After four years off the air, Tough Enough made its return to the USA Network with a thirty-minute season premiere showcasing thirteen competitors looking to earn a guaranteed money contract with WWE.
The end result was… less than stellar.
This new series is Tough Enough on food stamps.
Chris Jericho is one of my all-time favorites, but his contribution to the show is literally standing on a stage for a few seconds, playing host, and setting up segments for other people. The cut back to only half an hour (and that’s without commercial breaks) makes everything seem rushed. When you have such a short window of time to work with, why try adding all these live factors with the American Idol-style judging and voting? It leaves you with only a few minutes of actual footage – all the “challenges” are breezed past, and the vast majority of the characters/competitors are wallpaper.
Most importantly – WHERE’S THE WRESTLING!?
If you were a casual channel-changer flipping through networks on Tuesday night, and happened to land on the USA Network knowing nothing about pro wrestling, it’s very possible you could make it through the entire episode without realizing the show had anything to do with WWE. Hulk Hogan is kind of a tip off, I suppose…
Out of all thirteen names, literally ONE of them made a vague reference to being a life-long wrestling fan. Nobody else even mentioned the business.
Say what you will about beauty queens like Rima Fakih, but at least she was a major wrestling fan before coming to Tough Enough. Almost every single one of the competitors in the 2011 season (with the exception of, you know, the first person eliminated and the only person who made it to television) expressed their love for wrestling, and the majority of them had experience. Some of them were even long-time indie stars.
The WWE Network ‘Tough Talk’ aftershow was easily more entertaining, but that’s only because we got some time to meet the competitors and hear their thoughts and personalities come out. Also, because the banter between The Miz and Daniel Bryan is absolute gold, and Paige wrecking fools for their sexist bulls**t is priceless.
In the next few pages I break down my thoughts on all thirteen competitors. And as easy as it is to rail on Tough Enough 2015 – it’s so, so much worse than the Steve Austin season – there are still some really decent names that I’m looking forward to watching over the next few months.
