Gladiators: Middlesbrough's Bionic Matty Campbell on self-belief and the new series of show filmed in Sheffield
There are three main qualities needed to qualify as a good Gladiator: tenacity, teamwork and determination.
For 33-year-old Hammer (Tom Wilson) and 30-year-old Bionic (Matty Campbell), it’s a unique experience. You can have all the physical abilities, but if you’re not in the right headspace, things can quickly crumble.
Viewers of BBC One’s Gladiators are no strangers to its action and nail-biting games, which originally aired in 1992 on ITV and later in 2008 on Sky One.
Now in the third series of its second revival, hosted by Bradley Walsh and his son, Barney Walsh, each episode sees four players, known as Contenders, compete in a range of physically challenging events against the show’s resident Gladiators.
The Gladiators are made up of elite athletes, including footballers, bodybuilders, track and field athletes, before competing in one contender-only final event, the Eliminator.
Campbell, from Middlesbrough, has been a veteran in this series. When he was younger, the man who became Bionic was in a car accident and had to go through rehabilitation.
How does it feel to be a role model of anyone else who has been set off course?
“When you’re doing it, it sounds so simple to say, but you’ve really got to trust the process. I’m going through my own rehab at the minute, so I’m literally experiencing that as well.
"Even if it doesn’t feel like there’s going to be an end point, there always is, and eventually there’s always light at the end of the tunnel.
“You’ve got to trust the rehab, trust the doctors and what they tell you, and actually stick to it as well.
"You hear a lot of people that almost rush it sometimes, and injuries can reoccur, but you’ve just got to stick to their timelines.
"Believe in yourself, that you can get to that end point and that you’ll come back bigger and stronger than you were before.”
All the Gladiators come from different sporting backgrounds, with Campbell known for bodybuilding.
What is it like to see how different particiapants’ strengths affect the game?
"It’s a very rare and unique situation to have 18 people from such different high level backgrounds, in one place all pushing each other. So I think that alone makes us better.
“We’ve all got our strengths and weaknesses, because some of us are from team sports and individual ones. So it all comes together nicely with the mix of us all.”
Champion rower Wilson, from Nottingham, adds: “With the stuff that we do in Gladiators, it’s not what you usually do in any sport. It’s all completely unique to that particular game. So I think just having the ability to attack these games, with an open mind and the intensity you need to to complete them very well, is an advantage.”
The Gladiators returns to BBC One and BBC iPlayer on Saturday, January 17.