The Feminine Complex: American Women’s Wrestling

Hello. My name is Claire. I am a professional rarity. A girl. An Australian

girl. An Australian girl that likes wrestling.

Australia’s contribution to professional wrestling in America is pretty much

limited to Outback Jack. We apologize. I’m also bereft of any positive

female role models in wrestling (you can’t trust us you know. We’ll all stab

you in the back) so I have to make do with my role model being Tazz. You

beat that guy up and still you call him tough, the wrestling equivalent of

saying Sean Connery is a great actor when he only does one accent.

So let’s check out a tape that covers women wrestling! Yes! Excitement plus!

Rock on girls! Woo! Smell the excitement…actually this is THE most surreal

wrestling video ever produced. I half get the idea but anyway…let’s GO TO

THE VIDEO TAPE!

First of all NO ONE should invest in an American womens wrestling promotion.

It doesn’t work. It never will. God bless the folks for trying but anyhow…

The piracy warning is in that font that screams 80s teen flick. I expected

Steve Guttenberg or that fat bloke from Head Of The Class to come out. We

hit a mega problem with the opening credits. Several problems. The announcer

guy says, “We are coming from…the beautiful Country Club.” Country Club that

looks like a bar full of slack jawed yokels. Aren’t country clubs exclusive

or is that just a Dharma and Greg thing? The song playing over the credits

is the most horrendous piece of synth pop since Flock of Seagulls. You

thought I’m an Ass Man was bad? This horrendous song urges the girl to body

slam, slam their body…I’m thinking I’d like to slam something through the

guy who wrote this crap…anyway the third problem is that the opening credits

show shots of all the matches on the tape YOU ARE ABOUT TO WATCH! Imagine an

opening sequence to the Sixth Sense that said, “You know Bruce Willis…” The

synth pop plays, you work who wins every match on the tape and Cletus the

slack jawed yokel gets very excited. It’s a long opening sequence.

The tape proper opens with a super pose down from a bodybuilding chick and a

bodybuilding guy. Inappropriate crowd music is pumped in. It’s the kind of

static noise you get in sports computer games. Why didn’t the WBF work? The

announcer guy says a capacity crowd is in a frenzy as they enjoy some pre

show entertainment. Even the bodybuilders look bored shitless (a quaint

Australian phrase). Even the edit suite guy gets bored in the end.

We introduce our emcee SPICE WILLIAMS. She’s best known for a backbreaker

picture that crops up all over the Internet. Spice says they’ve searched all

over the world for wrestlers. We’ll see about that. Roger Moore getting Jean

Claude Van Damme to fight in the Quest I buy. I don’t see Spice in China

putting on wrestling clinics. Sorry, I’ve lost my suspension of disbelief.

Time to shut my yap. Spice isn’t terrible at the ring announcing. She’s

better than Debra at stringing a sentence together. They introduce the girls

one by one which isn’t a terrible idea. The Alliance could have done with

it. The kids don’t know who Tommy Dreamer is! Tommy Dreamer! He tried to

kill himself FOR YOU and you don’t know who he is? One thing to note is that

as the girls walk to the ring they flirt or kiss with the yokels. Classy.

Dealing with the girls who aren’t wrestling the first one out is the DEVIOUS

DIVA, a tall black dominatrix who chokes a yokel (who may be David

Coverdale) out with her whip. TORNADO RED is a blonde with black roots who

rubs the face of a yokel in her breasts. I expect Benny Hill to run out at

any moment. Her whole gimmick is she likes Red. It’s like the Wiggles. LPWA

jobber Jan Flame is FLAME the DRAGON LADY and ruins the Goddess illusions by

limping to the ring. But wait! It turns out one of the girls smashed her leg

on the European Tour! European Tour? Sounds like the tournament Pat Paterson

won in Rio. Flame doesn’t even look at the yokels. Finally for those not

wrestling is THE LITTLEST ANGEL who wears white (color feud ahoy!) and

dresses like a ballerina and helps old ladies across the road. How sweet.

She ruins the character by snogging the face off one of the topless male

valets and a pull apart brawl between the faces and the heels erupts. Damn

men. You just can’t trust them. We clear the ring for bout one. No. First of

all a tedious promo from Flame, who speaks like Bela Lugosi and always

remembers to overact. She’s worse than the girl who played Kendra in Buffy.

Nothing too terrible or memorable in any of the whole segment.

While a yokel who looks like a walrus claps really hard we go to match one.

GALAXINA is a space alien. She looks like Ailsa from Home and Away (and I

know that’s an Australian reference…pick your own American blonde mulleted

chick) in her early years. She digs silver (again with the colors!) and her

yokel interaction is purely to shout at them. Apparently she’s from the

planet Rubicon and apparently on her home planet she was aware of her

opponent, the galaxy famous CARMEN DE LAS FRUITAS. You haven’t lived until

you’ve seen a match pitting an alien against someone doing a Carmen Miranda

gimmick. We chew tape time with a stare fest, referee instructions and after

a year we lock up. The alien kicks the fruit lover four times and then stuff

happens and I make toast and more stuff happens. If you must know, Galaxina

kicks CDLF four times before CDLF throws Galaxina in the corner and leans in

to her instead of punching her. The yokels get excited as Galaxina turns

things around with a monkey flip. Brady Boone would be proud. Peoples elbow

misses and the fruit cup can’t decide what to do so she does half a headlock

and half a hair pull before going with a knee. Choke, headlock and bulldog

and then back to the headlock (her favorite move). CDLF goes for the Dudley

Dog (I presume) but gets sat on the top turnbuckle and then pulled down. So

what ever happened to MC Skat Cat? You know the one who did that duet with

Paula Abdul? Sorry…blackout…I don’t think I missed very much, just a feet

monkey flip. Big splash hits the knees (aint that always the way?) and a

crotch injury gives the announcer the chance to speculate whether aliens

have the same parts as normal women. Benny are you there? We might need you

to run around the ring really fast. The fruit bat then hits…

a) A Crippler Crossface

b) A sky twister press

c) A headlock

Headlock and stomach stomp give Carmen a chance to win but she poses and

doesn’t pin (don’t you learn!) and gets her top pulled down as a result. Is

it mandatory to say the phrase “tit for tat” in these situations? A body

slam (the set up for which is called a neck and crotch hold) gets no sold as

Galaxina gets straight up and hits an airplane spin (NO! NOT THAT!) and a

big splash for the win. Ye Gods how you punish me. That was pretty bad. Ben

Folds seemed to like it. Ah they get that reference in Adelaide you know.

Foldsy they call him.

After that out comes Ricky Steamboat! No wait it’s the Rock as the Scorpion

King! Actually it’s a Conan the Barbarian impersonator! No really, that last

one was true. He’s there to guard the title belt. Really. The belt looks

like something Shania Twain might wear. Someone in the production truck

yells “is that girl wearing overalls?” Wait! A fat bearded topless guy tries

to steal the belt! Conan uses the power of the obviously not very sharp

sword to kick his ass and send him to jail with the Mountie. The belt is

priceless you know…not just any movie based impersonator can defend it. No

man has worn a shirt yet. The title will be decided in a battle royal (I

swear Conan says “our battle royal orgy”) and anyone can win. Spice puts the

belt on. Well that was up there with Robocop as the most surreal thing ever

seen in a wrestling ring.

ROCKCANDY is a Wayne’s World dumb metal loving gal and THE CAJUN QUEEN is

semi-famous female wrestler Reggie Bennett wearing a feather boa and gym

gear. The announcer dude slips in some fat jokes about Reggie. I told you it

was classy. Rockcandy has a decent gimmick. It’s better than most of the WWF

gimmicks lately. She digs heavy metal. Actually to cut a long story short

this match is pretty good by womens standards and a positive classic by the

rest of the tape. Rockcandy works the arms and legs of Cajun (PSYCHOLOGY!)

and hits a really nice looking cross body block off the top rope. She tries

it again and gets pasted. Cajun with a backbreaker off the ropes and they

flip each other over the top rope on the second attempt. Brawl on the

outside, brawl on the inside, criss cross gets the double clothesline and

Cajun gets up quicker and with two hair snap mares and a big splash gets the

win. This wasn’t bad actually. Both girls looked competent. That’s all you

ask.

I say that because the next match really hit the depths. Just typing this is

a bad reminder. Yes…it’s your main event…the VESTAL VIRGIN and the SALEM

WITCH v MERCEDEZ BENZ and KITTEN STEELE. The horror…the horror. We cut to

the dressing room as Virgin urges the Witch to practice. Amen to that. VV is

dressed like an Egyptian Princess (?) and has a towel for headgear (!!) and

Salem Witch doesn’t even play it for laughs. She’s in a black leotard with

green crepe paper stuck it. Now you can tell she’s a witch because she

carries a toy black cat. I don’t think either gimmick was well thought out.

Kitten Steele is just a plain girl with a big butt and cat face paint and

Benz I presume is a rich kid. Surely that’s a heel gimmick? Did no one watch

Ted Dibiase? They explain the rules for a third time and the match involves

nothing remotely resembling a wrestling move. The Witch takes down Kitten

with an arm drag and then a headlock (was that page one of the how to

wrestle handbook?) and trash talk. HEADLOCK again! Some face double-teaming

breaks up the headlock and we hit…an interview with the male valet from the

opening segment. Good choice edit truck man. Topless valet guy digs the

Littlest Angel but that pisses off the Cajun Queen. He wasn’t saying that

the other night. Fair flip of the gender politic if I may say so. Cajun hits

the guy with an airplane spin and declares war on Angel. INSTANT FEUD! It’s

better than a Japanese shampoo commercial.

Back to the match of amazing apathy! Virgin pounds on Benz until she whips

her in to the corner and the power of the BIG BUTT cushions the blow. Benz

crawls through the legs of Virgin and makes a less than hot tag. Rikishi

pounds on the Virgin in the corner for an eternity and then sends her flying

into the interfering Witch. We hit the rowboat! At least it looked

convincing. The Virgin then turns on the Witch (?) in a classic piece of

Russo booking but the dissention allows Kitten to schoolboy roll up for the

pin. Good dear sweet lord that was appalling. Comfortably the worst match

ever. They searched the world for these girls?

We interview Kitten up a tree (!) and she doesn’t forget to purr. Show ends.

Closing credits give you the real names of the performers and I like that.

I’d love to see the real names of Hulk Hogan or the Rock at the end of Raw,

just for fun. Same crappy synth pop tune plays, same clips as before, the

venue is officially the Chuck Landis Country Club (a classy establishment)

and just so you know the theme song is called Body Slam and it’s sung by

Rick Bell, should you want to look for it on Kazaa.

Well god bless them they tried. The story line structure wasn’t terrible by

the standards of the WWF at the moment and two girls (Reggie and Rock Candy)

looked pretty good. Sadly the POWER OF THE SUCK affected every other aspect.

The music, the presentation, the matches, the promos, Conan, the

bodybuilders, the pumped in crowd noise…all very weird. I know they were

going for the goofy charm of GLOW but this is a tape of great strangeness.

Thumbs up for effort, thumbs down for execution. It’s not complete crap…it’s

just a lot of bad ideas on one tape…and it’s still better than 90% of WCW in

the year 2000.

Check it out if it’s in a bargain bin.