Miscellaneous mat madness reviews

WOMEN OF WRESTLING (14/10/00-9/12/00): Man, this was the pits. David McLane has been responsible for a lot of bad women’s wrestling, starting with the campy cult TV series Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling (GLOW) in the mid-80s, followed by Powerful Ladies Of Wrestling (POWW) a few years later. WOW was the latest (and some would hope it’s the last) venture by wheeler-dealer McLane to get chick rasslin’ on the idiot box.
Funnily enough, WOW was probably the pick of the three promotions he put together ’cos McLane used more real athletes and less bimbos to play his corny characters in the ring. Unfortunately, they ALL still sucked as wrestlers. Of those I saw on these episodes, the only half-decent characters were
* Slam Dunk (a tall, unknown black chick with a basketball gimmick and some athletic and interview skills)
* Champ Terri Gold (in another life, a fitness model called Heather Millard who did a nice moonsault finisher)
* Riot (April Littlejohn [pictured above] – a stuntwoman by trade – who couldn’t wrestle but at least she showed fire in the ring and her finisher was a power bomb, which was nice. Plus her outta-control/deranged gimmick was cute)
* Danger (played by Elle Alexander, she was very similar to Riot’s character although a notch better in the ring and on the mike. But Riot was more fuckable)
* Jungle Grrl (Erica Porter) and Beckie The Farmer’s Daughter (Renee Inktlehoffer) could both execute a fine splash off the top rope
* Lana Star (played by Lana Kinnear, she sucked hairy bollocks in the ring, but was a genuinely annoying heel on the mike in a Missy Hyatt sorta way), AND
* The referee (who, sadly, was the best bump-taker in WOW).
The troupe was led by mullet-headed veterans Thug (Peggy Lee Leather) and Selina Majors (best known as Bambi on the rasslin’ circuit). As old and skanky as they looked, at least these gals knew how to wrestle old-school style. They did a hard-core angle early on in the series where Thug injured Selina’s knee, heating up their feud and building to a grudge cage match at WOW’s one and only PPV, Unleashed in 2001.
The talents of Thug were also evident in one bout where she carried Beckie The Farmer’s Daughter to a “My God! This doesn’t stink!” level.
But these were few and far between in WOW – most were only worth viewing in fast forward. Whoever trained the girls had obviously taught them that nearly every match should start with a dropkick and end with a splash. After a while, I started rooting for the girls who at least did something DIFFERENT in the ring.
While the angles were fairly logical and generally built to future bouts and feuds, McLane’s booking was, at times, quite bizarre. Also, all the wrestlers and angles seemed to focus or involve McLane to some degree – at times I felt like I was watching mid-80s NWA with McLane in the Dusty Rhodes role.
One of the few fun things to do during the WOW shows was to watch the fans sitting on their hands while fake crowd noise was played over the soundtrack. It was like seeing a convention of ventriloquists boo and cheer without moving their lips.
Finally, former WCW and AWA announcer Lee Marshall was McLane’s co-commentator for each episode, and all I can say is Marshall blew him away, which I think shows you how BAD McLane was as a commentator.
WOW quickly burnt a lot of money before the promotion went belly-up. I understand McLane’s searching for a new money mark and is attempting to relaunch WOW. God help us all.
As for the wrestlers, most have disappeared from sight although several played Bone-ettes in Spider-Man (2002). I assume they were valets for Randy “Bonecrusher” Savage – it sounds rude, but.
If you’re curious to learn what the hell WOW was all about, the official web site is still running at www.wowe.com.

BEST OF GLOW Vol. 2: My God! Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse than WOW, along comes this rancid relic from the mid-80s. Actually, it’s my fault ’cos I asked tape trader extraordinaire Mark Herzog to see some of it (and the WOW shows). But, boy, do I regret it now! Bad wrestling, shocking acting, terrible editing and camerawork, horrible rapping, awful jokes, hideous Jackie Stallone and way too much David McLane. Apart from the curiosity factor of seeing Tina “Ivory” Ferrari in her very early days, there’s absolutely nothing to recommend GLOW tapes. However, if you REALLY want to know more about GLOW, there’s a tribute page at www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Loge/5319/GLOW.html.

THE BEST OF WRESTLING: GRAPPLING GIANTS: If you want to know why wrestling died in the UK, then this commercial video from 1991 answers a lot of those questions. It’s hosted by legendary heel Mick McManus who, sadly, is also one of the world’s worst commentators (he and co-commentator Lee Bamber probably vie for that honour, to be honest) and features five bouts that inadvertantly showcase all that was horrible about the scene.
The action opens with the genuinely talented Rollerball Rocco and Danny Boy Collins fighting to a naff double countout (or “double knockout” as Bamber incorrectly calls it). At one point, Rocco misses a backward elbow drop from the top rope and McManus, who’s clearly never watched his Ted DiBiase/WWF tapes, exclaims, “Look at that, he fell off by mistake. I can’t believe it.” Match two is the late Pat Roach (who was a far better actor than a wrestler) against the truly horrible Giant Haystacks. The less said about this “title match” the better.
Two lightweights Tony Stewart and Kid McCoy barely get going before one of them (I can’t remember which one and really don’t care) falls out of the ring and is “injured”, ending the bout. What the fuck…? As if we haven’t had enough punishment, Giant Haystacks returns in a beyond-forgettable tag match.
The only thing that saves the tape from being complete dreck is the final match, a CWA World Heavyweight Championship bout between Bull “Vader” Power and Otto Wanz. It’s an odd choice to put on this tape as it doesn’t feature any Brit grapplers and comes from Bremen, Germany. However, one shouldn’t quibble when one finds a diamond poking out of a pile of horseshit. Thankfully, Mick and Lee have been replaced by more competent commentators Nic Parry and Paroe Perez, who describe the match as if it was a legit sporting contest (like Jim Ross used to do many years ago). Between them, the rabid crowd and Vader’s sterling efforts in carrying the morbidly obese Wanz, this is a pretty memorable contest, even if it mainly consists of clotheslines and punches.
Interestingly (for me, anyway), Vader’s manager for this match was Welsh promoter Orig Williams, who I interviewed for BP back in 1995. Naturally, Wanz wins the bout by knockout. Urgh…no wonder wrestling also died in Germany.

THUMP: THE VERY BEST OF WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING VOL. 5: Jacko’s still here but this time the quality of the matches isn’t good enough to offset his annoying presence. There are several woeful filler matches including a 20-minute bout from 1960 between Angelo Savoldi and Con Papalazarou and a shitty 1978 TV match between Butcher Brannigan and Kid Hardy, which probably explains why Channel 9 axed WCW that year. Watching Andy Harpas (when he had hair) jobbing to Sheik Wadi Ayoub was slightly less painful. Thankfully, the rest of the matches are from that classic early 1970s period when Mark Lewin’s Army was feuding with Big Bad John’s Army, best match being Australasian heavyweight champ Spiros Arion taking on Abdullah the Butcher (with the middle rope removed to prevent Abby dropping the dreaded Butcher’s Axe or flying elbow from the middle rope as I like to call it). There’s also plenty of Waldo Von Erich, Mark Lewin, Mario Milano and the Tojo Brothers to satisfy them old-time rasslin’ cravings.
Sadly, there should have been more of them and less of the filler shit. Oh well…I guess we should just be grateful that any of the old WCW stuff got reissued at all.