I have no idea how widespread this show is, but I recently watched it on The Fight Network, and… this is one weird-ass show. For those who might be unaware, Wrestlicious is an all-women wrestling federation and TakeDown is their weekly TV show. On the one hand, I applaud that it’s so different from the other wrestling shows on TV. On the other hand… different isn’t necessarily good.
It seems to be filmed in a studio, kind of like TNA, although it reminds me a lot more of the NWA shows from the ’80s in that TV studio that I can’t remember the name of. The ring apron seems pretty short (about half the height of the WWE’s ring apron), but other than that it seems like a fairly standard WCW-style cable-roped ring. The obvious difference is that the ropes and the connectors between the turnbuckles and the ring post are bright pink. When the camera zooms in it becomes obvious that there are pink sheathes on those elements, which seems like it could make balancing on the ropes more hazardous than it needs to be. I’ve only seen two episodes, so that might completely false, but just by looking it at the sheathes seem like they could slide, since they aren’t very snug on the ropes.
The in-ring aspects of the show are fairly standard. Since the show is only a half-hour long, it’s hard to complain about the length of the matches, which are pretty short. One of the episodes I saw had a battle royale, which kind of sucked, since the ring entrances for the 20 ladies lasted about as long as the match did and a lot of the eliminations looked more like the girls threw themselves out of the ring and their opponents just happened to be there making a throwing motion. The other matches are better. They’re not Shimmer quality, but they’re decent. The aspect that stands out the most in terms of the wrestling is that all of the wrestlers have very clear gimmicks. There’s a witch doctor, a convict, an American patriot, a cowgirl, naughty schoolgirls, and Lacey Von Erich. Whose gimmick is that she’s Lacey Von Erich. This seems to influence the match-ups quite a bit (like a singles match between a pop star and a female rapper).
The television production aspects of the show are where it starts to get really strange. The show opens with, of all people, Jimmy Hart. And a girl whose name I forgot that has a Jersey girl gimmick. The rest of the promo segments are pre-taped skits. The ’50s gal did a segment with some doo wop girls in a diner, the rapper was inexplicably on a game show with Greg “The Hammer” Valentine where the questions were about hip hop. There was a segment featuring comic panels drawn by James Hornsby of Botched Spot, which was pretty cool to see, although I’m not entirely sure why they wouldn’t just film a real promo where the same thing happened. The segments are very different than a typical WWE or TNA segment, but a lot of them didn’t really work any better than they would have as typical promos, but probably cost more to produce.
Followers of my Twitter and readers of my NXT recaps are probably well aware that I hate Michael Cole with the burning rage of a thousand suns. Well the Wrestlicious commentator is nearly as bad. He doesn’t bury the talent or act like a complete asshole, but man is his commentary bad. It’s CLEARLY being read off of a pre-written script made up entirely of jokes that make Jerry “The King” Lawler look like the second coming of George Carlin. There’s no way anyone could make up that many shitty jokes on the spot. It’s just physically impossible.
Wrestlicious: TakeDown is something that needs to be seen to be believed. Is it the best show out there? Sweet zombie Jesus no. Is it even a good show? Kinda. Is it a show? Yes. Yes it is. And really, what the hell else is on at 1:30 AM?
Better or worse than GLOW (my women’s wrestling show from back in the day)?
I’ve never seen GLOW, but I looked it up on Wikipedia and they sound fairly similar. All of the Wrestlicious episodes are on their website, though, so maybe just check a few out and compare for yourself. Turn your brain off for maximum enjoyment.