American Ninja Warrior

I will admit, I have become pretty obsessed with this damn show.

At first, I was just watching for the incredibly well built guys who seem to always wind up wet or ripping their shirts off. But then I really started getting into the spirit of the ting. I still think its stupid, but I am involved.

The worst part is the commentary and the interviews. The interviewer lady asks maybe the worst questions I have ever heard. She asks just about every person who doesn't make it to the end either "What do you think went wrong?" or "What would you differently if you could do the course again?"

Just once, I would love for someone to say, "Well, cunt, I would have gotten over the fuckin wall. That's what I would do differently next time."

Like none of these people have real jobs.

I love it when one of the people they profile falls and has to go home, whereas somebody whose name they can't pronounce gets one of the fastest times.

I am obsessed with this show. The only thing missing from the American version is the insane announcer on the Japanese version. Johnny Mosely never says anything like "His muscles gleaming in the sunlight, this gas-station attendant hopes to fulfill his destiny"

Wild show. My God, the bodies....

I think tonight's the last qualifier. Then we will have our hundred hotties.

I do think the competitors know it's all about Sex appeal, which is why they take their shirts off at the end.

It's like Wipeout but with all male hotties.

I am in love with Chris Wilczewski and Tim Shieff.

That Kyle Cochran (the one with diabetes and hearing loss) is such a cutie-pie. Too bad he screwed up in the first round of the finals.

Turns out he's a wannabe model.

Odd that they showed so few runs. We needed more hotties and fewer uplifting personal biographies.

Kyle Cochran appears to have a green spider where his crotch hair should be.

There are so many hot men. I got into this show by way of the orginal Japanese version earlier this year. G4 aired Ninja Warrior 27 which I found entertaining. I've since watched all of them except 12, 13, and 14. The American version is so much better produced. The course is in top shape compared to the rundown course in Japan. The constestants are sincere while in Japan they are phony mostly even the capable ones. You don't see cameramen on the screen while in the Japanese version they are usually there. The Japanese version only allows a couple new people to enter the tournament each tournament while in the American version everyone has to qualify to make it to stage one.

I looked at every qualifying round to see if there were gay men competing. Only a few did I strongly suspect were gay and none of them went further than the qualifying round. Gay people have got to do better.

R12, that's no green spider. It's a shamrock surrounded by the infinity symbol (Ireland Forever, I'm guessing). I wonder how far down the stem goes, and if it's attached to a leprechaun...

You're insane R13. The Japanese version is superior in all ways to this fiasco. Those sob stories take up so much of the time that they don't even show the runs that were successful. The hosts are the worst with their limited vocabulary "Oh Wow" and faked excitement. I especially like their cut-ins during an actual run.

And despite all the qualification rounds.......SPOILER....No one wins the 500K prize. No one comes close.

I like the Jap version much better too. I love their complete sense of shame when they lose.

R16= posting from 1943.

I cannot STAND the phony announcers in ANJ. They have THE most idiotic comments. I also hate the biographies. I don't need to know that someone's kid sister's dog has stage 3 paw cancer ... and today, this Ninja's running for that poor lil' pup. Are you people serious? Some stuff like Dave Campbell has built his own course in his backyard ... that's something I wanna know because I care how they train.

Then they cut to commercial and when you come back they said "Oh yeah, these 3 people completed the course in record time!" I'm like "The cancer dog dude couldn't get past the Quad step and you spent 7 minutes on him when you coulda spent that same time showing me the winners!?!? COME ON!"

I got into this show when it was just Ninja Warrior (Sasuke) and Women of Ninja Warrior. That was fun because there was an appropriate silliness to it, yet you could take the real competitors like Makoto Nagano and Ayako Miyake seriously. This seems too "Christian Conservative" or something ... I dunno.

I notice how they always talk about their wives, kids and families. You know 3-10% of the contestants gotta be gay, right? I just wish they'd drop the pretense and show more actual runs. I love the sport so I'm gonna watch but if this is what I started on, I probably wouldn't have been interested.

I agree, the Japanese version is so much better. The announcer is surprising poetic and sometimes really funny (he can get sarcastic at times at the failures), and there is no prize money at all- they do it for the honor, which is a foreign concept in the U.S. We are getting the full Olympic sob story treatment.

As soon as G4 started getting American guys into the the game, I knew it wasn't too long until the U.S. would bastardize the whole concept.

It's interesting that most of the contestants are stunt men or parkour guys. Isn't one of the Japanese guys that actually "won" a fireman? And I think another is some kind of gas station attendant?

The Utah Mormon with that vast family is certainly very creepy. It seemed to me he should have been able to finish the climbing wall.

Watching this now, love it.

I am annoyed everyone is a worship leader or youth leader...what the hell is that?

What I liked about the Japanese version was the announcer waxing poetic and the fact that everyone did it for the honor. No prize money involved.

They just make it harder every year so nobody ever wins. Duh. And the Xtian conservatives are all there because you have to be brain-dead to compete in something intended to humiliate you. I can't believe Jonathan Horton was on there tonight.

The show does draw you in. No matter how I try, I inevitably yelp when someone takes a bad fall. My poor neighbors. I annoy myself but it seems to be involuntary.

I agree that - the men are frequently incredibly hot and that the announcers/commentators are all completely moronic and quite often useless.

I love watching the hyped up women fall on the first obstacle. Like that godzilla female from last week who was on the olympic rowing team. I also love eating a big bowl of ice cream while watching it.

There are 4-6 shirtless hunks on every qualifying episode. There hasn't been an openly gay athlete yet. I wonder if it has to do with the fact that the show is owned by the Tokyo Broadcasting Channel. Remember Nintendo, a Japanese company, took out the option in a recent game to play as gay people.

R23 The Japanese are cheap. The competitors play on rusted equipment. The Japanese obstacle course is shabby. The camera people are also easily seen in every scene. Two years ago, the production company behind the Japanese version said they didn't have enough money to make more. I think it was BS to stop Americans from coming over to Japan. American Ninja Warrior has since built their own course in Las Vegas instead of sending finalists to Japan. The Japanese are very xenophobic and racist. The show has since resumed.

[quote]There hasn't been an openly gay athlete yet.

I was thinking that when I watched it the other night. It would be nice to see a same sex partner standing on the sidelines cheering them on. Hopefully, that will happen.

Stefen Ghisolfi's ass is amazing. Look at it on American Ninja Warrior USA vs the World on stage three. The only thing missing is a cock up it.

It's back. Do they have the best bodies of all athletes?

I feel bad for the guys that don't make it. I would give them a pity bj.

The men are hot and the courses are hard.

Good show except for two things:

1. They pimp the women way too much. "Oh look, so-and-so lady finished 25th, blah, blah, blah." It's so over the top that I'm almost glad when a woman fails.

2. The stupid questions that are asked after the contestants fail. Gee, I wonder what they wish they would have done differently. LOVED the hottie that gave a sarcastic answer to that one tonight.

I can only watch with audio muted.

Are any of the male competitors gay? Asking for a friend...

A once prominent model from GayHoopla continues his quest to be on ANW. If I ever see that he makes it to a trial I'll share his name.

Drew Dreschel former America Ninja Warrior winner has now been charged with child sex crimes.

OMG. I can't stand Drew and the way the show promoted him but I did not expect that.