2005: Friendships made; Alliances broken

2004 was a relatively smooth year in the history of Gladz. However, 2005 was, from the start, destined to be far more rocky with several big rivalries emerging, old friendships being severed and many wars being won and lost. The challenges that faced The Gladiatorz may have been daunting but with The Rocket, Sneaky One, Lord Noah and Echo69x as leaders, they would be faced head on with no backing down from the problems that would arise as the year progressed.

The first major event for The Gladiatorz was set to be a war against Empire of Honor but they were disqualified from the war automatically for mass-recruiting which was against the rules. Empire of Honor had to go into reorganization and even had to change their name to The Empire due to the amount of people joining which, as a consequence, made many of the older members leave causing The Gladiatorz to try and find a new opponent. Damage Incorporated was chosen to fill the role, as they were a top clan at the time. When the designated war time arrived, though, Damage Incorporated did not show up, thus causing The Gladiatorz to declare victory by default in January of 2005.

The Mighty Red Dragons had been friends of The Gladiatorz for many months and by April 2005, seeing as they were allied with all other The Alliance clans (BK, 'The', Jagz), The Gladiatorz accepted an allegiance with The Mighty Red Dragons on April 6th, 2005 and extending the number of clans in The Alliance to five clans. The Mighty Red Dragons were the last clan to be accepted into The Alliance and had already shown that they would stand by The Alliance and help when needed so they were a sound and stable addition. Another event occurred at this time (April 2005) which, although it wasn't seen as all that important at the time, had a resounding impact on Gladz in the years to come. The event was the reopening of Dark Slayers, who would go on to become one of the fiercest rivals Gladz would ever encountered.

Although The Alliance seemed to be gaining strength publicly with the arrival of The Mighty Red Dragons, everything was not as smooth as first thought. BlacKnights, led by Phunk, seemed as if they did not value The Alliance greatly and decided to leave on May 12th, 2005 in an effort to explore their potential as a solo clan. However, at this time, many changes also occurred within the leadership of The Gladiatorz. Sneaky One, Lord Noah and The Rocket all retired from actively leading The Gladiatorz between May and June 2005 and in their footsteps followed Magrathea (leader) and ThirDDegreE (war general). Two founders of the clan who had recently gone inactive also arrived back at a time of need; Jerico and Joe Jenninz. It must be noted that these departures hurt the clan but ThirDDegreE and Magrathea were worthy successors. During this time The Gladiatorz trained and reached a hitpoints average of 87 and it became clear that a war was near at hand.

The first of these wars was The Dynasty. They were a relatively new clan but would provide an excellent fight as they had already soared up the rankings to become a top clan. The war was set for June 11th, 2005 at 11:00 PM GMT but despite all the preparation and training that went in beforehand, The Dynasty walked out victorious. Some speculation regarding the result has occurred over time due to large amounts of Dark Slayers who attended the war and apparently helped The Dynasty by offering food and hiding amidst The Dynasty, making it hard for The Gladiatorz to see their pile and often attacking members of Dark Slayers rather than those of The Dynasty.

Not to be put down by the loss against The Dynasty, The Gladiatorz then organized another official war against Anarchy. It was set for a mere 19 days after the war against The Dynasty on June 30th, 2005 at 9:30 PM GMT. For this war, The Gladiatorz turned up in large amounts and destroyed Anarchy - who were in the middle of losing their power at the time. Anarchy put up a brave fight but couldn't handle being outnumbered by The Gladiatorz.

Both of these wars dimmed in comparison to the war that followed. The BlacKnights had recently left The Alliance after relations began to dip after the retirement of Stoned Pixie as BlacKnights leader. This then lead to the high council of BlacKnights becoming more power hungry and regularly provoking or insulting members of The Alliance which ultimately led to BlacKnights leaving The Alliance. After leaving, with Phunk as leader, the BlacKnights became very friendly with Zeonic Force - an enemy of Gladz. Consequently, the friendship between these two caused the flaming between Gladz and BlacKnights to escalate, culminating in a war declaration from BlacKnights. The war was slotted for August 20th, 2005. Both clans did everything possible to be in top form for this war. Training contests, practices and motivational speeches were commonplace during this time. This war continued to be fueled to even higher heights what with all the bad feelings between the two clan and the recent depature of BlacKnights from The Alliance fresh in everyone's minds. The Gladiatorz were hurt largely by having two official wars so close together, ultimately preventing the recruitment of new members. (It was common practice to close applications upwards of a week before a war to prevent mass recruiting.) BlacKnights did not have similar problems and were thus more prepared in this aspect. They were able to get new blood in their clan via recruitment. On the day of the war both BK and Gladz pulled well over 200 people each. It's believed that this was one of the first - if not the first - war to contain over 400 combatants. The BlacKnights walked out victorious after a long, well-fought battle that pushed both sides to their limits. It is rumored that BK leaders logged onto secondary accounts after their main accounts had died to continue the fight and give them a superior number advantage, even though it was against the war rules. The accusations and counter-arguments raged for a long time until The Gladiatorz leaders took the moral high ground and walked away with heads held high, vowing never to forget. The rivalry between Gladz and BK continues to exist even to this day.

Despite losing the war, Gladz still stood strong but the same could not be said of BlacKnights. They started to lose their power after the war and entered into a slump. The Gladiatorz had other problems though. Echo69x, a leader for more than a year, gave up his leader rank and took the rank of Elder on September 16th, 2005. Following his retirement, The Rocket came back to active leadership a month later and Wkd Tyger was promoted to council.

In the fall of 2005, an event happened which although it didn't directly involve The Gladiatorz, still bears significance with the history of this clan. The Devils, a clan started by 3 ex-Gladiators was a clan on friendly terms with The Gladiatorz - they had, in fact, asked for an alliance in early 2004 but were rejected in their request. Despite not being allied with The Gladiatorz, we refused to fight The Devils because of who had created them. The Devils reached a lofty rank 2 in the clan world at one point during summer 2005 but closed shortly thereafter in the fall of 2005. Although they had become more distant with The Gladiatorz in late 2005, there was an aura of sadness at the closure.

For two years - since 2003 - The Gladiatorz had used an Invisionfree forum but in November 2005, a move was made to a Invision Power Board forum so that more server space would be available, to prevent the boards crashing (which occurred quite regularly) and also so that more customization could take place - which the leaders wished to do. Although the old Invisionfree forums had lasted for a while and had many, many memories stored within their archives, the new forums were a step forward and accepted with open arms by the community.

At the end of the year, The Gladiatorz stood strong. A hitpoints average of 92 had been achieved and all members of the clan were training hard, trying to get motivated. Although the year didn't seem to be entirely successful, unknown at the time, many of our current leaders/ex-leaders joined at this time, proving this to be a very fruitful year. At the end of the year, we look back and see a very turbulent, emotional and active warring year for Gladz. We may not have won all of the wars but we were stronger for experiencing it and would need that strength in the coming year.