We thought he looked familiar.

Last Sunday night, NBC premiered its all new American Gladiators show. It’s fantastic. If you watched the show in its original format on ESPN way back in the day, you owe it to yourself to watch the new show on NBC. Hulk Hogan and Laila Ali are involved and if you like unintentional comedy, you get loads of it every time either one of them speaks.

The gal and I watched both the Sunday night and Monday nights shows and I swore the referee on the show was the same guy who was the referee back in the ESPN version.

Well, apparently he isn’t the same guy. But, the ref on the new show (Al Kaplon) is a former Major league umpire who also just happens to be the same guy who was the ref in the movie Dodgeball, the ref who loses the coin during the coin toss on the Southwest Airlines commercial, and the home plate/1st base ump in the Viagra ads.

Al Kaplon, apparently, has been typecast and he doesn’t mind it a bit.

Gladiators ready!?