houston gladiator

Ken Hoffman catches up with the Houston face of famed American Gladiators series now focus of 2-part ESPN doc

As longtime Houstonians know, Lisa Malosky has been a media trailblazer since joining Channel 2 in 1991, as the first female sports anchor in Houston and going on to host the Houston Rockets studio show. She also covered college football and the WNBA for several networks.

But for all Malosky’s accomplishments in “serious” sports, her most memorable, certainly wildest and wooliest, role was hosting the runaway hit show American Gladiators for two seasons in the early ’90s.

A two-part documentary on the American Gladiators is airing this month on ESPN as part of its 30 for 30 series. The documentary also is streaming on ESPN+.

American Gladiators aired seven seasons debuting in 1989 and quickly becoming a global sensation. The sports-entertainment show pitted everyday contestants against musclebound superheroes with names like Gemini, Malibu, Thunder, and Ice in perilous games including Joust, Powerball, the Gauntlet and the Eliminator.

Basically, it was like watching your neighbors get the daylights knocked out of them by genetic freaks with biceps the size of bowling balls.

Sure, on TV it was all fun and games (until somebody gets their block knocked off), but behind the scenes the show was a tangle of deceit and greed involving a former Elvis impersonator who stole (let’s say took credit) for the idea of American Gladiators and didn’t mind stabbing his best friend in the back.

Malosky is all over the documentary. Since she lives only a few blocks from me, just over the border into Southside Place, it wasn’t hard catching up with her.

CultureMap: So how does a weekend sports anchor in Houston get to host one of the most popular shows in the world?

Lisa Malosky: They came to Houston, to The Summit back then, to have tryouts. I did a story for Channel 2 about them looking for new competitors for the show. So I got out there and did a couple of the events, you know, that’s what we do, reporter involvement. I remember doing the event where contestants had to slam dunk a ball into a cylinder while dodging the Gladiators.

Anyway, I shot the ball like a basketball and it happened to go in. (It wasn’t a fluke shot – Malosky had been a star hoopster at St. Olaf College in Minnesota.)

A month or two later, I got a phone call at the station. It was from the American Gladiators. I thought they were looking for footage we shot at the tryouts. No, they were looking for me.

Samuel Goldwyn, the studio boss, saw an interview I did on PBS about being a female sportscaster and how Title IX had affected my career. The American Gladiators were looking for a new host for the 1994 season and they wanted a female. That’s what got the ball rolling. I called my agent and we went off to Los Angeles for an interview. That’s how I got the job.

CM: You continued to anchor sports at Channel 2 during those years. How did it work – did you use your Channel 2 vacation time to tape American Gladiators?

LM: Channel 2 let me take the month of June off. I went to Los Angeles and we taped the entire year’s worth of shows during that one month. We taped two shows a day. We’d work four days, then have a day or two off, and then work four more days.

CM: Raise your right hand. How much of American Gladiators was fake?

LM: It was absolutely real. None of it was staged, 100-percent swear on the Bible. Clearly there were times when the Gladiators lost their temper, but no one got hurt.

I never witnessed anybody trying to hurt someone intentionally. I remember if someone knocked off a Gladiator in Joust, I felt sorry for the next contestant who had to face that Gladiator.

CM: Who were your favorite Gladiators to hang out with?

LM: I have to be honest with you. I approached this job like I did my sportscasting job. Which is that I didn't fraternize with the people I covered and that's the truth. I didn’t spend much time with them, but I would say that Siren made the biggest impression on me. She was the young Gladiator who was deaf. I enjoyed her because she was just lovely and kind and sweet. Laser was a really good guy. He's a former football player from Montana State. We're Facebook friends now.

CM: American Gladiators reruns played for years after it was canceled in 1997. Did you get residuals? Was there a Lisa Malosky action figure?

LM: Ha! Maybe I should check to see about that action figure. Sorry, no residuals.

CM: So what are you doing now? How do you follow a phenomenon like American Gladiators?

Photo courtesy of Lisa Malosky

The Gladiators crash Malosky's dressing room.

LM: I have my own video production company, Lisa Malosky Productions. I work mostly with nonprofits, doing videos for their galas and websites. It’s extremely gratifying work.

holiday budgeting news

Here's how much Houstonians are budgeting for holiday gifts in 2025

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

San Antonio residents are expected to spend over $900 on their Christmas gifts this year, WalletHub found.

Residents living in Houston's well-to-do suburbs aren't stressing about stretching their holiday spending this year: A new report from WalletHub found Pearland, The Woodlands, and Sugar Land residents are all among the top-25 biggest holiday spenders in the nation for 2025.

Pearland gift givers are expected to spend $3,277 on their festive presents, says WalletHub's 2025 "Holiday Budgets by City" report.

Pearland's holiday budget earned it No. 19 in WalletHub's national ranking of cities with largest holiday budgets, with The Woodlands and Sugar Land appearing right behind as No. 20 and No. 22, respectively.

To determine the U.S. cities with the biggest holiday budgets, WalletHub's experts compared 558 cities across five categories: Income, age, a debt-to-income ratio, residents' monthly income-to-monthly expenses ratio, and their savings-to-monthly expenses ratio.

The three U.S. cities that boast the loftiest holiday budgets are Palo Alto, California (No. 1); Mountain View, California (No. 2); and Newton, Massachusetts (No. 3). Palo Alto residents are expected to spend nearly $4,500 on their Christmas gifts this year, with the latter cities budgeting for $4,266 and $4,069.

Pearland's current holiday budget is $711 higher than it was in 2024, when the city ranked No. 31 in WalletHub's list of U.S. cities with the biggest holiday spenders. It's also much higher than the $2,127 projected budget from the 2023 report, when Pearland ranked No. 36 nationally. They're definitely competing with Mr. Claus for the "best Christmas present" award.

Festive neighbor The Woodlands ranked as the city with the 10th-highest holiday budgets last year, so its current rank as No. 20 is a bit surprising. Even with a dip in the rankings, The Woodlands residents are still expected to spend a lofty $3,265 on their holiday presents this year, or about $51 less than last year.

Residents living in No. 22-ranking Sugar Land are projected to spend $3,191 on their holiday gifts this year, or $19 less than last year, the report found.

Houston proper ranked 285th on the list with a $1,302 projected holiday budget this year, or $6 more than last year's budget.

Five more Houston-area cities landed in this year's report on the heftiest holiday budgets:

No. 34 – League City ($2,997)
No. 291 – Pasadena ($1,294)
No. 321 – Missouri City ($1,233)
No. 412 – Conroe ($1,063)
No. 490 – Baytown ($890)

Regardless of the dollar amount, Houstonians should pay attention to their spending and pick a budget that works for their financial situation, experts say. The National Retail Federation expects holiday sales to surpass $1 trillion this year, and the report warns credit card debt is a major challenge faced by many Americans as they plan their holiday shopping sprees.

"The holidays bring plenty of joy, but they can also spark seasonal stress, much of it tied to overspending," the report's author wrote. "In Q3 2025, the average household carried $10,227 in credit card debt, up 2.3 percent from the year before, according to WalletHub data. Adding holiday shopping on top of that can quickly increase the financial strain, especially if balances roll into the new year."

Other Texas cities that ranked among the top 100 biggest holiday spenders include:

No. 4 – Flower Mound ($3,941)
No. 12 – Frisco ($3,491)
No. 28 – Allen ($3,055)
No. 31 – Cedar Park ($3,028)
No. 40 – Plano ($2,812)
No. 47 – Round Rock ($2,641)
No. 55 – McKinney ($2,502)
No. 56 – Carrollton ($2,498)
No. 82 – Richardson ($2,146)
No. 96 – North Richland Hills ($1,985)

According to the study's methodology, a consumer is considered to be in a "comfortable financial position to engage in holiday spending if they have: 1) enough emergency savings to cover at least six months of expenses and 2) a debt-to-income ratio smaller than 22 percent for a renter or 43 percent for a homeowner."

holiday budgets holidays christmas wallethub houston pearland the woodlands sugar land suburbs

houston gladiator

Ken Hoffman catches up with the Houston face of famed American Gladiators series now focus of 2-part ESPN doc

holiday budgeting news

Here's how much Houstonians are budgeting for holiday gifts in 2025

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