With the penultimate episode Tough Enough in the books, it’s time for our next-to-last Redux!
This week was light on action, more or less killing time before this all comes to a merciful end next week. We did lose a male competitor, though, Tanner being the latest victim of this crappy format.
We kick things off at the Barracks, where Amanda boldy (and frankly, stupidly) confronts Sara about her getting a pass from the WWE Universe. She asks her if she feels guilty about winning what’s essentially become a popularity contest.
Amanda tries to sound like a mastermind, claiming that she’s trying to plant the seeds of doubt in Sara’s head. Unfortunately, it looks like she’s forgotten that this all airs on television, where the voters with working eyes and ears will see her actions. Hasn’t she realized at this point that it doesn’t fucking matter how much Sara fucks up? The competitors live and die by the popular vote, and she just bought Sara more of it.
In the ring, they meet with trainers Lita, Billy Gunn and Booker T, who have tasked them with picking finishing moves.
Before she can pick a finisher, Sara is confronted by the trainers about her complaints. Billy asks her what she meant when she said she can never satisfy them. She says she just never thinks she can make them all happy. Billy asks her to assess her own progress and is shocked when she claims that she’s improved a lot. Booker says she should be so much further along than she is right now. Lita reminds us that none of that matters, since the WWE Universe has pushed her to the finish lime. She says it’s time for Sara to bring it.
When asked to pick a finisher, Sara is silent. She says she couldn’t think of one because she has so little in-ring experience. If that mattered, why would the trainers put together this challenge at all?
Lita comes to her rescue, noting that Ronda Rousey and her armbar are the most over things in women’s professional sports. So, Sara adopt the armbar as her finisher. After some trial and error, she nails it. Lita’s liking it.
When Amanda’s time comes, the trainers straight up tell her that she’s going to have to overcome great odds to beat Sara, thanks to the all-mighty WWE Universe. Her finisher is going to have to impress them. She’s chosen a springboard bulldog, which she seems pretty comfortable with from the get-go.
Back at the Barracks, Amanda has a pep talk with ZZ:
It’s sweet, but I’m not sure it’ll help either of them.
In the live portion, Sara’s grilled by the judges. Daniel Bryan asks her to name the trainer that’s toughest on her. She says it’s probably Booker, because he doesn’t like her smiling. Paige isn’t buying it. She thinks Sara’s complaining too much and uses the trainers’ “toughness” as an excuse for not improving.
As Amanda and Sara are the only two women left, they’re exempt from the bottom three. That leaves Josh, Tanner and ZZ for the bottom slots.
For some goddamn reason, Daniel refrains from using his save, and Tanner is eliminated. ZZ’s in the finals! Ha! Suck it, producers! These finals are truly a spectacle of mental and physical achievement.
In digital extras, Amanda and Sara assessed their progress with the finals in sight and ZZ couldn’t find his shoes:
Lastly, watch the Tough Talk post-show below:
Gut Reactions
Here, I’ll break down my impressions of each of the female competitors, based on their performance in the episode.
Amanda: I dig her bulldog finisher, though it won’t help her get away from the Trish Stratus comparisons. I have to question her decision-making process, though, in acknowledging how the WWE Universe is more or less coddling Sara. It’s true, of course, but confronting Sara with that fact on the very show that these voters are watching only digs her into a deeper hole and elevates Sara more. Many of Sara’s supporters, I’d bet, are supporting her because they sympathized with her back when she was Paige’s weekly punching bag. You’d be a fool to treat her as anything other than an ally, at least for appearance’s sake. She was never my favorite competitor, but I’m rooting for her to win it all. It’s never going to happen, of course.
Sara: At this point, it’s a done deal, right? Sara’s your uncrowned winner. She’s had this in the bag for weeks. I’m mostly just glad to be at the end of it. I’m not impressed with her complaining about how the trainers/judges are never “satisfied” with her progress or her having no clue what kind of finisher she’d like to do. The armbar was cool, though. Kudos to Lita for thinking of it. Largely, though, the story of Sara has been week after week of middling improvement, which would be ok if she wasn’t the constant frontrunner. This woman is your next Diva, WWE Universe! The woman who’s shown the least amount of in-ring progress, has very little personality and complains about not getting enough pats on the back. If that isn’t a damning statement about this show, I don’t know what is. Tough Enough is a straight-up shortcut into the WWE, and to see someone complain about not getting their hand held while taking that shortcut is just laughable. Okay, I better stop… This is turning into the “Bash Sara” Redux. I suppose I’m just bitter that we spent two months following this shitshow to get such an underwhelming Diva out of it.
MVP
Lastly, I’ll name an MVP for each episode, just to highlight who made the biggest positive impression on me. And the honor goes to…
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Amanda. Not that it matters!
Next week in the finale, we’ll see Amanda and Sara face off in a match, complete with characters and entrances. That’ll be interesting to see, at least. One week to go, folks! We can make it!
Who’s your MVP for this episode?
