My Venn Diagram Once Again Crosses Gender Roles and Pop Culture

So I watched an episode of the new American Gladiators last week (it was like a return to the Saturday mornings of middle school!... which isn't necessarily a good thing).

I was struck by the fact that while both the male competitors had other careers (an engineer and something to do with radiation testing, if I remember correctly), both of the female competitors were, for all intents and purposes, professional athletes (a martial arts instructor and a gymnastics coach). I wonder about the disparity there - is it harder to find professional women who are just really into working out and competition? Are they out there, but simply not up to par? Are women who are very athletic simply less likely to be excessively competitive than men?

And why were the women much more likely to talk about how fun it is, and how they just want to do their best, while the men were more prone to discussions of how much ass they plan to kick? - is that an accurate representation, or conscious editing due to producers' own judgments and biases?

Also, they hit each other a lot. And that's cool.

(Also also? My friend Kat would KICK ASS on this show. I should totally e-mail her and try to convince her to try out.)