Tough Enough will debut on USA Network the night after WrestleMania 27, at 8 p.m. on Mondays before Raw. A total of twelve men and women will compete for a one-year WWE contract. Part of the idea here is to draw in a new audience with the reality show approach. I'm intrigued. I wonder how different it will be from the original Tough Enough? Hopefully they won't all be in a house together and partying or whatever. It should be about their journey to make it in WWE. I don't care who they date, how much they drink, or anything else along those lines. It's not on MTV this time, so I think we'll see some interesting changes.
And I think a lot of people will check it out. No word as I read this story as to whether this would replace NXT or not. Season 4 ends in February, so either they make that longer or do a short Season 5. It just seems odd to me that they'd have both NXT and Tough Enough at the same time.
I wonder what this means for future 3 hour Raws? I really hope they wouldn't have 4 hours of WWE on a Monday night. It was hard enough going through Superstars, Impact, and Reaction every Thursday. Raw from 9-12 once in a blue moon would be a little strange given that USA is more concerned about the 8-9 hour.
WWE is looking to team up with NBC Universal and Comcast for the launch of the WWE Network in 2012-2013. We're still pretty far off from that, but I think it could potentially work. There's no telling how much footage WWE has in its vaults. WWWF, WWF, WWE, WCW, ECW, AWA, Memphis, World Class, Stampede, and so on. Not to mention all the special DVDs they've made over the years. And things like Legends Roundtable. Maybe they do need their own network to show it all!
Here's some more on Tough Enough. Apparently they are going to live together in a house again, and they'll have a number of challenges to test "showmanship, creativity, athleticism, and desire" just to name a few. These are all very important for a WWE superstar or diva. Each episode will feature a current WWE superstar as well. So it's looking like they're not messing with what worked back in the original show.
Each episode will conclude with an elimination. I'm not as thrilled about that part. We only have an hour each week to see how 12 potential wrestlers fare. I'm not so sure the viewers can figure out who should go home THAT quickly. It took/takes 3-4 weeks each season of NXT to get a good feel for each competitor, and it was only 6 or 8 hopefuls! But, there's a lot of interaction off-screen with Tough Enough that we don't get to see, so they probably have a fair enough feel of them by the time it makes air. And it's not like the eliminated ones won't potentially have another chance down the line. We'll see if this works.
There are some posts on WrestlingDB.com talking about predictions for 2011 and Hits and Misses and the like, but I really don't want to turn this blog into "arguing with columnists I don't agree with" so I'll try to refrain from dissecting their opinions. My blogs are long enough as it is...
Martha Hart, the widow of Owen, is backing off her claim that Vince and Linda McMahon never apologized to her after her husband's 1999 death. Attorneys for the McMahons produced sworn testimony from 2002 where she discussed such an apology. You'd think she'd remember something that important. That's really the only update there is at the moment. More will likely be coming in the next 2 weeks, as Martha's attorneys have until the 15th to officially respond to WWE's other statements. I'll cover things more in-depth at that time.
Ratings are now in for last week's ratings for Impact, Reaction, and Superstars. Impact did a 1.1, which is pretty much normal for it. The show's been better the last few weeks, so maybe things are looking up for TNA. The final edition of Reaction did a .62. I imagine the Best of 2010 format helped that. I wonder what changes we'll see in Impact with Reaction gone.
Finally, WWE Superstars drew a .67, with the replay doing a .15. That's not bad at all. I think it's ratings have gone up a bit lately as well. Hopefully they treat the show as more than "filler" in 2011 because the matches are generally pretty good.
FCW Champion Mason Ryan worked another dark match before Raw this week, beating Primo. As much as he's worked with the main roster (he's been on quite a few house shows and dark matches lately), I would not be surprised at all if he debuted before the Royal Rumble. I've heard him described as "a Welsh Batista". We'll see in time. (NXT's) AJ hasn't been with Primo for his dark matches. She's still working FCW full-time. I'd like to see her get the call-up to either show.
That's it for today. I'll be back tomorrow with that day's news.
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