The sixth episode of Tough Enough starts with The Miz being announced as Hogan’s replacement on the Judge’s panel. Of course they completely ignored the Hogan situation, trying to make it seem like it was the most natural thing in the world. And, while some might lament the fact they didn’t chose another WWE Legend, having Miz replace Hogan is a pretty logical choice since he has gone trough TE himself, has been involved with the contestants already and has showed how entertaining he can be when allowed to do his own thing. He immediately confirms this by effortlessly blending in and immediately exchanging some amusing banter with his fellow judges. Chemistry between those three seems better than when Hogan was there.
We switch to the barracks where ZZ builds a shrine to Patricik, complete with peanut-butter sandwich and two shots of milk. ZZ ends up taking a bite out of the sandwich, I’m quite sure he ate the rest of it off-screen. I don’t believe there is any kind of sandwich out there ZZ wouldn’t eat. Chelsea and Josh are trying to motivate the Gator Boy to work out more, not sure it’s working.
The group is still shocked by Patrick’s elimination, with Mada gloomily pointing out how cut-throat the wrestling business can be. How prophetic. Amanda brings the conversation back to things that really matter by noticing that Chelsea has gone “blonder”. The Barbie Doll isn’t pleased by that. Jeez Amanda, how insecure are you really?
Challenge time and the contestants have to go trough an obstacle course that’s strung up between trees. And guest of the week Cesaro makes and awesome entrance, abseiling from tree to tree while smartly dressed and with sunglasses. How come that guy isn’t in the main event at Summerslam? Anyway, the theme is focus this week and the contestants have to go from tree to tree, memorize numbers, join Cesaro at the end and try to open a safe. Winner gets a prize. While they do all that, Billy Gunn has fun shouting all kinds of things at them. Most have trouble remembering the numbers and fail to open the safe. Tanner and Gigi do manage to remember the numbers by the simple expedient of completely ignoring everything Gunn throws at them. Josh is the only other one who does so, but his time is slower than Tanner’s. ZZ gets applause for not finishing last, that “honor” goes to Mada. Chelsea was actually faster than Gigi, but she failed to open the safe.
The prize turns out to be Jericho’s latest book (Tanner wins it) and, back live, Bryan wonders why his book wasn’t chosen as the prize. Jericho completely ignores everything that’s being said as he’s busy filming the TE stage with his smart-phone. Isn’t that the job of the cameraman? Oh it’s called periscoping apparently. Well call it what you want, I think it looks silly.
Hot tub is back with Tanner and Chelsea in it, continuing their awkward flirting. Tanner cuts a promo on the bikini. While the promo sucked, the fact that anyone would cut a promo on a bikini is kind of amusing to me so I’ll let it pass.
Billy Gunn is telling us to focus. Thank you Billy but how can we focus when nobody seems to have a clue on what the show is really about? Billy will call out some basics moves which the contestants have to perform while the PA is blaring out some crowd noises. It’s kind of hard to determine how good the TE hopefuls really are, as the segments are too short. But Josh and Tanner seem to perform rather well, while ZZ is a disaster which angers Mada. Chelsea shows off her training, Gigi isn’t bad but this still doesn’t seem entirely natural to her, Sara Lee struggles and Amanda might as well not be there at this point. Josh and Chelsea are declared the winners.
Sara Lee and Chelsea continue training at the barracks which prompts Miss Insecure, aka Amanda, to come see if they are not talking about here. Gigi joins the fray and we have the usual cat-fight. Mada calls ZZ out on his bad performance which, in Mada’s opinion, made him look look bad. ZZ seems has laid back and unconcerned as ever, Mada wonders what ZZ is even doing here. Gigi gets emotional on the phone with her father in what was a rather touching moment.
Team B.A.D. (Naomi, Sasha Banks and Tamina) join us live to put the female contestants to the test. Tamina will power-slam them before doing a top rope splash. the whole thing looks awkward. Question, if the whole Diva Revolution thing is supposed to be about the NXT girls, why was Banks just standing there while Tamina was demonstrating how NOT to do splashes?
Nomination time and Bryan picks Amanda, Paige nominates ZZ and Miz calls out Mada. And then Miz Shocks everybody by using his save on Amanda. His reason for ding so is because she’s hot and this isn’t only about wrestling. More on this later. Results are showed and, unsurprisingly, ZZ is first with 48%, Amanda only gathered 13% of the votes but her save means Mada has to go home despite a rather respectable 39%. Paige is PISSED!
Quick look at Tough Talk, Byron Saxton replaces the Miz and doesn’t do too baldy. Main focus was of course Mada being eliminated and Miz getting heat for saving Amanda. ZZ got some harsh, but deserved critiques from almost everybody. Miz defended Amanda by saying people booing her (and him) is the whole point. I thought Paige was going to lose it at some point. Had to laugh when Bryan said his book was better than Jericho’s.
Quite a few thoughts on this one:
First of all, on social media, Mada’s reaction has spawned conspiracy theory’s with some claiming WWE wanted Mada out because Hogan had endorsed him in recent weeks. It’s worth what it’s worth but the basic idea is, with Mada gone, the last link to Hogan is gone too. I personally don’t think WWE would go THAT far, but, in the wacky world of wrestling, everything is possible I guess.
ZZ has become a problem. he should have been eliminated by now, like said last week ha has no chance whatsoever to become a wrestler, but, his popularity remains high. I find it amusing that many are blaming the judges for nominating this or that contestant, while it’s the viewers that keep voting for ZZ. Sure the guy is funny, often unintentionally, but still funny. But there is an actual chance he’s gonna win this year if this keeps up, making this whole season irrelevant. OK, some of you are gonna say Tough Enough is irrelevant anyway, but still. Despite what ZZ keeps telling us, I doubt even he knows why he’s on the show. ZZ is like the guy sitting on a cactus, it just seemed like a good idea at the time.
In his first appearance as judge, Miz has already managed to triple the number of people hating him. That being said, Miz saying that Amanda should stay in the contest because she’s hot is very similar to how the WWE office sees their Diva’s. Wrestling talent? Not necessary. The Diva revolution still has a long way to go.
Billy Gunn is so entertaining in his role as trainer that Booker and Lita might as well not be there.
My pick for next week: Amanda. No way Paige doesn’t nominate her next week and I doubt Daniel Bryan will use his safe on her
