On this edition of THE INTERVUE, if you were a child of the late 80’s & 90’s then you have seen the awe and action of American Gladiators. The series matched a cast of amateur athletes against each other, as well as against the show’s own “gladiators”, in contests of strength and agility. It ran from 1989 – 1996, spawned international series in UK, Australia. Russia & more.
This amazing Gladiator was one of our favorites from 1990 to 1996. During “Gladiators”, she brought her persona to Ellen, Muppets Tonight and Space Ghost: Coast to Coast. Today, not only she continues to promote fitness, but she is featured on the Netflix limited series “Muscles & Mayhem: An Unauthorized Story of American Gladiators” she interviews our Gladiators and more with her podcast, “Chillin’ with Ice”
My friends of the Revue let’s welcome ICE ICE BABY, Lori Fetrick!
How are you doing?
I’m doing fine. A little bit nervous because I’m talking to one of my favorite childhood heroes.
Oh, you’re funny. Well, it’s true that you’ve interviewed bigger celebrities than myself.
Maybe a little but not most of them I grew up watching them for seven incredible seasons of American Gladiators. You know?
Yeah, that’s true. That’s awesome.
So, I’m glad to be talking to you, especially about “Muscles & Mayhem”, “American Gladiators” and your podcast. I’m still tickled pink right now.
Oh, my God. So cool. The documentary turned out amazing, didn’t it?
Yes, it did. Compared to the other documentary, it felt like this documentary told a lot more stories about the American Gladiators because it made you wonder, especially after almost 35 years, what happened to most of these gladiators? Were they like on the show or after show? So, it was so amazing to get this story compared to another doc and get five parts too.
Oh, I know, right? The very first story, the ESPN was so dark, and let’s be real. It wasn’t really about the gladiators. It’s all about the two creators fighting against one another. “No, it’s mine. It’s mine”. That’s why I am we’re so excited about the Muscles & Mayhem, documentary coming out. And I mean, prime example like yourself, you grew up with that. So, you’re gonna watch the “Muscles & Mayhem” and get that nostalgic feeling is going to come back.
It was so cool. Yesterday. In fact, I was just telling Sienna, just moments ago that I just got through my second viewing of the entire series.
Oh, that’s awesome. I watched it twice myself, I had to watch it a third time. It’s one of those things where now, that part of my life was so significant. And that was that really just completely changed my life. You kind of go “God, where would I be if that didn’t happen?” I talked with all the other gladiators about kind of getting more in depth of what would you have done?
The first question I want to ask you is how did you hear about American Gladiators?
Well, I was watching television one day. And since I was in the bodybuilding, I knew exactly who Raye Hollitt was because she was competing on the same stage. I was flipping channels one day. I was competing in bodybuilding, but my background I’m an athlete. All of a sudden, I turn this on and I look at this show, and I’m like, “What is this?” I look at it and go, “wow, this is a stupid show I’ve ever seen in my life, but I think I can do it”. I can be on this show. I could do that. And then I realized that ever since I was a kid, I just wanted to go pro and whatever sport I was playing.
At that time, I didn’t have the opportunity because just being a female in sports world was not that big. So being able to go on the show to compete and try out it’s like a dream for me, but I thought on television. Then I saw Raye at the gym maybe a week later. I mean, not to date myself but we didn’t have cell phones and computers back then. I was like, “Raye, I saw this show, how do I get on it?” And she goes, “well, it just so happens that I’m pregnant and I’m not going back. I know they’re gonna be looking for a gladiator.” I was like, “Oh, you’re kidding!?!”. And she was like, “no, just watch the end of the show. They’ll have all the information”. No, there was no information. You know, there was like, the production company name and that was about it.
I did my research. And I found out where the production company was here in Hollywood. I walked into their facility and went, “Hey, I want to try out for the Gladiators. And at that point in time, they’re like, “well come here. Show up at Universal backlot. We’re having the gladiator trials in the next month. And lo and behold, I walked in and there was like, 75 other girls and I tried out with them.
Excellent! And you made your debut in second season of American Gladiators. We’ve heard through “Muscles & Mayhem” how some of the gladiators got their names. How did you get the name of “Ice”?
Well, if you go back on that exact year, the one movie that came out was “Top Gun”.
It’s one of my favorite movies!
Val Kilmer. Everyone’s like, “Oh my God, you look like Val Kilmer’s sister. You could be his sister, Iceman.” And we were kind of joking around when we’re sitting around the things, and somebody goes “Iceman”. And then another person just went, what about “Ice”? And all of a sudden, everybody looked at each other. And I went “Sold. I’ll totally take that name”. So, it came from, believe it or not, the movie Top Gun. Yeah, I was a huge Top Gun fan. Big time.
Well, we got to see you perform on many events from season two to season seven. Of all the events that we’ve seen you participate in, what was your favorite to do?
Oh, Powerball hands down. I got to tackle women for a living. It’s funny because Bob Golic is one of my friends. I remember him telling somebody, he goes “this girl can tackle like some of my linebackers”. It just came from growing up as a little tomboy playing with the guys and playing football in the yard.
Of all the events that surrounded with American Gladiators during your time there, what was your favorite moment for you personally, participating as a Gladiator?
My all-time favorite moment was walking out in the arena – completely sold out at Madison Square Garden. That was such an amazing surreal feeling that every single one of us were fighting over the events of what we’re going to do that night. Trust me, nobody likes to do the joust, by the way. But that night, everybody was fighting of who’s going to do the joust because you were in the limelight. Just you and another contender with an arena completely sold out at Madison Square Garden. So that was my all-time amazing moment with walking out and having my name called at Madison Square Garden when it was sold out. I’m sure. There’s nothing that could even compare to that.
Especially since you have Billy Joel doing several concerts right now. But having you at MSG… Amazing!
Yeah, it’s just I mean, who can actually say that? There’s a handful of people in the world that can go “Yeah, I performed at Madison Square Garden. It was sold out”.
Hell, I can’t even say that. The biggest place I performed was the Kennedy Center when I was a young boy in the chorus. So I can’t even say Madison Square Garden, you can say that.
So as you mentioned at the top of the show “Muscles & Mayhem” which is currently still in the top five on the Netflix Top TV series in the United States. And I felt that it’s personally the superior documentary between the two. And so how did you assist on making sure that we got the true story of the Gladiators because I feel that the series really humanize the larger-than-life characters that I and millions of fans have grown to love over the years, and it was so moving to see that side.
I’m gonna give Dan Clark “Nitro” props on that one because he was one of the executive producers on the show. And he really wanted to make sure that our story got told, and it got told in the right way. I know that we’re all on him throughout the whole filming of our interview. “Dan, what’s gonna land on the floor? And what’s going on in here”. He goes “you know, I only have control over film that you guys”.
I think that he was very instrumental on making sure that all the stories that we told. Don’t get me wrong, but there was a shit ton of stories that landed on the editing floor. From every one of the gladiators, every gladiator has the same “ah, they didn’t tell the story, or they didn’t tell that story”. I think the directors, Jared (Hess) and Tony (Vainuku) did such an amazing job of capturing each one of the gladiators and their personalities. That’s another thing that I really think came through on this documentary, is they allowed our personalities to shine, who we were back then, and who we are today.
I think they did just super an amazing job. And not to dog this but going back to the ESPN documentary, I’m very sad that “Sabre” didn’t make it on to our documentary because the way they portray him on the ESPN is, to me, that wasn’t him at all I know a completely different side. He’s funny, and it makes you laugh all the time. It’s just very serious and dark and that’s how they portrayed the gladiators. Just having that great relationship with the director and producers & Dan Clark really, really came through,
As I’ve mentioned before, it really gave that human side of our gladiators because what we didn’t see on film were the injuries of the gladiators. We saw contestants get injured, but we rarely see the gladiators except for Malibu in the first season. And it was really an eye opener to see what happens when you guys were performing not only on the show, but the tour itself, you get very little breaks in between. You’re going from show to show, city to city.
It’s really interesting. I don’t know what their thought was of why they didn’t want to show the injuries. I don’t understand that side of it. I don’t know what was going through their heads at the moment.
It’s anything that would have been, they would have made us more human, like you said, but they had their little rhyme and reason. They showed enough, but they didn’t show it all. I don’t think they ever produced it. That’s for sure. I mean, I think it was a very raw version of what you got.
But here’s the other flip side of it. And that is that we’re athletes, we’re gonna get injured. But what you don’t see are like, for instance, I tore my meniscus in my last knee off of pyramid. Well, you didn’t really see me tear it in the middle of the game. It was after the game when I got off the pyramid. I was limping because that’s when I felt that other injuries torn ACL, you’re gonna see that because gladiator go down right away. This is something I’ve said before, but at the same time, we if we can ice it, shape it or shoot it with cortisone, come on, we’re either out completely or we’re going back in coach because we are we’re just athletes and just tape it up, ice it up, do something but we’re going back in. You know, that’s kind of our mentality at the time.
I’m glad that you’re able to pull through, but it was sad to not see those injuries because after all, you guys are human.
Oh, today, think about it. You know, any athlete thirty years later, could feel it.
Absolutely. Now, I got to talk about your podcast “Chillin’ with Ice” because I love it especially it has over nearly 2,500 subscribers. And I love the fact, Lori that you brought some of your fellow gladiators that we haven’t heard or seen in years, and we get to hear their full, amazing stories. So I applaud you for doing that. When did you realize that you were destined to bring this amazing podcast to life?
I was playing golf one day, and we were talking about podcast, and I had a very good friend of mine that works for Joe Rogan. And he’s one of his managers. I’ve known this gentleman since I was probably 18 years old. And he goes, “Lori. Listen, you need to do a podcast”. He goes, “you have done so much in your life, you could talk from, I mean, all the different jobs you’ve had, I mean, there’s like a list of things that I’ve done in my life”. He goes, “you have such an array and arsenal in your back pocket that you did talk about.” And that kind of stuck in my mind but it took about a year or two to kind of like fizzling and thinking & thinking and then like, “I’m going to do a podcast”. And then it was like, “what am I gonna do my podcast? You know that whole scenario, are we gonna name it?”
And then I realized I started listening to Glad Pod. It’s the UK version. Yeah, it’s a podcast just for the UK. And I was like, “okay, this is kind of brilliant. I could do a podcast”. I want to interview all of my gladiators. What I realized when I got on social media doing TikToks, had people messaging me going, “oh, my God, I didn’t realize how silly you were? Oh, my God, I didn’t realize this about you. I gotta do realize that about you”. And it dawned on me one day that nobody knows us as people. Nobody knows the gladiators who they are, what they’ve done, where they came from. Nobody knows anything. That’s when the idea hit. I’m going to do a podcast and I’m going to interview every single Gladiator, whether it be UK, American, possibly even some of the new gladiators, anybody I can get my hands on because this is what needs to be out there right now. Those are kind of a perfect timing.
It is perfect because I listen to every single one. I enjoy them especially hearing Storm’s story and Laser’s and Dan’s, everyone that I have grew to love and yours. And it’s like, “oh my gosh, I wish I knew about all these people when I was growing up, but to learn them now as an adult”. It’s so amazing.
Thank you, that means so much coming from you because I mean, I have people reviewing it and they love it. Sometimes you just think they’re you know, big fan and everything. But coming from someone like you that really means a lot to me. So thank you very much. I’ve had such an amazing time with it. I have a new one coming out next week and I did interview “Jet” from the UK. That’s going to be there’s a big bombshell at the end of that podcast that she announces that I just let’s put it this way. I went like the “does your country know about this?” joking with her because you know the UK is like the size of California. And if there’s a gladiator or a celebrity or something, they do something the entire country knows within 10 minutes. But yeah, so the big bombshell come at the end of that when that people are just going to either they’re losing their jaws are going to drop.
So, I have a feeling that mine’s going to drop, so we just have season one that I believe is still going Will there be a season two coming up?
I’m going to keep this thing going. I mean, I’m going to I’ll go through all the gladiators for absolutely sure. There’s no doubt and I do have a couple of contestants. I want to get on there and interview Peggy Odita, Wendy Brown. I want to find “Two Scoops” and get them on.
Yes, you got to have “Two Scoops”!
Oh my god, I love him. And then I just got a call from Sabre and he said that he’s going to do my podcast. He’s funny. He goes like this “what gladiator got the most views so far?” And I went back and went, “I think it’s Zap”. He goes “tell me the number. I’m gonna beat that number.”
The challenge is on!
After Gladiators, but you know, I just, there’s so many people out there that I would love to interview. I mean, I love podcasting and if that’s where this journey takes me though, because that would be amazing. I just find there’s so many fascinating people out there that have inspired so many people. I have I have a couple of people on my list that I’m just kind of waiting to get through some of the gladiators that I’m going to put on. It’s gonna continue. There’s no doubt about it.
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