Focus is the name of the game this week and the pack will be thinned more than usual as our final 8 contestants become a final 6! John Morrison is in the house and the wannabe wrestlers will be taking to the top rope! All this and more on Tough Enough.
Previously on Tough Enough
The survivors from last week’s elimination return to the house and Luke hugs his shirtless best-bud Jeremiah while suggesting he was placed in the bottom three as a mental test and nothing more. Ivelisse admits she wanted Christina gone and the ladies share a tense passive aggressive moment.
Daily Training
Martin is allowed to lead the group in a standard workout of squats, sit-ups, push-ups and more. Eric’s struggles with fitness continue and Bill and Booker ride him for it. Trish drives the ladies to push on and we see everybody looking like they want to die from the intense session. Even frontrunner Martin wants a rest. Bill talks about weeding out the people who aren’t there for the right reasons.
Austin arrives and talks to them all about focus, this week’s life lesson. This leads to more of the body slam drills from last week with Luke causing Jeremiah to spit up blood after taking several nasty bumps, and AJ gets so worn out he can’t lift Andy and is ejected from the ring. It’s about time someone noticed Mr. Average.
Droppin’ Elbows
The next drill will see them body slam the heavy bag, drop a running elbow, and then take to the second rope and drop another elbow. Jeremiah wants to go from the top rope instead but complies. Jeremiah overshoots like the wild man he is, while Andy, Martin and Luke drop nice ones. Eric nearly breaks the ring and himself. Ivelisse can’t even do the body slam on her first few attempts but eventually drops a decent elbow herself, however she comes up grimacing and clutching that injured leg of hers. Making her feel worse, Christina gets in the ring and does the drill flawlessly and is pretty charismatic. This is starting to remind me of an old basketball coach I had who saw our entire squad as 14 identical players and didn’t take into account that different positions require different skills. Not all of these guys are going to be dropping elbows off the ropes or hitting flying crossbodies, yet they’re all being judged on the same scale. Just an observation.
Ivelisse’s Crisis
Bill concludes the session and praises everybody but notices Ivelisse is missing and he and Booker find her on the verge of tears in the kitchen. They ask her if she wants to quit and she says categorically no, but she feels her injury is getting worse. Booker reminds her how Triple H tore his quad and finished the match and they essentially tell her to get over it. Bill gives her a gentle slap to the face on his way out. I feel they’re being pretty harsh here, because though Triple H finished the match, he then took 6 months off, and nobody has actually examined the girl yet.
The Amazing Jo-Mo
John Morrison is in the house and stunningly no mention is made to the fact he came from Tough Enough, something I figured would make for a nice motivational speech. Instead he talks about focus and they’re then tasked with running an rope-based obstacle course. Morrison immediately admits it looks tougher than he thought but that doesn’t stop Austin from hurling insults at the contestants. Andy and Eric are both afraid of heights, with Andy screaming like a woman when he tackles the zip-wire, and Eric actually slips and gets passed by Christina. Things go from bad to worse as he needs to be helped down after 94 minutes. Yes. Ninety. Four.
Ivelisse of course has difficulty as well, and Morrison is the first person to actually be supportive of her injury, heading up the course to help her out with some words of encouragement. This was vaguely about focus I suppose, but I can’t see Big Show getting up there personally.
Skills Challenge: “Cop A Squat”
They’re put into two groups of four and told to ascend the top rope, do fifteen squats, and then hold steady until they fall which just sounds insanely hard. Low and behold, it is, with Andy unable to even maintain balance, and even Martin looking a little shaky. Andy talks about how much Kane and Undertaker head up top and after getting eliminated for failing to keep balance he yells and lays into a punching bag. Bill messes with Martin by having him go higher and lower during his held pose and eliminates him. Ivelisse and Jeremiah survive despite a very wobbly top rope and Ivy’s injury. AJ, Christina, Eric and Luke are next and AJ is instantly eliminated for wobbling. Eric hops down after lots of wobbling and a fearful look in his eyes. Luke believes Eric should just quit.
Jeremiah, Ivelisse, Luke and Christina advance to the finals and making it almost literally impossible, Eric and Andy are told to run the ropes, and boy do they ever. Christina falls first, Ivelisse not long after, then Luke, though it doesn’t count, leaving Jeremiah to do a muscle pose up top. Luke says he feels Jeremiah is the only other contestant to provide a challenge to him, continuing his feud with Martin.
Jeremiah and Luke go one on one in a test of endurance, taking turns to execute a body slam, running elbow, body slam and top rope elbow. Jeremiah goes first and decides to take it at a snail’s pace, capping it off with an elbow drop that hurt him more than it did the bag… so to speak. Luke goes next and does it flawlessly, winning the challenge.
Critique & Feedback
Booker states Jeremiah will refuse to lose, and Austin calls him impressive. They sing Luke’s praises, and acknowledge that Andy is probably not going to spend much time up top if he does make it. They call Eric a disappointment, with Booker saying he thought he might have been the one to win the entire contest. They come down on Ivelisse’s injury again but finally Trish comes to her defence, pointing out wrestlers don’t wrestle when they show up injured. They talk about how Christina improved after being placed in the bottom three last week. Last on the agenda is AJ, and they talk about how bland he is.
Austin gathers the contestants and names Eric, Ivelisse and AJ as the bottom three for this week. AJ says he’s happy to be in the bottom three with the other two as Eric has been consistently bad and Ivelisse has a bad leg. Andy expresses his displeasure for AJ, and Christina says he’s been coasting. Eric feels he’s been improving and they all agree Ivy’s fate is sealed.
The Bottom Three
AJ says he’s there to learn from the best so he can become the best and Austin says he’s no miracle worker. Austin calls him a nice guy but he doesn’t think he can sell out Madison Square Garden. AJ says he’ll find a way in whether he wins this or not but Austin points out he’s yet to win a challenge. He asks Eric about his conditioning and mocks him for saying the workouts are getting harder, telling him he could potentially be somebody, and it’s up to him to make something of it. He asks Ivelisse to scale her pain and she puts it at an 8. He says if not for her injury she wouldn’t be in the bottom three but he has to do what he has to do and eliminates her immediately.
But wait! He’s going to take two belts! AJ says he’ll need to take his belt because he won’t hand it over. Austin smiles and compares him to watching grass grow, saying he was good enough to outlast the riff-raff but now his days are numbered. He tells Eric that he needs to want it as much as Ivelisse and despite him getting fired up about wanting to stay, Austin takes his belt too. He warns AJ that he needs to start hustling or he’s gone too.
Austin says Eric has a great look and shows flashes of brilliance but he simply isn’t Tough Enough, and that he feels bad for Ivelisse but he believes he’ll see her in a WWE ring one day. Here here.
Overall Thoughts
This was another action-heavy episode and for once we didn’t get a cutesy challenge to humilate them, though Eric taking 94 minutes to do a rope course was an embarrassment all on its own. We’ve moved on from drop downs and headlocks, to body slams and elbow drops and I’m now confident that whoever comes out of this will have the basics down enough that with minimal FCW training they’ll make it on TV. Some may worry that them going over these things in such fine detail is pointless, but this is the WWE they’re trying to make it into. WWE wrestlers don’t do a lot, but what they do, they do by the book every single time. Say what you want about the differences between the WWE and the indies, but every member of the WWE roster can do these basic moves perfectly and that’s what they want from the winner.
I think the trainers were pretty hard on Ivelisse, but at the end of the day if she can’t participate there’s no point keeping her. I’m confident she’ll be offered the chance to come in and work out in the ring for agents, and I really do hope she gets a shot, because she’s good looking enough and hard working enough to make it. Eric will absolutely be given the chance to receive further FCW training because I can’t see the WWE passing on someone of his size.
Contestant Evaluation
Luke slides back into the top spot after winning the skills challenge and I’ll repeat my sentiment that he looks like he’s just stepped out of the Ken-doll factory. I don’t like his personality, but he’ll make a good heel and he’s got a better look than Martin, who has the talent required to win this contest, but not to be a WWE superstar.
Jeremiah took a minor step down from his top dog contender status this week because of how dangerous he is in the ring. He can’t bump right, and flies around like a man possessed. His enthusiasm is good, but if he can’t FOCUS then he’s not going to be able to do much. Andy however has Eric’s size but with more control. Thus far he’s been only just missing out when it comes to skills challenges, and he’s very much a sleeping giant.
Christina was actually pretty good in the ring this week, and she could waltz onto television as a diva tomorrow, but I’m not a fan of her apathetic attitude. All my assertions that AJ would survive until the end due to being so middle of the road seem to have blown up in my face. If I’m being honest I think Austin should have taken all three belts this week, because he was bad, and Austin drew a giant line under the fact he’s never going to have the charisma for WWE superstardom.