Hmm, ditching the Gladiator in favor of this old one is not my favorite choice. But I guess understandable if you think about trying to get the new elements to work. The Verdi looks emptier overall and it is so boring that I have not been able to watch it through either time he has performed it...
But it was funny to see the planned content on the side and how the executed jumps which were mostly not the ones in the planned list! I wonder if they had the correct list for him? The spins and steps were right at least.
E
It's not the same program from last year. Only the opening choreo before the quad, the music (well most of it) and the costume remained. The rest of the program was dumped just like Gladiator. The jump layout was changed (2/5 to 4/3). Understandable because skaters only get bonuses for the last 3 jumps but in doing so, the footwork had to be moved to the end, they re-choreographed it entirely and it's now skated to new music, choreo sequence was re-choreographed possibly to new music (we had no sound when he first did it in March), and the spins were moved. This is basically a new program with the Gladiator layout. It's why I assumed they thought Gladiator did not fit his skating style or personality, didn't highlight his strengths, sounded good on paper but not executed like imagined, maybe he's more comfortable with Verdi or something like this so they changed it but only they know. So changing Gladiator to Verdi just to get new elements to work makes no sense to me especially when he struggled with the TES last year with Verdi once the quad was added.
However, if they were going to keep the Gladiator layout, they should have kept the Gladiator program. And everybody knows I couldn't stand that Gladiator program with a passion as it was so unwatchable but this seems so unnecessary if he only did it to chase quads which he could have did with Gladiator since the old program is now the same layout. But no, they had to change Verdi and now he has to learn new choreography and steps. This is why it looks empty. Hell this jump layout with Gladiator made Gladiator look empty (shrug). I don't recall there being anymore choreography in Gladiator before the step sequence because I was saying to myself, "this program is empty as hell, why is he doing a variation of Marin Honda's why hands over and over and over again with blank face, ugh." So I can't say I'm sad to see it go. He can't please us all obviously but it's funny because I never thought Buianova would actually pull a Mishin since I can't recall her ever doing it before.
I find the whole thing amusing.
And we spoke about this last year, probably ad nauseam, but Artur is no stranger to changing his layout on the fly. When he was learning the 3a two seasons ago, he did it a lot. He did it last year too. So who knows what was planned and what was not. Last week, the euler sal was clearly to cover up the 3a< mistake. The flip is supposed to have a combination on it but why? It's clearly a flip(e) and he loses base value and all +GOE if called but he likes to put combinations on it and for it, he lost 3 points. The 2nd quad, I question if it was supposed to be there at all it was definitely a deja vu moment from two seasons ago but even with the repetition he knew he could still do 3 combinations and adjusted accordingly. The steps and spins have been in the same place all season so those he wouldn't change.
Well let's see what he does at Golden Spin. Good luck to him because there are some very experienced guys there. I hope he can get into the top 8 and earn a new SB
And congrats to him on qualifying to nationals and he finally broke 70 TES in the free this season
I liked it very much and I thought this program had so much potential and that the major reason it didn’t work, was the quad. Changing the free is somehow mixing up cause and effect. It’s not like Artur made mistakes on jumps cause the program didn’t fit him, but the program didn’t work as he was not able to do a quad in his free (without the SP in Kazan I would have said in competition). And as the program did not seem to be the cause for his inconsistency in the free, I don’t think this move will bring him further. 
pray
to this person! 
We will see what Saturday brings! Probably no video, it was hard asking the 1st time.
and his quad is coming along! Nice to see him progress this season!
