WWE Tough Enough Episode #7 Review

Welcome one and all to the dumpster fire we’ve all come to know and love as Tough Enough. I am still your host for this review on TJRWrestling, as all your words of encouragements such as, “Man, Kurt deserves a medal for sticking with this” has kept me motivated through the muck that is this awful show. I seriously get a kick out of all of you saying, “I don’t watch the show, I just read your review.” Maybe I have more page views than the actual show has viewers. Wouldn’t that be something? Nonetheless we’re in week seven and we have seven competitors left. We have a visit from the Prime Time Players tonight and that’s all we know. So let’s see what kinda ride they take us on tonight.

I missed the first two minutes of the show as my DVR apparently has something against WWE this week. RAW and Tough Enough are both set to record always, but this week, both shows didn’t record to start. I’m sure all I missed was a recap of last week though, because as I turned the show on, we just see the remaining participants on stage clapping. We go to Chris Jericho who just couldn’t stay away from the scarves, and the lovely Renee Young who looks fantastic in pink tonight. We see our judges and thankfully The Miz is back for round two. I hope he fucks some shit up again this week. It’ll give me something to look forward to.

The judges give some feedback to start the show. The Miz tells Amanda he hopes she doesn’t let it get to her head with the fact that he saved her last week. Paige says she’s impressed with Josh but she wants to see more. Daniel Bryan says he was impressed with Chelsea’s first week back from injury, but he’s now holding her to a higher standard. Miz calls out Tanner for his lack of personality, Paige says Gigi is on cruise control, so she wants to see how she steps up. Daniel says it’s time for ZZ to step up, and Miz wants to know what Sara Lee is really like.

We go to the barracks after Mada’s elimination and they discuss how you can never feel safe. Anything can change week to week. Amanda says she’s glad Miz saw something in her potential, but Chelsea says Miz wasn’t looking at her potential. Sorry about that Maryse. Amanda sees nothing wrong with what Miz said. Shocker. ZZ is pouting on the couch and asks the group, “are we gonna pretend that everyone doesn’t want me gone?” I just realized there’s only three guys left. Tanner and Josh don’t hide the fact they don’t think ZZ tries. ZZ tells them to treat him as if he is gone, because he’s tired of all the nitpicking.

The competitors now go to meet their coaches inside the Performance Center. This week’s theme is teamwork. Just as an aside before they go into the montage of their training, WWE through all their social media accounts had two videos posted this week from this training with Billy Gunn giving ZZ an earful about how he’s not doing anything right and really putting him down. Rightfully so, but I’m just letting everyone know, don’t be surprised if the moral of today’s story is, “Get rid of ZZ.”

The competitors do some criss cross, some rolls and other cardio work. They show a small part of Billy yelling at ZZ, who refuses to say he quits. The competitors start to learn hiptosses with the help of NXT Superstar Jason Jordan. ZZ almost costs Chad Gable his current push as he does no favors to Jordan trying to hiptoss him and Billy immediately sends him out of the ring. Not good at all. Now they start hiptossing each other and ZZ actually successfully hiptosses Tanner.

It’s time for everyone to pair up and put everything they’ve learned together in a sequence. Anyone else find it odd that we’re seven weeks in and they’ve yet to throw a working punch? Wouldn’t that be lesson number two after a tie up? Nonetheless since there’s only three guys, Tanner has to go twice. He’s nervous about working with ZZ though, and naturally they’re going first. ZZ gets gassed quickly, but manages to hit a good bodyslam at the end. Gigi and Sara go next and Gigi apparently doesn’t know where her head is because she claims Sara slammed her right on her head, despite video evidence showing she landed on her left hip. Maybe her head is up her ass. That’s my only guess.

Amanda and Chelsea go next and I kid you not, Chelsea is getting in trouble for actually selling. She gets in trouble for knowing what she’s doing. Just when I think this show has hit a low point, it finds space below it. They got kicked out of the ring for not being on the same page. Tanner and Josh go last and both look excellent in the ring, Josh in particular. The coaches critique everyone with Chelsea and Josh getting the highest praise. Gigi and Sara are called out for taking a step backwards during the training. Billy says ZZ has to step up somehow. The cardio is ridiculous for him. They are then sent back to the barracks.

Back live to the hosts and judges. Daniel and Paige give props to Josh while Miz pulls no punches with the following quote, “ZZ you are lazy and an underachiever. I think the audience likes you so much because they can relate to that.” OUCH. Is he wrong though? It’s an interesting thought. We go to commercial.

We return to the rules of elimination, even though especially after the last two weeks, we get how someone gets eliminated. Now we go back to the barracks and Tanner and Josh are playing pool. Josh says he needs to know that Tanner can spit game because we all saw what happened in the hot tub. Josh says this may be a competition, but as a human, he’s gotta help his guy out with his game. Things turn REALLY awkward now. Tanner busts out game we didn’t know he had, and even flusters Josh. Now Sara and Gigi go back and forth about what happened in the training, with neither really being right on the matter.

We switch to the competitors in the weight room. Josh goes to give ZZ some words of encouragement as he goes through his workout. Josh says that he showed up to this competition at 308 pounds and thick. But now the weight room and the ring are his life and that’s what he remains focused on. If I remember correctly, he’s lost something like 35 pounds already, so ZZ would be smart to listen to him.

It’s now time for their second challenge this week, which is a fire challenge. The coaches stresses how much teamwork is important and that’s the theme this week. So our special guests this week are the WWE Tag Team Champions, Darren Young & Titus O’Neil, The Prime Time Players. Now before I continue, let me just say a few words about these two since I have the forum to do so. If you haven’t heard about what Titus did for the homeless this weekend, you need to seek out that story immediately. Titus and Darren are both tremendous ambassadors for their respective causes that they participate in, and are two of the easiest superstars to cheer for. I really respect everything they do.

It’s time for the Millions of Dollars dance and then they describe how important teamwork is and how it effects the business. They are put into teams and will go through a real life fire drill where the goal is to pull a “victim” out safely from the blaze. ZZ, Chelsea, Amanda, & Tanner are team one. ZZ says he was a volunteer firefighter in his hometown, so this is right up his alley. They seem to have good teamwork and complete it in 12:02. Josh, Sara, & Gigi are team two, which doesn’t exactly seem fair to Josh. They complete the course in 14:49. Billy complements everyone and says by a very slight margin that Team One wins the competition. They send the Prime Time Players on their way and Darren Young looks like he realizes he didn’t even get to say one word while he was here. We go to commercial.

Back to the barracks yet again and the guys are all talking together. Josh and Tanner discuss where ZZ is at right now in terms of ring work. ZZ says no matter what happens, he wants the best man to win. Now Chelsea and Amanda are talking things over and Amanda is still mad that Chelsea actually did some selling while they were doing the ring work. Amanda thinks Chelsea was trying to sabotage her by selling. Interesting theory. They continue to argue about everything and then ZZ gets a water bottle thrown at him.

Back to the judges live and Paige says the guys showed a lot of teamwork while the girls showed none and just want to sabotage each other. So she’s not impressed with any of them.

We go to commercial, where we find out that John Cena “in his first appearance back since getting injured” will be the special guest next week. Yes, because he was gone so long. Guess that means he won’t be on RAW again next week. I will laugh if next week’s challenge has something to do with a shovel. You know, since he’s so good at burying people.

We return to the judges ready to grill some of the competitors. Miz goes first and calls up Amanda. Miz says he warned Amanda not to let what he said last week get to her head, and yet that’s exactly what she’s done. So since he may have created a monster, he’s already letting her know that he’s putting her in the bottom three. Man I love The Miz. This show would’ve sucked just that much less if he’d been on since day one. Miz then calls out Josh and wants to know why he’s trying to motivate ZZ. Miz wants to know if ZZ is just working out for the cameras, because they see Josh sweating like crazy and out of breath, but ZZ has no sweat whatsoever and isn’t out of breath. Josh says he’s gotta keep it real and says yeah it’s just for the cameras. Josh treats the weight room like his church. Paige gives him the credit he deserves, bringing up the fact that she knows he’s telling the truth due to the 35 pounds he’s lost so far. That gets a much deserved applause from the live audience. Josh says it’s to the point now where you have to cut off ZZ.

Jericho then asks ZZ if he actually is training. ZZ says yes, he’s lost 8 pounds. ZZ says he wasn’t prepared for the physicality, so he was late to the game, but now he does what he needs to. Miz asks when the last time he was in the gym and what did he do in there. ZZ says it was today and he did some treadmill, ab exercises, and some dumbbell presses. The judges don’t look impressed.

Paige goes next, and calls out Chelsea for leaving Amanda out to dry and not following the teamwork theme of the week by not going down to Amanda’s level and helping her out. Even though the coaches told her to stop selling, she didn’t. Miz asks if they’ve been taught to sell, which they have not. So he and Paige yell at her for doing so. Maybe THAT’S the issue guys. Not for nothing, but we shouldn’t be seven weeks into a show where they haven’t learned to sell. But they don’t do anything right on this show, so oh well.

Daniel gets to speak now, I swear I forget he’s on the show sometimes. Daniel says that although Sara should’ve apologized just on an etiquette basis, he saw nothing wrong with the slam. He felt Gigi went too far claiming that she could’ve been paralyzed, considering he knows what it’s like to be dropped on his head and have numbness in both arms. Paige then unbelievably starts defending Gigi. I swear I do not understand her on this show at all! Daniel will have none of it though, and looks pretty disgusted with Gigi. That’s the most emotion he’s shown in seven weeks. Jericho tells us the bottom three are up next and we go to commercial.

We get a plug for Tough Talk and now it’s time for the bottom three. Daniel Bryan goes first, and he picks Gigi for overreacting on a bodyslam that was on her side. If she’s going to get that scared about that type of slam, then maybe she shouldn’t be here. This is by far Daniel’s best showing. Paige isn’t happy. Paige sends Sara back to the bottom three for not apologizing to Gigi and not showing compassion for almost hurting someone. Miz goes now and even though he said he’s sending in Amanda, Miz says she’s embracing her assets, which is what Miz does every time he goes on TV. So now but he’s changed his mind! Paige wants to slug him. Miz says that he’s now throwing in Chelsea because she didn’t follow the teamwork premise this week and like Daniel said at the beginning of the show, they’re holding her to a higher standard. So we have an all women bottom three. If you don’t think this show is rigged, then just remember there were 4 girls and 3 guys. Clearly they wanted the sides even. So ZZ lives another week.

It’s time for their 30 second last ditch promos. Sara says that she’ll apologize to Gigi now, they were going too fast and that’s not an excuse, but obviously she hopes everyone sees she didn’t do anything deliberate, and they just continue to learn every week. Gigi goes next and puts on a nice acting performance about how she’s doing this for girls everywhere and this is her dream. Her monologue goes past 30 seconds, so she gets cut off. Chelsea goes last and gives a very nice speech about how she loves Sports Entertainment and she knows this is what she wants to do. She was given a second chance getting onto this show, so she wants it more than anyone. Voting is now open and we go to commercial.

My Take on Who Goes Home: This could be an interesting vote. Sara has proven before that she’s got the popularity already, so I’d say she’s safe. No one is gonna vote her out for a bodyslam that wasn’t that bad. Really I think Gigi is going to get sent home because Daniel’s words, as few as they are sometimes, hold weight with the fans that watch this show. I think the majority of people voting are going to hear what Daniel said about Gigi overreacting and send her home. Chelsea is a possibility, but I think if the majority of fans watching this are actual wrestling fans, no one is going to send her home for selling.

We come back to see who’s going home and Jericho asks the safe four who should go home this week. ZZ says Gigi, Tanner says Sara Lee, Josh says Sara Lee. Amanda doesn’t get an opinion. Jericho asks if anyone is using a save this week. Paige says Gigi is getting saved this week because she doesn’t deserve to go home. Well forget everything I said on my take above. Paige got angry that Chelsea was put in the bottom three instead of Amanda, but yet she basically just sealed the deal that Chelsea is going home now. She shouldn’t have saved anyone. Paige is beyond confusing and infuriating on this show.

The results are in: Of course Gigi would’ve gone home as she had 22% of the vote, but she’s safe so with 25% of the vote, Chelsea is gone. Sara Lee continues to be popular and had 53% of the votes. This dumpster fire just continues to rage on.

Renee asks Chelsea what went wrong, and Chelsea says nothing went wrong. She’ll just continue to do what she’s doing. Renee asks her which woman she wants to win, and she says Gigi. Jericho plugs Tough Talk and that’s our show.

Final Thoughts

For those keeping tabs, we’ve lost the three best pure competitors in the last three weeks. Josh is the only remaining competitor that looks like they belong here (Tanner has no personality so I don’t count him) and so I fully expect him for being eliminated next week for something dumb like buying his own pair of wrestling boots already. If this show’s legacy ends up being the fact that I grow to resent and hate Paige, I’m going to be pissed. I don’t know who’s feeding her this crap, but my goodness. Someone just got eliminated for SELLING, yet she saved someone who cried about potentially being paralyzed by being dropped gingerly on her left hip.

While this show sucks, tomorrow night’s Ultima Lucha finale definitely will not suck, so I just want to give a quick plug to everyone to look for my live running blog that I’ll be doing tomorrow for TJRWrestling. I am beyond excited for this show.

Even though I’m not excited for next week’s Tough Enough, I’ll be here still. So until then, nice scarf Jericho.