There’s been a lot of uproar about the most recent season of WWE’s once hit reality show, Tough Enough, that gives everyday men and women an opportunity to showcase their ability, personality and passion, with the aim of signing the potential ‘next big thing’ in professional wrestling. The main issue that people have is the new format, which gives the audience a say in which competitors stay, go and eventually win a $250,000 contract.
If you’re unfamiliar with the system they’ve been running, each episode consists of vignettes highlighting the talking points of each week’s training, challenges and downtime in the barracks. Then the reigns are handed over from trainers Lita, Booker T and Billy Gunn, to a panel of judges; Daniel Bryan, Paige and up until last week, Hulk Hogan, who has been replaced by The Miz from last week going forward.
The judges each choose a competitor to be placed in the bottom three from that week, usually based on the results of the episode’s challenges and/or conflicts, and the public get to vote on who to keep in the competition.
I noticed a flaw in this system pretty much from episode one. It means that, no matter what happens, every vote is going to be a popularity contest. I trust that a lot of people watching will be able to see that just because somebody is an asshole, they might be exactly what the WWE is looking for. But there have been situations where the majority of fans voted for the “nice” one, or the underdog, despite them showing little to no improvements.
One scenario in which this actually paid off was with Sara Lee. For weeks, she struggled to bring emotion into her promo work, despite the likes of Billy Gunn, Paige and Jericho getting right in her face to try and bring something out in her. She also seemed to struggle with trusting her fellow competitors when it came to ring-work.
However, after weeks of being voted into the bottom three by Paige for not showing enough passion, something in her finally clicked, she got in the Anti-Diva’s face with the lights on bright, and stepped up her game enough to be a serious contender to win the competition.
But one person that’s caused way more of a stir, and hasn’t shown much in the way of growth, is the ever-loveable fan-favourite, ZZ, who many feel has long overstayed his welcome as a participant on WWE Tough Enough. At first, his infectious personality was great, we could laugh at his often dim-witted remarks, and the fact that he constantly pokes fun at himself. But at the end of the day, he’s not here to make friends and make people laugh, he’s there to be a WWE Superstar.
I’m not concerned with the man’s size. You’ll see a lot of fans fat-shaming him on social media, but we’ve seen with the likes of Kevin Owens, The Big Show, Mark Henry, Viscera and the late, great Dusty Rhodes that the larger man is not unwelcome in a professional wrestling environment. If ZZ was the same size as he is, but had much better conditioning and muscle mass, and worked a little bit harder to get into the physical mind-set of a WWE Superstar, he could have the full package.
The only problem is he won’t push himself to get to that level. Which is why I do agree that his time in the competition should come to an end soon. I don’t think he’ll go on this week’s episode, mind you, which is rumoured to emit a very anti-ZZ vibe to encourage fans to vote against him.
I think Amanda should have gone home last week because all she’s shown is that she can hog the limelight by being a drama queen and stirring shit in the barracks. The Miz used his one and only save last week to keep her in the competition, and I have no doubt in my mind that Paige is going to give her the boot once again this week.
And as we saw last week, I doubt fans will be very interested in voting for her to stay, unless WWE does pull the trigger and fix the voting results, which thus far I believe to be 100% legitimate. If you ask me, it doesn’t matter whether ZZ goes this week or not, there is no way he’s going to win, unless all of the fans rally together to ruin the show’s already diminishing credibility.
I think Tanner has always been the guy to shine through from day one. Many will argue that Patrick was the guy to win the whole thing before the fans voted him out, but I do think he was lacking in humility and needs more than five or so weeks to perfect his craft.
Patrick is one of few guys in this competition who will continue to work towards the WWE after elimination, and his new-found knowledge from long-time professionals in the industry will help him get to where he needs to be. I won’t be surprised to see his name rise through the ranks of independent promotions over the next four or five years before WWE deems him ready for a real contract.
I will defend Paige’s decision to put him in the bottom three until the day I die for two reasons;
1) The way episodes are edited, there always seems to be at least one antagonist. Patrick had been shown to be cocky, pick on other members for their shortcomings, poking fun at people for being in the bottom three and losing his cool with ZZ in the house. Potential or no potential, the episode portrayed him as the guy who didn’t belong, and so Paige had every right to bring him down a peg. Nobody seems to pick up on the fact that Hogan called him out the week before for his promo skills, and openly stated that he would’ve voted him out himself if not for Paige.
2) Those who said it was a joke for him to be eliminated, should have voted for him. And if they did, then what does that say about the rest of the fans? People lose interest. The kid was good, but this is a reality show, and Patrick was not portrayed as someone the fans want to invest in, whether that was his fault or the producers’.
The limited amount of in-ring action shown on a weekly basis tells me that ring-ability isn’t their main concern in this show. I agree that it should be a huge part, but apparently it’s not, if all they’ve learned in five or six weeks is one brief routine. Paige may have brought him down a peg, but it was the fans’ decision to get rid of him, so focus your hate elsewhere if you can.
I’m predicting that Amanda will get the boot this week and ZZ will the next. I won’t be voting for Zamariah anymore because at this stage, I think Tanner deserves to win and keeping ZZ in will only hinder that from happening. Josh is cool too, but Tanner is easily the way to go.
As for the female side, I think Georgia is looking like the superior competitor both physically and in terms of personality, but I personally prefer Sara Lee. I get the hypocrisy of what I’m saying, but the woman has shown zero interest in starting conflicts, she’s eager to learn and she has really stepped up her game. Georgia just doesn’t appeal to me, although I wish she did. Call me crazy, but if it comes down to the two of them, and I think it will unless Chelsea has an unexpected fan base lurking behind her, I’m going with Sara Lee all the way.
That’s about it, folks. I usually do some live-tweeting for Tough Enough on Tuesdays, so join me @AdamOB_UTS if you’re interested, or if you just want to speak with me about wrestling, my writing or anything at all.
Hopefully you enjoyed this piece. It was very difficult for me to come up with a topic this weekend after the horrible news that surfaced on Friday night about Roddy Piper. I’ve been spending a lot of my time going back and watching some of the moments that made him the unforgettable legend he was the day he left this earth, and I’m sure his passing hit you just as hard as it did me.
I’d encourage you all to have a look at SLTD’s own tribute to the man here, and feel free to comment with your own favourite Piper moments in that post, because we would love to hear them.
Thanks very much for reading, guys and gals.
Self-Professed Conversational Wizard.
Admin, Editor and Writer for SLTD Wrestling.
Creator of 'Under the Spotlight'.
Studying Computing in Games Development.
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