With the revival of Tough Enough coming to an end last week, let's flash back ten years to my cover story in Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter #658 (6/23/2001) covering the launch of the original "Tough Enough" series.

HEADLINE: Tough Enough to offer window into industry
MTV's 13-week series should raise the level of appreciation general public has for "fake sport"
By Wade Keller, PWTorch editor

A wider audience than ever before is about to see what it takes to become a professional wrestler. The trend of reality TV, such as MTV's "Real World," CBS's "Survivor," and Fox's "Boot Camp," is melding with a pro wrestling training school for a new series on MTV.

"Tough Enough," which debuts this Thursday on MTV immediately following Smackdown, is an example of the synergy WWFE Inc. hoped to achieve when they signed a five year exclusive TV contract with Viacom. The basic premise of the show is taking 13 people who want to become wrestlers, putting them in a house together surrounded by cameras 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and following them through nine weeks of intense training to become wrestlers.

With Smackdown and Raw ratings suffering, and with the failure of the XFL, Vince McMahon and Co. are looking for a success to change the diminishing image of the WWF in the corporate and television world. Many in the WWF are betting "Tough Enough" has the juice to become a big success.

This week's debut is a one-hour special featuring extensive footage of the casting of the show. The program begins with footage of 230 semi-finalists showing up at WWF New York to audition, hoping to be part of the cut to 25 finalists. The second half of the show concentrates on the cutting of the 25 finalists to the 13 contestants who made the show.

The first show is at times intense and emotional, but mostly it's designed to be funny. Al Snow, Tazz, Jacqueline, WWF director Kevin Dunn, and WWF producer John Gaburick are among those on a panel. In front of them, the 230 hopefuls strut their stuff in the ring, give mock promos, and attempt basic physical fitness routines to prove their potential. Tazz chews out several wanna bes for disrespecting wrestling by showing up completely out of shape and unable to perform even rudimentary exercises.

At the end of the hour, Stephanie McMahon announces to the 25 finalists which of the 13 made it - 8 men and 5 women. They show the reaction of those who made it, and those who didn't.

From there, the series will continue to air every Thursday at 10 p.m. ET on MTV, but will run only 30 minutes. The show will follow the contestants as they begin their training process with Al Snow, Tazz, Jackie, and Tori. Other WWF wrestlers make guest appearances most weeks, including Triple H (week three), Mick Foley, Kurt Angle, and Steve Austin.

During a media conference last week, Tazz expressed that he was against the concept of the show from the beginning. He felt it was wrong to reward anyone with a WWF developmental contract after just 9 weeks of training. He wasn't alone.

Within the WWF locker room, there was great concern, if not resistance, to the concept of the program. Besides traditionalists who feel that showing how wrestlers learn to "work" matches is giving away to too large an audience exactly how the magic tricks work, others felt as Tazz did that the winner wouldn't be forced to pay the dues necessary to earn a spot on the WWF roster. Tazz expressly didn't want to let down the locker room by being too easy on the contestants.

Tazz said as the show progressed, he grew more comfortable with the format and the attitude of the students. At first, his goal was to break the students as if it were military training. Neither MTV nor the WWF wanted that. They wanted to be sure there were contestants at the end of the 9 weeks of training. Al Snow was more comfortable with the concept from the beginning, which worked out well for the WWF and MTV since he became the main trainer.

Snow had every reason to be bitter about handing out a WWF developmental contract since he wrestled over 12 years on the indy scene before the WWF took notice. He ran a wrestling school in Ohio for seven years before getting a full-time WWF contract. The way he ran his school for years was how he ran the "Tough Enough" training process, with a six-day-a-week training schedule for eight weeks, but without the military atmosphere Tazz would have preferred.

Originally WWF producer John Gaburick thought Tazz and Snow would rotate days training the contestants. However, due to Jerry Lawler's sudden departure from WWF television, Tazz was added to the Smackdown commentary team. Between that and appearances on Heat, he had less time than anticipated to be part of the show. Snow led the morning and afternoon training sessions with the contestants Monday through Thursday each week, and also orchestrated unique Friday workouts that were created to make for good TV viewing while also developing the endurance of the contestants.

Saturday the contestants worked on their interview skills with Snow, and Sunday was an off-day at The Lodge (the Connecticut house where the 13 contestants lived for the nine weeks the show was filmed). Tazz's role was as a recurring trainer most days, but not all days, and usually for only a couple of hours. Snow ended up being the primary trainer and the star of the show along with the contestants.

The show is primarily about 13 young people realizing the difference between having a dream and actually paying the price necessary to achieve the dream. The show is edited in a way that the pro wrestling training is secondary to the personal struggles and interaction between the contestants. It is like "Real World" with a WWF celebrity twist. Instead of training to become WWF wrestlers, a similar show could also be based around young people training to fulfill another goal, such as becoming rock stars, pro athletes, or race car drivers.

Originally on the show, contestants were going to be eliminated one at a time each week, as determined by the trainers and producers. Whomever the staff thought wasn't cutting it would be dropped out of the training and sent home. It turned out that a number of contestants dropped out voluntarily (due to injuries, personal issues, etc.) so fewer forced cuts took place than originally planned.

The two winners (one man and one woman) have yet to be announced even to the contestants. Like Survivor this season, the winners will be announced on live TV during the final broadcast of the show. The two winners will each receive an opportunity to sign a WWF developmental contract and will appear on WWF television regularly during their further training.

The WWF and MTV expect the winners to become celebrities of sorts with their target demographics, much as the Survivor winners have become celebrities. However, it's not a sure thing since the winners of other reality series have not gone on to achieve mainstream crossover fame. With the "Tough Enough" winners, though, there is the built in vehicle of WWF programming to continue on the path they begin on "Tough Enough." If more than one of the men or women is a standout with potential, there is nothing stopping the WWF from giving a developmental contract to more than two of the contestants.

The winners may have a difficult time gaining acceptance from the WWF locker room, or even the wrestlers in the developmental territory in which they are sent. Most wrestlers have to pay for their training, then work the indy circuit for years before they get a WWF developmental contract. The winners will endure an especially challenging process of gaining acceptance as a result. Tazz, though, said those who lasted until the end are respectful of the business and should be accepted better than he originally anticipated when the series began shooting a few months ago.

While Snow and Tazz discovered that the contestants - at least some of them - were showing the proper respect and dedication toward the business, the "guest wrestlers" who appeared each week for special workouts and speeches were initially leery of the attitudes of the contestants. Austin was among the wrestlers who was skeptical of the show, but he walked away from his day with the contestants with a respect for them and the process they were going through.

Word in the WWF locker room is that the process of the training was realistic enough that nobody got a free ride. If anything, because cameras were rolling, they endured a tougher initial process of acclimation than many first-time students receive at many wrestling camps.

Snow took a relatively patient approach toward the contestants early in the show, while Tazz began with a chip on his shoulder. Both were given free rein by the WWF and MTV producers to conduct the training sessions any way they wanted to. Snow and Tazz butted heads several times over which approach to take, confrontations that will likely end up part of the show. The evolution of the attitudes of Snow, Tazz, and Jacqueline throughout the 13 shows augments the progress of the students.

Although there will be skeptics, all indications are that no part of the show was "worked." All sources indicate there were no plants, no previously trained students posing as green rookies, no confrontations manipulated by the MTV producers. It was a pure process with total freedom on the wrestling-side to handle the training process however they wanted.

Snow, Tazz, and Jacqueline were not given access to goings-on at The Lodge outside of the training hours. They say they are looking forward to seeing what was happening at The Lodge during the off-time, what the students were saying about them and each other during their down time.

Those closely associated with the show have no fear that the wrestlers in the WWF will react negatively to the program. MTV producers openly say that they gained a newfound respect for pro wrestling because of the show, and they look forward to editing the shows to relay that to their audience. The WWF did get 100 percent control of the creative process and the finished product. WWF producer John Gaburick (the Vader-like presence in the early shows) is involved regularly in the Los Angeles edit sessions for the finished version of the program. The latter episodes are now being edited even as the first episodes begin airing.

Vince McMahon met with each of the surviving contestants individually near the end of the nine weeks of training, plus watched them perform in matches in the ring. He is said to have walked away from the experience very satisfied with what he saw. That doesn't mean there is necessarily the "next Rock" or "next Kurt Angle" among the contestants, but it's not being ruled out, either. After just nine weeks of training, it is too soon to tell. However, the casting special reveals several contestants with at least the "look" necessarily to have a chance to become stars, assuming they have other necessarily attributes.

If the ratings are strong, a second season will be produced, likely with a similar training crew (MTV has already made it clear they want Snow back for a second season if there is one). While WWFE wasn't able to generate effective synergy between its wrestling viewers and the XFL football product, "Tough Enough" has the advantage of being much more wrestling-oriented. It also immediately follows Smackdown. With Viacom owning both UPN and MTV, they will hard-sell viewers on Smackdown to switch from UPN to MTV for "Tough Enough" (although UPN affiliates may not be thrilled). That advantage didn't exist with the XFL.

"Tough Enough" will also include not just Snow, Tazz, Jackie, and Tori as part of the overall process throughout the series, but major name guests virtually every week including Triple H, Austin, Foley, and Angle. The WWF hopes their Raw and Smackdown viewers will be interested in seeing the grassroots process of how WWF superstars get their starts, plus an inside glimpse into how wrestling matches are worked. Terms such as "selling" and "bumps" will be used openly on the show.

While Tazz said the experience didn't change him as a person, Snow said it was a personal highpoint in his career and he is proud of the show. Ken Mok, the main MTV producer, said it was an honor working with the WWF crew. WWF people were impressed with MTV's respectful approach toward the process and their dedication to making the show as entertaining, yet thoroughly authentic as possible.

Even if "Tough Enough" fails to catch on with the masses, more people than ever will understand how wrestling matches are worked. If the show is a ratings success, the WWF may have a new franchise program to add to their portfolio. And if a star is born, they have found a way to make ad dollars while seeking out and grooming stars of the future.

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2011 QUESTION: Do you think Tough Enough has helped or hurt the image of pro wrestling and what it takes to become a pro wrestler? Or has it made no difference?

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