2007: A Clan Reborn

With much tension still arising within The Gladiatorz, the new year only brought more problems for the clan. Still feeling the after shocks of the DS war and the months following, the leadership took a new approach to start the year off in the right direction. We saw a number of leaders from The Gladiatorz hanging up their green cape for one reason or another. Des Troyer would be one, leaving for one of our allies, TMRD. We removed the Cavalier rank, and replaced Elite Cavalier with Elite Gladiator. The Council and Rider or Rohan ranks were merged into one. Due to the spell of leaders leaving, Gladz knew they would have to appoint new leaders who were responsible and reliable enough to lead the clan to victory after such a set-back. Ninexblue and Lord Jeffrex were promoted to accompany Wkd Tyger in the leadership, determined to bring back the glory Gladz once had.

Soon after, our rivals, The BlacKnights would declare on us. Still in a slump, we declined the war only to accept a mini-war instead. This still brought hope to the members. With a long week of intense prepping and inspirational speeches by our leadership and founders, we showed up with an amazing near-300 options, ready to take on the mighty BK. After a long and fierce battle, BK won by a mere 24 options. That single day, The Gladiatorz showed the clan world they were nowhere near dying, but on the path to regain its once lost glory.

The months after, Gladz stayed quiet for a while - rebuilding the community, having events and just having fun. When it came to wars we weren't all that lucky - as we lost most - but it seemed the great atmosphere and friendly environment was back. As everyone was more relaxed, activity rose. Towards the end of June, Gladz would find themselves facing a war with Genesis Dynasty, a break off clan of Clan Jaguar, one of our long-time allies. The war garnered so much excitement and motivation that Wkd Tyger would bring back the legendary War Machine to get everyone training. As the war day came around, we pulled an impressive 200 options, ready to take on Genesis Dynasty. The war itself lasted about five minutes as The Gladiatorz easily walked out victorious. Despite the easy victory, the members knew we had risen from the worst slump ever in Gladz' history. It seemed the clan everyone predicted would die was back and better than ever.

We soon regained our former leader, Des Troyer, after leaving TMRD to rejoin Gladz, but would leave shortly after to form The Rising. Activity was on the rise and quickly improving after being down to an all time low of 80 members. Knowing how greatly we have improved from the past few months, we decided to test our strength against a respectable and strong clan, The Titans. Both clans pulled nearly the same amount of people. The fight itself showed how much we had accomplished and how much we had grown the past few months. As the fight welled down to 100 options vs. 60 options, with Gladz winning, Reign of Terror decided to make an appearance and crashed the war, making TT walk out, giving us a default win. Despite being given a cheap win, we knew RoT didn't give us the win, but our hard work and dedicated members were the ones that won it for us.

Gladz was back. Our community was better than ever and our members couldn't be more loyal. Gladz was on a roll, winning almost every mini-war we had. The activity was at an all time high for the year and just to spice things up, we would soon find a new rivalry with 3v0lution X. After flaming by both sides, 3v0 would declare on Gladz. Wanting to prove that Gladz doesn't hide behind The Alliance, we accepted our first official war of the year. The Gladiatorz massed an hour before the fight and turnout seemed low. Fortunately, when we death dotted at member's gate we had roughly 210 options. Soon after, 3v0 rushed in with 180 options and managed to disorganize us. Quickly getting back on track, we managed to take out 3v0's warriors with 150 options remaining. We had once again proven to the clan world that we don't hide behind The Alliance, but were in reality a force to be reckoned with and could and would defend ourselves when necessary.

The Gladiatorz only continued to rise the months following the 3v0 war. Not only were we winning mini-wars, we were doing great in PK run-ins. Although not formed as a PK'ing clan, we were having run-ins more than once a week. We were doing great, but we would soon see Wkd Tyger going inactive. Wkd Tyger spent a long time being one of the strongest of Gladiatorz' leaders. All of a sudden she became flooded with real-life issues, which left her inactive. Later, we would lose Lord Jeffrex after a lot of commotion within the leadership where he was asked to step down as a leader. Instead, he retired and gained the Elder rank. He would later leave to join DI. This left Ninexblue running the clan alone. Wkd Tyger would return for a short time and soon after would announce a new chapter in the leadership. Rafi and Bespinman73 would be made the new Leaders in September. Rafi had been a loyal Gladiator for more than seven years and Bespinman73, who wasn't one of the longest serving Gladiators, had done more work within the clan than the majority of members could even think about managing. Eventually Wkd Tyger decided retirement was the best option because of her personal life and therefore obtained the Elder rank. The new leaders brought excitement to the clan and looked forward to see how they would help Gladz progress further along side Ninexblue. However, only a month later, Ninexblue would announce his retirement and shock the entire clan. Ninexblue is without a doubt one of the most important leaders in Gladz' history. He helped lead Gladz out of the greatest slumps in Gladz' history. He would be given Elder and soon after Administrator for all the hard work he had given and continued to give while retired.

Under the leadership of Rafi and Bespinman73, The Gladiatorz continued to strive and soon would look for an official war. After weeks and weeks of declaring on higher ranked clans, in October 2007, for the second time that month, The Gladiatorz declared on Lithuanian Forces in an attempt to take their RAW ranking, to which LF finally accepted. After the rules were finalized, both clans had a period of 11 days for war preparation. The war was scheduled for November 10th, 2007 and in the days leading up to the war the entire clan's morale rose to amazing heights. Not being able to move up on RAW for over a year, we were suddenly given a grand opportunity to make our way up on the ranks and obtain a rank we truly deserved. Training competitions were put in place. Practice events and wars were scheduled. Not only was everyone training hard, the sign-up had reached well over 90 people. As the war day approached, we had the great 'war spam' put up just before we met to go to war. As we massed for the war, the turnout was more than promising. As the war time came closer, The Gladiatorz mobilized into the wild and death wheeled around the eastern tree near the member's gate with 230 options. While waiting for LF, Luna suddenly made an appearance. Not realizing we had a war, they stopped and anti-crashed for us. Soon after, LF would make their way up to member's gate with 200 options. The war got off to a quick start with both sides evenly matched. It was a fierce battle but The Gladiatorz managed to maintain organization with high spam towers and pile transitions leading to a convincing victory over Lithuanian Forces. Gladz walked out with 111 options remaining and claimed rank 9 on RAW.

Although we had moved up on RAW and made a major impact on the clan world, The Alliance PK trip before the war would probably be more remembered. The Alliance hadn't PK'ed together in a while. We were the most dominant alliance out there and we decided it was time for another Alliance PK Trip. After massing over 320 options of TA warriors, we set out in hopes to get a fight. Not only did we get a fight, but a great fight. We started off fighting DF who would soon leave not able to compete being heavily outnumbered. Soon after, Shadow Elves and The Rising would rush in followed by Echo of Silence and Adelais. Despite all this, we refused to give up and fought through with help from The Titans. The Alliance was thought to be dead. We were determined to prove The Alliance was still the most dominant alliance. We fought long and hard and it seemed the other clans were dying down, but suddenly Violent Resolution would decide to make an appearance. We still fought on with the assistance of Corruption that would join in soon after. The Alliance stood strong despite being heavily outnumbered. We had made our mark once again on the clan world that The Alliance is not going anywhere and certainly not dying. We are The Alliance.

Towards the end of the year it seemed everything was going well. The Gladiatorz was doing great and was looking forward to the new year with high expectations. This was all shattered into pieces as Jagex suddenly made an unexpected update, which removed attacking other players in the wilderness in hopes to end real world trading. The clan world went into a state of panic and shock. Many clans closed because they couldn't deal with the changes. The Runescape Official Forums were lit up like switchboards with complaints from angry clans and people alike. Protests were staged and people began declaring December 10th, 2007 "The day that Runescape died". Rolling with the punches is something Gladz has been doing all along, so we kept a positive outlook and tried to embrace the new changes. We began having weekly official Pk trips at Bounty Hunter and regular trips to clan wars. This had a major impact on The Gladiatorz, but we had loyal members that stuck through this difficult time with high hopes. There was fear of many members leaving once again, but instead, we gained members.

The Gladiatorz had overcome the greatest slump in its entire history after five years of dominance in the wild. We regained the glory we deserved and claimed a rank in the top ten once more. With the strong leadership and loyal members we have, the new year looks promising. Adjusting to the new wilderness and mini-games should be nothing after adjusting to everything Jagex had thrown at us over the years. Only time will tell what would happen next for The Gladiatorz.