We start with the usual Renée/Chris Jericho intro, and yes, our judges are still there: Daniel Bryan who earns the nickname “Nostradamus” because everyone he nominated ended up getting out, Paige who is still pissed at Sara lee and Hogan who ominously announces that someone he has his eyes on needs to get out.
They have a little surprise in store too, as, to replace Princess Dianna they chose to wheel out one of the last females to be cut prior to the show, Chelsea Green. Who the hell is that you might ask? Well a Lance Storm trainee, and who some might remember as the physical therapist Steph claimed had an affair with Daniel Bryan some time ago. And yes, her performance on RAW back then was rather abysmal, but, to her defense, she actually has some in-ring experience and isn’t bad at it. Chelsea immediately wonders what she has gotten herself into as the Battle of the Fake Boobs between Gabi and Amanda resumes. In a first sign of things to come it doesn’t seem like Gabi’s heart is still in it.
Challenge time and our coaches introduce the contestants to some of the greatest promos of all time. The Immortal Hulk Hogan, The Nature Boy Ric Flair, The People’s Champion The Rock, The Ayatollah of Rock ‘n Rolla Chris Jericho and… Wade Barrett??? 2015’s King of the Ring makes an appearance and, after cutting a promo on previous Kings Billy Gunn and Booker T (Which leaves Booker looking rather unimpressed) challenges the remaining hopefuls to cut a King of the Rig promo on him. The segments are mostly too short too really give an idea but, in a nutshell, Patrick is the Crown jewel, ZZ looks at Barrett as gator bait, Josh is the King of the Streets (what?) and Tanner is the New Age. Giorgia is Into stealing crowns and Sara Lee has some bad news for Barrett. Standout was clearly Mada who again showed some good intensity.
Next stop is the Improv Center where your host is none other tha Chris Jericho, who challenges the competitors to a promo battle. All are matched in pairs and off we go. Mada and josh are first and Mada impresses by crushing Josh who again does a rather improbable British Accent. Chelsea made a rather bad first impression by delivering a so so promo. G-Liscious Giorgia then unleashes her G-force and everybody wants to be GG. That was fun. Tanner and Patrick basically continued their feud, Tanner sounded boring while Patrick, while destroying his opponent, probably needs to tone the attitude down a notch or two. Amanda beat Gabi, not because she was particularly good but because Gabi apparently has difficulties with the concept of promos. Lastly poor little Sara lee registered an epic fail by making no sense at all while ZZ was simply ZZ. Jericho got into Sara lee’s face afterwards, berating her for still being here and bringing nothing to the table. Chris trowed all he got at her, and, towards the end, finally got some sort of reaction. Still not enough I fear.
Short Live moment with Hogan and Paige disagreeing on Sara Lee, Hogan defends the Little Mouse by saying that at least she’s trying, Paige states she still doesn’t belong in this competition. Paige does not look pleased here.
Back at the improv center, Jericho uses the audience to determine the winners, Giorgia takes it for the Woman and Patrick edges out Mada for the win. But the real action starts afterwards, as Mada and Josh argues that they’re the only ones who actually cut promos. Patrick responds by trash-talking them which leads to a rather intense scuffle right in the middle of the Iprov Center crowd. Josh trows some water in Patrick’s face and Mada almost goes berserk. Like I said Patrick does need to tone it down a bit.
Back at the barracks and Gabi and Amanda resume where they left off, while Tanner and Cheslea give us our first cringe-inducing moment with some very award flirting ending up with Tanner stealing a kiss. Oh dear…
We move on to the next challenge which involves… Wrestling? Wait am I still on the right channel? Apparently I am as the coaches lay out what has to be done. Tackling and scooping up to prepare for a body-slam. Most do quite alright, including Chelsea who impresses the judges with her technique. Even Amanda and Gabi manage to work together, which earns them praise from Lita. At the bottom is once again poor Sara lee, who gets berated again, this time by Billy Gunn. And again, it IS rather deserved as Billy stresses to everyone how important trust is in this situations. Sara Lee proves stubborn however and Billy nearly blows a fuse trying to get her to so things right. In the end Sara does come trough. Barely. Hugging time at the barracks as the girls console Sara Lee who doesn’t know what to do anymore to prove that she does belong there.
Judging time and, not surprisingly, Paige picks Sara Lee, for obvious reasons, Daniel Bryan calls out Gabi for apparently losing her fire and fading into the background and Hogan picks Tanner for being boring basically. The nominees have to do another promo and Gabi fails again, confusing promo with plea, tanner remains unimpressive and Sara Lee finally shifts gear by getting into Paige’s face and delivering a quite good promo to her. Nice job form the Little Mouse. Sara Lee is more than safe with 63% of the votes, bland Tanner 26% of the votes and Gabi only gets 11%. Surprisingly she doesn’t look too disappointed or surprised, stating she will be back in WWE somehow. Given she has the kind of look some at the WWE office adore, I kinda believe her.
Though talk remains entertaining as Miz continues to revel at asking the difficult question. It is revealed that Gabi and Amanda already knew each-other from their modeling shows and have hated each-other with a passion for some time now. Some more Patrick/Josh/Mada argues with Hogan warning Patrick about his attitude, a Lita appearance and Bryan asking Chelsea to admit they never had an affair. that was rather funny, with both explaining how Brie Bella slapped their eardrums out.
Last thoughts
Better than last week’s under-whelming episode, this week we still got drama of course, but we also got to see the candidates doing promos and performing wrestling moves (more or less), meaning the actual training was put a little more in the spotlight.
This was the first time I felt Chris Jericho was actually involved with the show and the candidates. More of that please.
Sara lee shows flashes, but she needs to step it up is she wants me to stop calling her Little Mouse
I don’t know about Patrick anymore, with his attitude he might be his own worst enemy.
I agree with Hogan here, Mada was the most impressive on promos, hearing Patrick talk about how he’s better than everyone else is just plain boring after awhile.
While she did little this episode, I was still surprised at her being in the bottom three. I didn’t think they would get rid of their heat magnet that soon. Of course, nominating Gabi meant she was almost certain to leave, not many would vote for her.
The Bryan curse continues since he was the one nominating Gabi.
Bryan called Battleground “battlefield” and tried to get out of that by reminding everyone on Hogan’s Silverdome blunder. Only he got it backwards. get a TV already, Daniel.
My pick for next week’s nomination: Tanner.
See you all next week for more tough enough fun!
