WOW Women OF Wrestling Promotion. 2000-2001
When: October 2000 to March 2001.
Where: Originated in United States and was a Network Syndicated TV show with one Pay per view entitled "WOW Unleashed"
Promoter: David McLane previously of the all female syndicated wrestling television program GLOW
Major Players/Talent: Danger (Elle Alexander ),Riot (April Littlejohn), Terri Gold (Heather Millard), Jungle Grrrl (Erica Porter), Lana Star (Lana Kinnear)
Trainers: Selina Majors (formerly known as Bambi) & Thug (formerly Peggy Lee Leather)
Announcers: Lee Marshall, Bobby Heenan, David McLane.
WOW Overview
Before the year 2000 David McLane, the president of WOW, was best remembered in the the world of female wrestling as the founder and creator of the 1980's women's wrestling promotion "GLOW" (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling.) In the year 2000 David McLane pumped up on the success of female action genre hits "Tomb Raider", "Charlie's Angels" and "Xena", ventured forth with another attempt to capture a share of the TV wrestling market with "WOW". (Women of Wrestling)
In an interview with AskMen.com Bobbi Billard who wrestled under the name "Summer" of the Beach Patrol. (WOW's "Baywatch" inspired tag team) described the audition that she attended for WOW. "I went to the Great Western Forum with a what the heck attitude. I ended up making the final cuts out of almost a thousand hopeful participants. I later learned that I threw the medicine ball the farthest out of all the girls that auditioned! I guess I learned a thing or two when I was a varsity shot-putter in high school."
There was not a lot of time between the auditions and when the women were to start performing in televised matches. Wrestling fans and wrestlers alike will be the first to tell you that it can take a number of years and a huge amount of dedication for a wrestler to become a polished performer and it helps if you have a knowledge and love for wrestling in the first place. Monty Ashley (montykins.com) in an article described WOW as "amateurish" and stated that "Even other wrestling fans look down on me for watching it."
Wow took on only two established and experienced Indy women wrestlers. These two women were also used as trainers for WOW. Bambi became the "Selena Majors" character (pictured) Pegggy Lee Leather (who had worked both matches for the then WWF in America (now WWE) and for WWWA in Japan) was renamed "Thug". Both women had worked previously for McLane in his POWW promotion (Powerful Women of Wrestling). Despite the obstacles that faced WOW. There were a few women that were up to the giant task of getting up to speed real quickly for the cameras. Jungle Grrl (Erica Porter) was a noticeably powerful athletic woman who rapidly developed. She appeared to be more aggressive in the ring and developed good mic skills. Riot became a huge hit with the fans as her character didn't seem as unnatural or stereotyped as some of the other characters and Danger had a great ring presence, and with working a basic repertoire of moves, remained to look strong despite her inexperience.
A number of the other women also showed promise for the small amount of time they had spent training whilst others looked clearly out of their depth. The women were not often given the credit for how they were developing though.
Scott Keith for example in "The SmarK Retro Repost - Women Of Wrestling " on the 07.28.02 did a scathing report on the WOW "Unleashed" Payper view and wrote such comments as "Jane Blond v. Tanja (Warrior Woman). Jane would be your James Bond clone (again, notice how Dean Malenko plays that sort of character as a parody, while Jane is supposedly an actual secret agent). They manage to **** up LEAPFROG, and Jane goes to an armbar. Well, they didn't repeat the spot, I’ll giv‘em that." Now Summer slam 89 has a Jimmy the Fly Snuka v's Ted Dibiase match that has practically the same mistake and the two wrestlers involved in that match had years of experience over either of the two women involved in this matchup, and Summerslam was much more widely watched but for some reason it doesn't get the same amount of criticism.
American all women promotions that have started have continuously tried to start out big where the longest running women's promotions in Japan have worked on establishing themselves and building up a following through a number of years with constant work, touring and training. Lana Star talked about training 4hours a day, 5 days a week in preparation of the WOW show, but compared to the Japanese women that train 6hrs a day on a more intense program for up to a year to get a "pro debut" the differences become obvious and like it or not the wrestling fans will naturally compare.
Bobby Heenan was used as a commentator at "WOW UNleashed". Interesting in an interview with Bobby Heenan with wrestlingobserver.com Bobby stated that he felt that GLOW was the reason such a hard time getting over. Whilst Heenan was trying to defend WOW's position and an argument for why they should be given a chance to a large number of WOW's critics McLane had simply made another version of "GLOW", including regurgitating a few of the gimmick characters.
WOW's first run syndicated program premiered the week of October 2, 2000 on 100 stations across America. WOW was a syndicated television show where the company involved (in this case the sponsors of WOW) were paying for their TV spots. Whilst there were claims that there were wrestlers that one could "relate to", the actual promotion presented its viewers with jailbirds, dominatrix, movie star guises, TV character rip-offs and a wild assortment of eccentric stereotypes that one would find it hard to relate to.
On a positive note to McLane he kept to a family brand of entertainment that did not take advantage of the women and place them in demeaning purely t&a fights. McLane obviously tried to stick to a cheese ball style of "girl power" that one associates with Charlie's Angels and other pop culture female heroines.
The fault was probably in that there were too many obvious copies (e.g. Warrior Woman/ Xena) as opposed to new ideas for female action stars to grab our imagination and why cheer on a copy when you can watch the real thing.
WOW Unleashed
On February 4, 2001 WOW broadcast their PPV - WOW Unleashed. "It was make it or break it time for WOW" for many. Although the payperview had a great live atmosphere and some very dedicated fans by this time it wasn't enough to help. By May 2001 the company had run out of money and didn't return for another tv season. There was talk of a comeback with Gene Simmons of the band KISS stating he was trying to put together some financial backers to revive the promotion.
More recently Press releases suggest that McLane is still trying to revive the show. WOW Events LLC is now a StereoVision-McLane Enterprises Inc., joint venture company. Press releases are discussing the possibility of a Women Of Wrestling World Tour, WOW television series, and WOW pay per view events. The talk of WOW's return has been ongoing since its demise. Mclane has made no secret of his ambitions to get the promotion running again. The main problem wrestling fans had with WOW was that the women were picked through an audition process that seemed to not choose any women with a wrestling background.Only a small number of the women were wrestlers before the promotion began (namely the trainers Selina and Thug).
Most of the wrestlers from WOW quickly left the game in pursuit of other fame vehicles once the show was canceled and they realized they weren't being offered contracts from the WWE. If WOW was to return most of the women have not worked on developing their wrestling skills in the past few years. (The notable exception would be Erica Porter as Jungle Grrl.)
This forms one of the main questions about a WOW revival. Would they go for the same formula and wrestlers that haven't developed a desire to excel in wrestling? or what changes would they make to try to capture a share of tv wrestling audience?
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