Coca Cola Gets Rude with Gladiator - Lucha inspired energy drinks

Energy for the daily struggle. The struggle for life is like a Mexican lucha libre match. OK - no is really isnt. There is nothing like lucha , and really nothing like Último Guerrero - the luchador pictured in the Rudeza Cítrica flavor of Gladiator energy drink. While Ultimo plays the Rudeza, or bad guy in the ring, his wrestling style is not high flying or particularly spectacular, reminding me of the same kind of matchup by the WWF's Ultimate Warrior and the Undertaker. OK - Have I just gone way off the deep end into complete wrestling geekdom? Probably. It just has not been the same when Hogan turned into a bad guy.
As for this drink - it is definitely the evil twin of the Azul version of this Gladiator series of drinks, playing off the Good Guy Mistico on the front of their Furia Azul flavor. This one is a red hue with a more fruit punch flavor than the straight watermelon of the blue. Maybe it is a deep seated feeling of abandonment I felt when the Hulkster joined the NWO, but I found that while the other flavor gave me a small buzz, this drink left me without any help in the ring, falling asleep as I tried to cross the US/Mexico border.

Packaging:9
Complete with a small bio of Último Guerrero on the side, the fonts and lettering perfectly match the look and feel they are going for, choosing great colors and background designs that are original and very classic. It is not easy creating a color scheme to work so well with opposing colors, as they contrasted their other gladiator drinks without just reversing everything. They also do a great job of listing everything, from caffeine content to phone numbers and websites. They even double label it so it can be seen easily from bad placement in the refrigerated coolers in convenience stores. While this product is put out by a major drink company, I am still very impressed by the printing and gorgeous design they came up with.

Nutrition:3
This drink contains the same nutritional makeup as their other flavor, but gets a smaller score because I actually fell asleep about half an hour after drinking it down. Usually, the caffeine takes about that long after ingresting, giving you the caffeine buzz about that time. So in terms of actual buzz, this had not nearly enough caffeine to help me with any struggle, let alone one where they wanted to search my car for contraband Cuban cigars. While I can not be certain, according to the label this is sweetened with plain old sugar, which would explain the syrupiness and sugar energy rush. Without a doubt, this flavor is WAY better than Full throttle, the closest thing most of us can come to these drinks. The caffeine in these drinks is noticeable, but not too powerful. While they list it in the can, they also use a very odd way of determining how much caffeine listing it as 0.030%. With a little calculation in a 473ml can, that puts this drink as having about 140ish milligrams of caffeine - which is not amazing and actually less than a Red Bull.

Taste:7
While this flavor is pretty unique, it is not nearly as delicious as their blue flavor. This one tastes more like a fruit punch, and has definitely been tried before. It is still quite good, but lacks the candy tinged pop of the other flavor. It is still very heavy and syrupy, and this line could definitely be helped by the addition of a light category, using the Canadian, Dark Angel as the motif on the front of the can. Something without all the heaviness would probably do well in a place where the summer heat is scorching.

Website:7
Goofy, but pretty unique. Overall, I like the design like an old mexican poster. The overall functionality of the site is pretty lacking though, allowing you a little tiny bit on the drink, a little tiny bit of the wrestler and a voting place for your favorite luchidor. While the code holding the flash movie is nice, the site could have used more extensive product information, as well as either losing a bit of the irreverance of using wrestlers, or going into it whole hog with pictures, downloads of wrestling moves, etc...