Your Two Cents is our interactive feature where we ask for the opinions of our Twitter and Facebook followers. This week, we’re asking this: Who is your favorite female competitor from the history of Tough Enough? We’ve read your responses on our social media pages and picked some of the best submissions to highlight in … Read more
Your Two Cents is our interactive feature where we ask for the opinions of our Twitter and Facebook followers. This week, we’re asking this: Pick one female wrestler, past or present, to book in this year’s Royal Rumble match. We’ve read your responses on our social media pages and picked some of the best submissions … Read more
Your Two Cents is our interactive feature where we ask for the opinions of our Twitter and Facebook followers. This week, in honor of Halloween, we’re asking this: Who are/were the most frightening women in wrestling? We’ve read your responses on our social media pages and picked some of the best submissions to highlight here … Read more
So… nothing really eventful happened on Raw last night, right? Just kidding! Lord, 2014 is really kicking my butt (in the best way possible) when it comes to giving us a lot to talk about on Monday nights, and this week might have been the most Diva related items we’ve had in… ever? I mean… … Read more
What’s up guys? Well, in case you’re a little lost with what’s going on here (to be honest, you should be since I’m pretty much winging it right now), welcome to the debut edition of my column, Bobby’s Corner. I’d like to give you a little more information about what this column will focus on, but to … Read more
After nearly a decade, tonight Tough Enough returns with a brand new home, brand new trainers and a brand new set of fresh faces trying to bust through the doors of WWE.
It’s hard to believe that it’s been a decade since the first Tough Enough series — boasting the likes of Nidia and Taylor Matheny — hit the airwaves of MTV, peeling back the curtain and showing fans what it takes to become a WWE Superstar.
Roughly ten years ago, a group of eager wannabes queued up on the bitterly cold streets of New York City to audition for a new WWF concept. Tough Enough was looking for a group of 13 men and women to learn how to wrestle from scratch over 9 weeks. Two winners would be chosen, given WWF contracts and be on their way to becoming WWF Superstars.
It had its critics – most notably Triple H, who thought it exposed the business too much, and he might have had a point, as the first season gave every viewer a rough guide on how to bump, which must have resulted in a few shocked vertebrae – but it was a big hit on MTV, where it was hosted. Three seasons were produced for the network, with a fourth featuring on SmackDown in 2004 and was a rough blueprint for the wonderful programme we know and love called NXT.
Now we have been informed that USA Network is planning to revive Tough Enough, though it is still unclear what the format will be. It could follow the format of the original three seasons by taking novices and teaching them from the bottom. It could bring in indie wrestlers and polish them, reminiscent of The Ultimate Fighter; or it could take WWE contracted wrestlers currently plying their craft in Florida Championship Wrestling and put them in a house – though that version will probably be more scripted and moulded towards who WWE want to push. However, to judge how successful any potential winner of Tough Enough: The Return would be, it would be a good idea to look into its history.
Tough Enough produced seven winners – three female, four male – with John Morrison being the most successful of the bunch. But if they have a Y chromosome, we’re not really interested in them, no matter how long and floppy their hair is. So in this two-part piece, we’ll have a look at the fates of the women of Tough Enough, what happened to their careers, and what they are up to these days.
To start with, let us examine the fortunes of the three female winners – in the second part coming next week, we can have a nose around at the other contestants who didn’t win, and the ones who didn’t even make it into the house.
So why don’t we kick off with the originator…?