411’s WWE Tough Enough Report 8.25.15

411’s Tough Enough Report: 08/25/15

-We have reached the season finale of Tough Enough, and from the looks of things it sure seems like Josh and Sara Lee are walking out with the contracts. It will be interesting to see if ZZ can close ground, and really, I don’t think Amanda has a hope in hell, but stranger things have happened.

-Things start out with a recap of the season to this point including going through each elimination, and I am sure some of them will pop up in NXT.

-We are live from Full Sail for the final time with our host, Chris Jericho, and the beautifully awesome Renee Young. They are joined as always by our judges: Daniel Bryan, Paige, and The Miz. The judges actually dressed up a bit for the finale which is nice to see.

-Off to the barracks as the contestants get ready for their first ever live match. Amanda says it is crazy that she has a 50/50 chance (keep dreaming) and that she won’t let Sara Lee beat her. Again, good luck with that. The guys discuss being in the bottom 3 last week and Josh says he is grateful to all the fans that have started to get behind him.

-Amanda brings up Sara Lee being a “ring rat” and asks her what she is going to do. She keeps harping on the fact that Sara Lee is trying to sleep her way to the top. She claims that Sara Lee has slept with multiple guys and calls her a fraud. Sara Lee says Amanda isn’t playing a bitch…she really is one.

-They head to the Performance Center and Jericho is with the coaches in the ring. The coaches leave Jericho to handle things. First they start on creative and Jericho goes over names for each of them. Josh is rolling with The Yeti, and ZZ wants to be “The King of the Bayou.” Amanda isn’t quite sure what she wants to use, while Sara Lee wants to go with “Hope” because of the town she grew in. She thinks the character and story is more important than what you can do in the ring.

-Jericho and the creative team then help them come up with what they want to wear and their entrance. Josh is going full bore with The Yeti gimmick, and then each contestant gets to hear various music ideas with their entrance. This should be fantastic. Jericho then sends them back to the barracks and tells them to work on their promos.

-Billy then comes busting in with the other 2 coaches in tow to gather up our 4 finalists. They are told there live match won’t be against each other. Instead Cesaro will be facing the men and Alicia Fox will be facing the women. Cesaro tells ZZ that wrestling gators is nothing like stepping in the ring with him. Alicia Fox puts over how the Divas have a sisterhood so they do look out for each other.

-We take our first break and up next will be Amanda vs. Alicia Fox.

-Byron Saxton handles the ring introductions and Amanda is going with “Mandy Rose” as her ring name. She comes out decked in green and she is smiling like crazy (Booker better go ballistic on her) and she cuts a babyface promo. Definitely not the character she needs to be playing. Then instead of cutting a promo she talks about how honored she is to be on Tough Enough. Finally she does get into her character and she talks about having a huge party where everyone is invited, except for The Miz. She is definitely trying to net suck up points by taking shots at The Miz and playing to the crowd. It’s not going to help dear!

Alicia Fox vs. Mandy Rose

-Fox stiffs her right away with a right hand and then we get a cat fight with them rolling around on the mat. Alicia brings her back to the mat and catches her with a nasty looking side slam that looked just brutal with the way she took the move. Damn! Even the judges are cringing on that one. Rose does get a head scissors take down that looked decent, but even then the landing wasn’t very good. Fox hits her with a stiff boot to the chest, but misses an elbow. The crowd does get behind Rose as she connects with a headlock into a Tornado Bulldog. That only gets two though so her finisher is already trash. She charges into a knee and Fox finishes her with an ax kick at 2:40.

Winner: Alicia Fox via pin at 2:40
-Couple of brutal spots, but she got through the match.

-Miz appreciates her calling him out even though he saved her, and Paige mentions some things were botched. Daniel Bryan calls the match sloppy, but they made up for it with intensity.

-After the break is Sara vs. Alicia Fox.

-Sara comes out and she does use “Hope” as her name. She looks fantastic in the denim shorts and vest. She takes the vest off and reveals a flannel top that would make Mick Foley proud. She cuts a pretty decent promo that was actually better than Amanda’s which is kind of shocking.

Hope vs. Alicia Fox

-They lock up and Hope works a headlock and then hits a decent tackle. She throws some Daniel Bryan kicks in the corner (well…kind of), but gets caught with a drop toe hold. Fox tosses her around by her hair and then hits a snap suplex. Fox celebrates a little too much and gets rolled up for two. Hope connects with a leg sweep for two and goes for the armbar, but Fox gets to the ropes to break. A shot to the eyes and the ax kick finishes Hope at 2:27.

Winner: Alicia Fox via pin at 2:27
-They didn’t botch as much and Sara actually looked better in the ring than Amanda, but she didn’t bring as much intensity.

-The Miz commends her on the promo and tells her she needs to find something more flattering to wear. Paige was pleased with match and says it was pretty good. Daniel agrees that she needs to bring more energy to her entrance, and that her promo was good. She was also a bit hesitant, but he thinks she did well for her first match.

-Renee goes over the voting and nothing I saw there is going to change my mind: Amanda is toast. She needed to close the gap in a big way and it just didn’t happen here as Sara Lee didn’t fall on her face and Amanda didn’t set the world on fire (which would be hard in 3 minutes). We take a break!

-Back to Full Sail and Jericho says that the voting is closed and we are going to get our female winner. The winner of the contract is….nobody yet as Jericho crushes them by saying they will be told at the end of the show. Awesome!

-Next up the men get it started with ZZ and Cesaro. ZZ comes out as “The King of the Bayou.” His music is rather solid and he comes out wearing a skinned gator. He cuts a promo saying he got way too good at wrestling gators so he is here to wrestle people. He calls his fans his “baby gators” and he thanks his three coaches. He then asks Cesaro if he is tough enough and what will happen when he gets bit by the gator grip. His promo was actually cut off by Cesaro’s entrance as he was taking a bit too long.

Cesaro vs. The King of the Bayou

-They start with a lockup and Cesaro transitions into a side headlock. ZZ actually pulls out a leap over Cesaro, but gets wrestled to the mat. Cesaro is a strong bastard as he dead lifts ZZ off the ground for a suplex and then puts him in The Swing. He grounds ZZ down with a headlock, but a charge misses as ZZ connects with an uppercut. The Gator Grip is countered to the Yes Lock (nice) and ZZ taps at 1:53.

Winner: Cesaro via submission at 1:53
-Kind of sucks for ZZ that he got nearly a minute less to work with than the two women, but it was ok for a first match. You just knew Cesaro would handle this a lot better than Alicia could lead the women.

-Daniel praises ZZ and thinks he did rather well for his first match. Miz says it was a very small match and he worries that ZZ won’t be able to handle long matches. Man has a point! Another break!

-Josh comes out as The Yeti, and sadly no giant mummy. He comes out to a rap song while wearing animal fur like Game of Thrones. He does have a decent presence about him, but his promo sucks balls. His ring gear is laughable as he is too tall to be in what is basically a speedo. Get that man some proper trunks! Cesaro lights his world up with some stiff shots and the coaches can’t help but laugh. A suplex is fought for and turned into The Swing. Yeti gets backed into the corner, but reverses a whip and things get a little disjointed. Yeti then hits the corner splash and powerslam for two (a trend with finishers being kicked out of). Cesaro catches him coming in and plants him with The Neutralizer for the win at 2:18.

Winner: Cesaro by pin at 2:18
-The Miz hates his outfit and knows things looked choppy, but he has star appeal. Paige thinks the promo was kind of weak, but Josh is her choice as the winner. Bryan wasn’t a fan of the promo at first and says he thinks ZZ put in a good in ring performance so he thinks it will be interesting. We take our final break. Josh is winning this thing as he has been ahead of ZZ the last few times, and I think the fans have moved on from our Gator Wrestler.

-The moment of truth has arrived and HHH joins the show to announce the winners and present the contracts. Nice touch!

-We start with the ladies and the winner is: Sara Lee with 64% of the vote. Yep, beat down! Amanda looks pissed and crushed at the same time. HHH presents her with contract and raises her hand.

-Now for the men, and the winner is: Josh with 70% of the vote. Damn! Didn’t think he would beat ZZ by a wider margin than Sara beat Amanda. ZZ seems to take it better than Amanda as he at least smiles about it.

-Paige gives Sara Lee a hug, which is something I thought I would never see. Everyone gathers on stage with the winners and Jericho says these four were the right final 4. They plug the last episode of Tough Talk and that is it for this season.

-In the end things went as expected with winners and really it looked this way for a while now. Unless Sara Lee was done in by multiple judge saves nobody was beating her, and Josh kept gaining steam while the fans seemed to grow tired of ZZ’s act. As for the season as a whole it did get much better with each passing week. If they do another season next year I can totally see them changing the voting so things don’t break like they did this season. Congrats to Josh and Sara Lee though as they both did what was needed to be crowd Tough Enough Season 6 Champions!

-Thanks to everyone for joining me over the last 10 weeks!