This week’s episode of Tough Enough is all about Courage, and to exhibit this we’re treated to a talk from John Cena and get to see the contestants get chased down by attack dogs and take bumps from Bill DeMott. All this and everybody’s favourite Matt Cross gets to wrestle a match, but will he impress the judges?
Opening Segment
Austin recaps the first episode and we see the water-throwing incident, Luke excelling, Ryan and Eric struggling, Rima cheating, and Ariane being eliminated. Austin then talks about John Cena making an appearance on tonight’s episode. We’re also going to see them take running avalanches from the still very large Bill DeMott (ladies too) and they’ll have to run from attack dogs. Fun! Oh and there are totally opening titles now and I have to say they’re awesome.
Eric & Michelle Return
Michelle and Eric return to the house after surviving elimination and the other contestants seem very pleased about it, Eric in particular, as he struts back into the house. Eric claims he thought he was in good shape but clearly that isn’t the case so using a new training regiment he will get where he needs to. Matt smiles but then confesses in an interview that he doesn’t think he’s in good condition and he feels he’ll be the next one to go. Ouch M-Dogg, way to backstab a brother.
Daily Training
Wrestling! Well, at least a headlock takeover, but still! We see the contestants working out and Michelle talks about having to step up, but she still runs the ropes like Bambi on ice. Stone Cold arrives as five of the contestants are in the ring training and asks DeMott if he can borrow the ring, kicking them all out. This week’s life-lesson will be Courage. He talks about guys getting paralysed and even killed in the ring. For the day’s training they’ll be taking and doing some moves, including headlock takeovers and body slams. Luke of course hits the best body slam, and Michelle repays him by almost dropping him before getting near the mat. Amusingly, Ryan can barely lift Michelle and DeMott mocks him for it. He continues to rag on the man he nicknamed Skidmarks for failing to hit moves properly. Jeremiah and Ivelisse impress Booker, Michelle looks dead. I can’t say enough how good it was to see them doing actual moves rather than just working out, so this was a nice segment.
Matt Cross vs Luke Mini-Match
Matt and Luke are grappling on the outside and Trish tells them to showboat some more. Trish mocks Matt’s wrestling-name for not being exciting and he laughs with her. She asks him what his thing is and he tells her he’s a high-flyer so she lets him and Luke get in the ring and wrestle for three minutes. There’s a lot of locking up, Matt vaults over Luke in the corner, and then Luke hits a gourdbuster and a running elbow drop. DeMott and Booker comment on how Matt has no facial expressions. Trish asks where Matt has gone, and says Luke is taking his spot. Martin comments that Matt knows precisely what he’s doing, but he’s just too quiet. Luke says Matt dropped the ball and he used it as a chance to make the spotlight shine on him instead. Trish talks to Matt after the mini-match and says she didn’t show him anything. Our first look at Matt Cross and he bombs. It’s tricky to comment on this because the show won’t let us in on how much each guy got to call the match and that really is important. I think it’s clear that Luke is being favoured heavily and for all we know Matt was asked to let him do some moves, or they could have omitted Matt’s stuff. I mean this is a legit competition, why would Luke allow Matt to do flashy moves on him? Conspiracy theorists, go nuts!
John Cena Arrives
Cena quietly slips in the back door and we see shots of the contestants noticing him and marking out. Austin greets him and Martin talks him up as the best in the business. We get a highlight reel of Cena’s stuff as Austin claims nobody exhibits more courage than Cena. John tells them to focus on getting to tomorrow, not getting to the WWE.
He says he would prefer them asking him questions rather than him just preaching to them. Jeremiah asks him the hardest thing he’s had to learn and he said it was having faith in himself. AJ asks what match or moment defines him and he says it is his next one because the wrestling business has a short-attention span. Matt asks who he hasn’t worked with that he’d like to and he laughs and looks at Austin. Stone Cold smiles and asks him for another name but Cena sticks to his answer. Take that Rocky! (This was filmed before he got to work with him) Rima asks him to marry her. I die inside, Cena laughs. She says she was nervous having him watch them all take bumps. Rima takes multiple body slams and Austin asks her how it feels. She says good, so he asks for another. She laughs with him as she clearly is getting destroyed by them, which is kind of nice. At least she’s aware. If only she weren’t so thoroughly unlikeable outside the ring. Cena’s appearance was a little too brief for my liking.
Drinks, Impressions & Letters
Back at the house everybody drinks and Jeremiah brings out Luke doing an impression of Stone Cold. He’s not terrible, and he gets a few laughs before hitting a Stunner. AJ does not approve, discussing their budding bromance. Jeremiah does an awful Stone Cold impression and they continue to mess around. Aww.
We see several of the contestants working out the next morning and then Mickael walks in on Ryan writing a letter to his girlfriend, and mocks him relentlessly for it because he’s nice like that. My sympathy for Ryan vanishes when he says after being with his girlfriend Tiffany for a year he knows he’ll be with her forever and does the worst fake crying I’ve ever seen to try and get some audience love. He says he would consider leaving to return to her and has thus earned himself a one way ticket out of there if Daniel Bryan’s NXT answers are anything to go by. All of these segments from back in the house have made me like the contestants less.
Life Lesson Challenge: Attack Dogs
The contestants are wrestling in the ring when Austin arrives and kicks them out to tell them about their upcoming out-of-ring activity to demonstrate this week’s life lesson of courage. They’ll each have to run from an attack dog while wearing a protective suit. Can’t say I envy them on this one.
AJ goes first and is taken down in seconds. Michelle and Ivelisse fair even worse. Christina goes down in a heap. Mickael requests two dogs, but it takes only one to bring him down after a decent fight. Andy says he’s run from dogs before and he makes it quite far but he’s brought down. Austin and Bill laugh about the biggest man being brought down. Eric looks slightly bigger than him to me but OK. Matt seemingly wasn’t brought down as the dog hung from his back but the cameras cut away so I can only assume he fell. Rima went last and the music changes for her as Austin and Bill discuss how badly she’s going to fail. Down she goes and it actually was biting around her neck and head, ripping out some of her hair. To her credit she smiled about it.
Eric is the first one to make it to the end of the course, looking hilarious with his hair poking out of the suit and talking trash to the dog. He is caught quickly but the dog is unable to bring him down, hanging off his arm as he skips to the finish line, talking more trash at the end. Austin commends him. Golden Boy Luke is slow and almost falls but he too carries the dog off his arm to the end. Martin makes it most of the way to the end before getting bitten and the dog doesn’t do well with bringing him down so he makes it. Bill remarks on how he dislikes Ryan and wants him to fail. He runs like a moron, gets caught, but very slowly makes it to the end regardless, dedicating his run to Bill. Austin laughs. Jeremiah runs the fastest of anyone, making it a long way before being caught and continues to run full pace with the dog hanging on to his back so he clearly wins.
Austin sums the challenge up by saying the fear of the hit is worse than the hit itself and that was a perfect way to describe the challenge. He dismisses them and Ryan feels he’s safe. People might not think this challenge has a lot to do with wrestling, but Austin was right to say fear of pain is worse than the pain itself, and let’s face it, this was just funny to watch.
Skills Challenge: Running with the Bill
I know I’m beating everyone over the head with this, but the bias towards Luke continues as we get a shot of him greeting Bill DeMott. Just him, no-one else, and I’m willing to bet the others did it but it wasn’t shown. Rima is missing and we see her still in bed back at the house. When she finally arrives we get a tremendous camera angle over Bill’s shoulder looking towards the door and she stumbles in clueless. Bill makes some remarks that I’m sure he felt were subtle and dry, but Rima seems to not understand she’s being scolded.
Austin arrives and explains Booker’s absence due to taping with Smackdown. He calls this week’s challenge five for flinching (my name is better), explaining they will stand in one corner of the ring and Bill will charge from the other and flatten them and then give them some body slams. They’ll be graded on how they take the hits and of course will be penalised for flinching too much.
Martin sets the bar by going first and he has a casual look on his face before taking the hit and pops back up quickly after each body slam, getting right in Bill’s face. Colour me impressed. Andy and AJ go next, and AJ tries to emulate Martin’s calm demeanour but is shaking a touch when he stands up. Ivelisse is next and we get a camera shot that emphasises her tiny body. She screams when she’s hit and then again with each body slam. Christina goes next and Bill holds her up in the body slam for several seconds before finally tossing her.
Rima is next and takes the hit well but takes her sweet time getting up between slams. Michelle takes the hit hard and I can’t tell if Austin was praising or criticising how she took it, but she herself feels she did well. Matt is thrown around with complete ease and actually bleeds from his elbow, but he pops up quickly. Bill tosses Andy down with surprising ease too considering his size. Mickael gets an absolute beating which pleases me, but then he puts his finger up his nose and it’s covered in blood which he proceeds to lick clean, so I hate him more. Jeremiah bumps terribly, cannonballing down instead of spreading his weight and as such each hit looks more painful.
Erick is left for last and they build more suspense than with the other contestants. His head snaps back as Bill jumped into the hit. Bill struggles to slam him and he gets to his feet and stares Bill down, towering over him as they go nose to nose… or rather nose to mouth. Eric feels he doesn’t belong in the bottom three this week and I agree. Austin commends them all and then heads off with Trish and Bill to grade them.
Critique & Feedback
They start out with the strongest performers and Trish talks Luke up. Bill agrees. Shocking! He says Eric is awful in terms of training, saying he doesn’t listen, but Austin defends him for his performance with the dog. Bill buries Ryan, and Austin says he doesn’t think too much of him either. Trish says Matt blew it. Bill agrees that Luke stole the show. Trish says he has skill but if he doesn’t turn it on when he needs to he has nothing. Austin commends Rima for being tough but says she won’t be able to hold up to the schedule. Trish agrees but says she was once in that position. Bill comments on her being late and Austin nods his head knowingly.
Austin tells the contestants they’re being judged continuously, not just week to week, so a good performance this week may not be enough to save some of them. Matt, Ryan and Rima are called forth and announced as the bottom three, stunning the IWC. Martin is shocked as he feels Matt is one of the best skill-wise and suggests perhaps he was lampooned to put the entire group on notice.
Back to the House
Matt is confident but knows he could be sent home, being comforted by Michelle and Christina. Michelle in particular praises him in an interview. He says he feels they’re trying to scare him and they have. Rima is a little teary but feels she’s what the competition is looking for. I’m on the fence about her confidence, on the one hand it’s admirable that she takes everything on the chin, on the other it can seem like she feels the whole thing is going to be a cake-walk and being slammed by Bill DeMott is enough to get her the job. Mickael flat out tells Ryan he’s going home because he sucks in the ring compared to him. Ryan says he’ll come and see Mickael when he’s the one sent home next week, insulting the state of New Jersey in the process. If I haven’t made it clear yet, I do not like Mickael one bit.
The Bottom Three
Rima, Matt and Ryan pack their bags and bring their belts to the ring. Austin asks each of them what they see when they look in the mirror. Rima says everyone just sees Miss USA and that she’s a pretty girl. Hilariously she says she’s going to prove everyone wrong. I know what she was going for, but it sounded like she was going to prove she’s not pretty (CM Punk doesn’t think so.) Matt says he sees potential and talks about his gymnastics background. Ryan says he’s a strong, determined, driven individual and Austin shakes his head and calls it B.S. Stone Cold comments on how none of them said they see a WWE superstar. Matt admits he hasn’t shown Austin everything he is capable of and gets a talking down for not setting himself apart despite 9 years of experience and that he put Trish to sleep. He says Rima has done just as much as him so far in the competition and I’m not sure which of them should feel more insulted.
Austin takes off his watch and remarks that he is fascinated by time and that it physically hurts him to ever be late, turning to Rima and asking if she was late due to arrogance or laziness. She claims it was neither and instead just stupidity on her part for not asking what time they needed to be there. Austin makes a fantastic observation by calling her strong from the chin-up as her mind wills her to get back up after every bump, but her body doesn’t want to. He turns to Ryan asks him a trick question: “Do you rub everyone the wrong way, or is Bill DeMott an asshole?” If anyone knows the correct answer to that please let me know. Ryan doesn’t know what he did to offend Bill and gets shouted at for not standing up for himself more when nicknamed Skid-Marks. Ryan says he did this out of respect and Austin just laughs before asking Matt why Ryan should be eliminated. Matt doesn’t believe he’s truly passionate or ready, remarking on how he cried to his girlfriend after two weeks and the winner must travel for 300 days a year. That may have sealed the deal. Austin asks if Ryan would leave the show if Tiffany asked him to and he contradicts his earlier statement by saying he would not. Austin says he’s too nice for the business.
Just as Matt seemed to have decided Ryan’s fate he blows it for himself by saying he hasn’t established himself yet in the contest because he’s waiting for his moment. Austin talks about being given the chance to be the Ringmaster and he did it to get in the door and he created his own moment by becoming Stone Cold, saying if he hadn’t done so nobody else would have thought of it. He says Matt talks about what he can do but so far all he’s done is take bumps and even Rima can do that. Matt turns bad to worse by asking for permission to respond, infuriating Austin. He claims he didn’t want to do too many flashy top rope moves so early in the contest and Austin tells him it’s too late now. Having worked himself up into an angry state, Austin addresses Rima briefly and sternly, telling her to never be late again or else she will be gone, confirming her safety and then turning back to Matt and telling him to pack his bags. Matt looks stunned and refuses to let go of his belt, and says he can show Austin some moves right now that would embarrass both of them but Stone Cold says it’s over.
Matt is devastated, exiting the ring slowly and remarking on how he doesn’t know where he’ll go from here. Austin hangs Matt’s belt next to Ariane and comments on how 9 years of wrestling mean nothing if he isn’t charismatic and that he just didn’t show him enough.
Next Week: Bill shouts at the ladies for being in bed, Big Show will turn up, and Luke confirms he’s going to win the competition by getting to wrestle Stone Cold!
Overall Show Thoughts
This episode hummed along at a much quicker pace thanks in part to not having to establish the wrestlers and trainers at the start, and I enjoyed how quickly they got into the ring and started doing actual wrestling moves. As good as that is, it presents a difficult challenge as the show is never going to take us fully behind the scenes of wrestling in training them, so it’s tricky to show them being taught to do moves and how to wrestle without ever taking us all the way in. Getting to see Matt and Luke wrestle for three minutes emphasised this because the way it looked was that Luke is superior and triumphed over Matt, but in reality surely they either were told to do the match this way, or Matt allowed Luke to do what he did. Still, good to see them wrestle.
John Cena’s appearance was far too brief and I would have liked to have seen him actually work with the contestants in the ring rather than stand by and do nothing while they did more of what they already had been. His answers to their questions were very nice though. The two challenges were entertaining from a “watch these people get hurt” way, and I think both amply exhibited courage. It might be worth noting there were four different dogs and the one used on the later contestants seemed far less vicious, but it wasn’t about them getting caught or not, it was about how they responded, and Eric and Jeremiah were clearly the stand-outs.
Not a lot to say about the general concepts such as the interview cut-aways and the structure because I said it all last week. I like the way they’re cutting the show together, I like the discussions in the office, I like the belts being used as props, I like the way the bottom three get promos cut on them by Austin, and I like how the belts get hung under a portrait of the eliminated contestant, though those pictures need to be infinitely larger.
The Elimination
Obviously I took Matt Cross’ elimination as hard as everyone else out there in internet land. He’s not the world’s greatest wrestler, but even if you don’t like him, you have to support the few that have been actually working for a while and know what they’re doing ahead of those that are attempting to break in from other areas. He’s capable of some incredible high flying moves, and it’s a shame we never got to see him do any of them in a WWE ring, but he would probably have gotten in trouble if he had done them and been lectured about learning the basics. Still, at least we would have gotten the visual pop out of him doing some crazy flips. I don’t think he should have been placed in the bottom three based on his performance in the show, as his mini-match with Luke was an unfair assessment of his skills. As I’ve said already, why would Luke allow Matt to do big moves at his expense? Maybe Matt should have asserted himself and demanded he get some offence in, but it’s been looking so far like Luke is everyone’s favourite so say what you will.
However, after unjustly getting selected as one of the bottom three, he has nobody to blame but himself for being the one to get tossed from the show. Rima is one of the biggest sources for entertainment and besides face-planting on a roll and being late she’s yet to do anything outright terrible. Ryan drew the ire of Bill DeMott from the very first show, did terribly in the ring last week, ran like an idiot this week, and did himself no favours with the girlfriend fiasco. He was a sure thing to be eliminated, but then Matt blew it for himself with his wait-and-see attitude, answering Austin back and generally pissing him off if you’ll pardon my French. So it sucks that he’s gone already, but this is a contest and based on how he acted when it counted most, he deserved to go. The only thing that will anger me is if he is just cut loose after Ariane got an FCW contract.
Contestant Standings
If Luke doesn’t win this contest I’ll be absolutely stunned. He gets as much camera time as Rima, he was the one allowed to get in the ring alongside Matt, he got to win their mini-match, he gets talked up by the trainers, and next week he’s going to be wrestling Austin. Martin has been wrestling with the NWA for several years, is pretty jacked, and was impressive when faced with Bill DeMott. Plus he isn’t as arrogant as Luke, but knowing the WWE like I do that will probably be the reason he ultimately comes second. Eric went from looking awful last week to strong this week and given his indie work I’m supporting him. Jeremiah is a beast but his personality irritates me and he’s yet to look good when it comes to actual wrestling.
AJ is perfectly fine but there’s just not a lot to him, so if he keeps his head down he’ll probably stay in the competition a long time only to ultimately crash out. I like Andy‘s look and he’s another big guy so he has potential but he doesn’t seem to be well-liked by the trainers. Mickael is a complete ass, but he’s fine in the ring, so he’ll probably go deep into the contest too. Ivelisse seems like she’s good based on her hype videos, but she’s yet to be given a chance either. If we get a male and a female winner she gets my pick, but if two of the guys are good, I’d rather she didn’t get anything.
Ryan has yet to do anything impressive and given how much Bill DeMott hates him and how close he got to being eliminated I’d say he’s not long for the show. Michelle talks a big game but she’s been terrible physically and she barely survived last week. Christina has yet to show me any evidence of being awful, but she’s very frail looking, and given the talent level of her sibling my hopes aren’t high.
What about Rima? I don’t know yet. I think she’s in the middle of the pack. WWE would love to be able to put Miss USA on television on a regular basis both for the media attention and because obviously they like pretty girls. She’s feisty and has done a great job of taking the abuse she was always going to get. However she’s not good in the ring, she cheated last week, was late this week, and we know for a fact the fight she started last week isn’t going to be the last. I don’t care for girls that throw things and curse people out, and her attitude generally rubs me the wrong way, but she’s doing enough of the right things to stay alive, so she may find herself surviving to the end, or she could finally blow it. Time will tell.
Plugs
– Kevin, Justin and myself recorded the second ever JKM Fun Hour breaking down King of Trios ahead of the tournament this weekend. There’s also some Wrestlemania talk for good measure. The recording took place before the tragic announcement of Larry Sweeney’s death, so an interview Kevin and Jerome did with Johnny Gargano and some discussion of Sweeney was inserted at the beginning, making it a very long podcast, but I promise you it’s worth every second!
– I reviewed the very last episode of ROH On HDNet recently, so I’d love it if people would take a look. Watch out for an article detailing the highs and lows of the show’s history.
– I wrote this review on the same day that my next article for the Wrestling Press is due, so while you’re waiting for that take a look at my work for them so far including the Jeff Hardy incident and the return of The Rock!
– Please check out Justin’s article chronicling his experiences over Wrestlemania weekend. It’s number one.