Arena
 | About Arena
Arena pits gamers against gamers in a competition style gameplay. Groups of friends or clan members compete in a variety of different games and genres, everything from DDR to Unreal Tournament 2004. The winning team goes on to compete in the next episode until they are defeated. At the end of the season, the best team of gamers is inducted into the Arena Hall of Champions. |
Status
-Arena is canceled and no longer airs.
Hosts
 | Lee Reherman
Formerly "The Hawk" on American Gladiators, Lee previously to be on the XFL broadcast team and has a long list of TV appearences spanning the X-Files, FYE and RollerJam. He is currently the longest running Arena host. |
 | Kevin Pereira
Kevin "Captain Immy" Pereira was previously the Production Assistant for G4TV.com and worked his way up the ranks, eventually coming to host Pulse, Arena and now AOTS. Like many G4 hosts, Immy previously hosted a gaming internet radio show called "Pointless Audio" and hosts his blog at kevinpereira.com. |
 | Stacee Barcelata
Previously a TechTV host (and part of the group that formed ZDtv), Barcelata is a veteran of geek culture TV. She's worked on shows like Tech Live and Digital Avenue, doing various reporting and journalist work. She's also done work for MTV, USA, Comedy Central, SciFi and ads for Toyota, BMW, the US Navy and OLM. |
Previous Hosts
Wil Wheaton
Travis Oates
Dave Cox
Michael Louden
History
Arena has seen many hosts over the past years, probably more than any other G4 show. Some of more popular hosts include Wil Wheaton, self proclaimed geek celeb and his co-host Travis Oates. Wil and Travis played host to the first ever Halo National Championships in a special episode of Arena. Due to disputes between the hosts and the producers, Travis and Wil left the show. Michael Louden and Lee Reherman came in to replace the duo, but soon after Louden was cut and Pereira and Barcelata came in for the new season. Arena was cancelled shortly after it's third season but reran for long afterward before finally being cut from the lineup in summer 2006, all but killing speculation that Arena was going to be resurrected.
Inside Story
Many fans were outraged when they found Wil Wheaton was no longer with the show. Wil wrote a blog entry on Slashdot explaining his reasons for quitting the show. Numerous disputes between Wheaton and producer Jim Downs lead to the actor's exit from G4. Wheaton makes many claims including mistreatment of Arena’s contestants, strange pay cuts and mistreatment of the 2002 Official Halo Tournament.
However G4's side of the story gives another perspective. According to sources working on Arena at the time of Wheaton's hosting duties, Wheaton's pay cuts were due to his frequent lack of attendance. It was also reported that the Halo tournament was originally to be hosted on Bungie's campus (the game's developer) in Seattle, however Wheaton demanded first class accommodations for himself as well as friends/family, so G4 was forced to do the tournament in-studio. G4, however, not wanting to upset fans, accommodated Wheaton to their best until his eventually exit from the network.
Tidbits
-Arena is one of the 13 original series that debuted with G4
-Arena's special "Halo National Championship" episode can be found on the Xbox Exhibition Demo Disc Volume 1
-Originally Arena could not air in the daytime because it featured footage from Mature rated games
-Due to a dispute with Valve, Arena was not allowed to play the clan-favorite Counter-Strike on air
-Near the end of the last season of Arena, Stacee was replaced by Flow
