun.’
During his appearance on Gladiators, Ulrika branded him ‘the naughty boy of football’, to which he replied: ‘I do like to bend the rules now and then, sometimes it helps us to win and sometimes we don’t get nothing out of it, just a lot of problems.’
When asked about facing the Gladiators, he said, ‘I heard there’s a small fella here nicknamed the Wolf man.
‘I haven’t seen him yet, I think he’s hiding in the toilets!’
In a recent interview, Wolf, one of the deadliest Gladiators at the time, was sure about his ability to defeat the new line-up.
Ahead of its premiere, the 71-year-old, who also starred in Netflix’s Squid Game reality programme, lashed out at the BBC for not including him in the revival, claiming the production firm ‘did not bother coming back’ to him when asked.
‘I think they decided from the get-go that they would have nothing to do with the old show or nothing to do with any of the people, it was just (going to be a) completely new format, completely their way of doing it,’ he said.
‘I suppose because (it is airing on) the BBC and it was ITV, they just want to be completely separate.
‘That’s just my personal opinion.’
Gladiators airs Saturdays at 5.50pm on BBC One and iPlayer.
Source My Celebrity Life.