WTF?
Gladiator can match >SAVAGE< Hulk. You know, the Hulk that beat Gladiator already? WWHulk is BETTER than Savage Hulk. He'd absolutely pwn Gladiator.
Why is it people ignore this shit? It's happened ON PANEL, it's CANON, it's FEAT and FACT. It's like putting a VS with Spider-Man vs Punisher and saying Punisher wins hands down.
The Hulk is not Rocky Balboa. He routinely beats up god-level guys. What is so hard to understand about that? Rocky beats up on the big black dudes, that can be WTF.
Hulk beating up Thor, or Gladiator, or Juggernuat, that's not WTF. That's CANON. WWHulk does just as much and better. A side note : Jugg's didn't stalemate WWHulk. WWHulk got bored. He said "I haven't got all day". Not "I can't take you, you're too much."
And then you go and make it a SLUGFEST. The one thing Hulk excels at more than anything other than strength feats. The Hulk wins slugfests because his powers are all physical and grounded. No flying and lasers blasts. Fighting Hulk is not one of those big "super battles". If you can't BFR him, and your laser eyes aren't working, run away.
Physically, Gladiator has proven he's not strong enough to knock Hulk out at will. It's POSSIBLE, but not certain. Glad's laser vision was working, okay. That's a way to go. But this is a slugfest. Either that means no laser vision, or they're too close for Glad's laser vision to work fast enough.
And if you want to feel the wrath of nit-picking, I've got a way for Hulk to beat the laser vision. Guard his chest with his arms until his chest heals, then take the blast to his chest until his arms heal. Repeat. I know that's f**king stupid, but it'd work. Nevermind the lol, I already feel it.
Gladiator contends with Savage Hulk. Not WWH. And not in a SLUGFEST of all things. Make it Savage Hulk and anything goes, Gladiator has as good a chance as Thor or like-characters.