On This Day: March 10, 2010 – Wrestlicious Takedown: Remember Shimmer? This Is Nothing Like It.
Wrestlicious Takedown
Date: March 10, 2010
Location: Wrestlicious Studios, St. Petersburg, Florida
Commentator: Johnny C.
Oh sweet goodness what am I doing to myself? For those of you unfamiliar, go watch the trailer on Youtube right now. It’s basically the spiritual successor to G.L.O.W., which is known for good looking women and completely campy comedy and women that are “wrestlers”. In this case, it was started by a guy that won a Powerball lottery and used his money on this. Jimmy Hart played a big part in this and I think it’s out of business now. This is the second episode. Let’s get to it.
Oh and the girls are mostly all wrestlers, some of which you’ll know. They’re ALL in very stereotypical and overdone gimmicks which I’m sure you’ll catch on to. There are also comedy skits to go along with the wrestling. The word “studios” means warehouse too.
Jimmy Hart pops up and is worried about being the host and stuck with a bimbo or stick in the mud. Leyla Milani, the runner up in one of the Diva Searches, appears and is the co-host. Oh geez there’s a laugh track.
We do the opening video which is most of the girls in character in front of a personalized screen.
Boot Camp Bailey, the trainer, wants to talk about something. She’s a military themed girl with a VERY short skirt. She says attention a lot and says she’s looking for a few good women. Bailey asks who wants to be a trainee and calls a few “fans” into the ring. One of the girls is the floor manager who has to take her headset off before she gets in. Bailey apparently is a model with no wrestling experience. This is getting LOUDLY booed by the way.
We get a clip from last week of a six girl tag with the Country Cousins vs. the Mexican team/Felony, a prison character. I have no idea what the announcer’s name is. Felony tries to escape during the match. Apparently the commentator’s name is Johnny C. and he has no idea what he’s calling. The Mexican team and Felony won with what looked like a Snow Plow.
There’s going to be a battle royal with the final two facing each other for the Wrestlicious Title.
We go to “the farm” (green screen) with Cousin Cassie and Tyler Texas who do a comedy bit called “You Just Might Be A Down Home Wrestler.” I’m sure you get the idea here.
And now, a game show: Are You Smarter Than A Male Wrestler, hosted by Jimmy Hart. Our contestants are Glory (female wrestler Christie Ricci playing a patriot) and Brian Knobbs. The category is American History and the question is what happened in 1776. Knobbs thinks it’s the first beer drinking contest. Glory gets it right (I guess the signing of the Declaration of Independence was all that happened in America that year)…..and that’s it.
We recap the Bailey segment from like 5 minutes ago.
Now three girls are in a bedroom on a bed. Now they go to make drinks but Bailey stops them. Oh ok they’re the trainees. To be continued. Did I mention we’re almost halfway through the show?
Package on Lacey Von Erich which is her on the beach in swimsuits.
Tony the Top (mob character) says that Autumn Frost (an Ice Princess, whatever that is. You may know her as Jennifer Blake who does indy wrestling and is a somewhat big female star in AAA) should be on JV Rich’s (the owner of the company and owner of a big mansion where comedy bits like this one are shot at) arm. He says she should be on a leash, which gets a HUGE reaction from the laugh track.
Paige Webb (Serena from the Straight Edge Society with hair) answers an e-mail from a male admirer. Included in the e-mail is a picture of his pierced genitals I think.
Three girls are arguing over what to call the aforementioned battle royal. Go vote on their website for the NAME OF THE MATCH. This show is cut into three parts on Youtube and we’re about to start part 3 with no matches.
HOKEY SMOKE A WRESTLING MATCH!
Autumn Frost vs. Paige Webb
Frost is from Alaska so we get a snow effect. Webb is a computer geek. Get it? Johnny C. makes a bunch of bad sex jokes and we’re ready to go. Frost jumps her but gets caught in a full nelson. The commentary is nothing but puns. Literally, it’s all puns and the occasional name of a move. Frost hooks a full nelson of her own but Webb arm drags out of it. Webb hooks the armbar as the announcer talks about how Webb’s box is filled every night. With e-mails of course.
A monkey flip puts Frost down and “the ice girl goeth”. Back in and Frost takes over. I can’t handle or give you an accurate description of the amount of the puns being used here. Apparently Webb needs to reboot from a snow boot. Frost beats her down “like a computer virus.” I’m dying listening to how bad this is.
They do a pinfall reversal sequence and Webb gets caught in a chinlock. Webb comes back with some armdrags and sends Frost to the floor for a beating. Back in a top rope cross body gets two for Webb. After a quick run on the floor, Webb tries a monkey flip but Frost falls on her and puts her feet on the ropes for the pin.
Rating: D+. Both girls are pro wrestlers already so the match wasn’t that bad, but the commentary here is going to make or break the match for you. I kid you not, you won’t go ten seconds without a terrible pun, but if you just give up on the show being serious and enjoy it for how HORRIBLE it is, the commentary will grow on you quickly. The wrestling wasn’t half bad.
We get a preview for next week which is a voodoo chick vs. Madison Rayne as a cheerleader.
Overall Rating: B. Now let me explain. This show is TERRIBLE. There’s about four minutes of wrestling (the show is only half an hour including commercials so it’s not a huge stretch), a TON of bad comedy bits that don’t go anywhere and the commentary is nothing but puns.
HOWEVER, this is the kind of show where if you saw more than four seconds of the previews, you knew exactly what you were getting into. This show knows it’s horrible and it doesn’t try to take itself seriously in the slightest. I found it hilarious with how bad it was and if you go into it with that kind of mindset, you’ll have fun with it. Plus the girls look good so that helps.
Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews
From “10 Lottery Winners Who Lost It All” by K. Thor Jensen of Mandatory.com, written April 11, 2012 (http://www.mandatory.com/2012/04/11/10-lottery-winners-who-lost-it-all/8):
“Jonathan Vargas
The easiest way to lose a fortune is to get involved in entertainment, and when Florida teen Jonathan Vargas took home a $35 million Powerball jackpot in 2008, the vultures started circling. Vargas had always had a passion for pro wrestling, so he was convinced to invest his fortune in “Wrestlicious,” an all-female fake fighting promotion. With a collection of former WWE managers behind the scenes and some of the worst in-ring action ever, let’s just say it didn’t take off quite like Vargas had thought it would.”
‘Nuff said.
Jonathan “Jay” Vargas, forever infamous for this blunder alone.
I’m sorry, but I prefer wrestling promotions–men’s, women’s, and co-ed–that make a serious effort to be good and put on a product that EVERYONE can enjoy. Just because wrestling is “sports theater,” in a sense, is no excuse to not make such an effort, either. Having fun with one’s product is one thing, but putting on a show that reminds wrestling fans why the industry has been so unpopular for so long is just taking things too far, IMO.
Just look at how the WWF was in 1995: campy characters all over the place (Bertha Faye, Mantaur, TL Hopper, Dean Douglas, etc.), and the product suffered for it as a result. Same thing with Wrestling Society X, another promotion from only seven years ago that didn’t take itself all that seriously and ultimately paid the price for it when MTV–the very same network that had Big Vision Entertainment tailor it for their audience in the first place–cancelled it after a month to six weeks due to plummeting ratings. The thing is, too, at least WSX had a good idea for its foundation (i.e., “underground” wrestling) that could have gone much further and received less ridicule than it has (and still does) from wrestling fans, and yet, these same critics still defecate all over WSX today. If only Big Vision Entertainment had their heads on straight when putting the show together, maybe such wouldn’t be the case.
Wrestlicious, on the other hand, just cloned the formula of the original GLOW and expected it to work in 2008-2010 when said formula was already twenty-two to twenty-four years old and didn’t dare to do anything different with it, save for throwing in more jokes that were raunchy even by the standards of the original GLOW and using actual women from the independent scene to play their characters and making them look like glorified burlesque cosplayers in the process in the eyes of many. Worse yet was how many of these characters had come from Johnny Cafarella and Steve Blance’s OTHER wrestling endeavor from 2003, CRUSH, which also flopped big time primarily for the same reason Wrestlicious did. Such goes to show just how little effort or thought good ol’ “Johnny C” and company put into their promotion in the first place and how poorly Cafarella had learned from his mistakes. At least with WOW back in 2000-01, David McLane tried to break away from the whole GLOW formula (though admittedly not completely), and though that promotion lasted only six months initially, the change still worked for the most part. In fact, the company’s back today and has lasted about a year and a half now as a pretty decent indy fed.
Basically, Wrestlicious did nothing but set an example of what NOT to do with a wrestling promotion, especially in the 21st century. Sure, comedy and sex appeal still work in small doses in wrestling, but that’s the key term: SMALL doses. Also, bad comedy is bad comedy, no matter where it pops up, and if there’s one thing that turns non-fans away from wrestling, it’s bad comedy. Just look at the Three Stooges segment from Raw back in 2012 to see what I mean.
Oh, and one final thing: Women’s wrestling had already developed a bad reputation not only with GLOW, but also with 1980s-90s WWF taking such poor care of its women’s division at the time and with all the garbage going on with the WWE Divas division over the past decade. Sadly, Wrestlicious did nothing to help that image. Thus, it only makes sense these days to treat women’s wrestling with AT LEAST a little more dignity and respect these days than we had over the years and present women as athletes who are every bit as capable (and then some, in some cases) as their male counterparts are. Sorry, but we’re not living in 1987 anymore, and it’s time wrestling got its act together with how it represents its women.
The puns were awesome.