USA Network’s revival of Tough Enough, which is expected to debut in the spring, is a second attempt to revive a show born on MTV.
What’s notable is that Tough Enough preceded UFC’s Ultimate Fighter, drew far better ratings than Ultimate Fighter, yet Ultimate Fighter will be filming its 21st season and has never been canceled while Tough Enough is starting its sixth season and has been canceled twice.
Tough Enough was brought back in 2011 by the USA Network. Ratings for the show, which aired on Tuesdays, were strong for cable television, but far below what USA had been getting in the time slot, so it wasn’t renewed for a second season. However, USA’s ratings have
declined from that level, so the numbers Tough Enough was doing, while still below the station average, beat what a lot of their prime time programming today does.
Steve Austin was the star of the remake, and he was also scheduled to be the host of the WWE Network version that was to be filmed last summer in Orlando. For what it’s worth, Austin was on Wade Keller’s podcast and said that he had not been contacted for the new show. Since he was the best thing on the show, I would be surprised if they don’t at least make a play for him.
For Ultimate Fighter, it always did better than Spike’s prime time average so was in the safe zone. That wasn’t the case with FX, but FOX always knew from when it signed UFC that it was going to develop its own sports network with UFC as a prime property to build it. So they put Ultimate Fighter on, took the lower ratings for a few years on FX, because it would be valuable to a new network. On FS 1, Ultimate Fighter remains, as it draws far higher ratings than most prime time programming. For Tough Enough’s return, the bar is once again higher.
On the final season, it was a black eye to the show when Andy Leavine won, and then was never seen again. Leavine ended up cut by WWE before being brought to the main roster, and wrestled in Puerto Rico for a long time before getting out of the business.
Of that cast, the favorite to win, Luke Robinson, was injured prior to the finals and did some independent work before retiring to run a personal training business. Jeremiah Riggs, who also made the top three, had a WWE tryout later, but came in with a terrible attitude, wasn’t signed, and did some MMA fights with Bellator.
Ariane Andrew (Cameron) was the only cast member to make the WWE roster, while Matt Capiccioni (Son of Havok) and Ivelisse Velez work for Lucha Underground, and A.J. Kirsch, Ryan Howe, Eric Watts and Martin Casaus still do independent wrestling.
The most notable thing in hindsight was that Austin Aries was one of the final cuts before getting onto the show.
The first season of the show, in 2001, on MTV, was won by Maven Huffman and Nidia Guenard, who both had several years on the main roster. Christopher Nowinski, who eventually made the main roster and is now a concussion expert stemming from his experiences with concussions on the main roster, was also in the finals, as was TNA announcer Josh Lomberger (Josh Matthews). Taylor Matheny, who eventually married Brian Kendrick, never wrestled in WWF, but wrestled for several years, including in Japan. Jessica Kresa, who was in the final cut to get into the house, got huge implants, and had a long run in TNA as ODB and currently works for ROH.
Linda Miles and Jackie Gayda were the winners of the second season in 2002, in what was a very controversial pick. Miles did not do well in the show, but they felt she had a good look and was a Division I basketball player at Rutgers. Gayda, while not a good wrestler in the ring at all, was the star of the show. She had been cut the year before, and came back with new implants and it made all the difference.
Miles went to developmental, where she ranked near the bottom when it came to evaluations as part of one of WWE’s funniest stories of that time. They had the coaches evaluate and rank
those under contract 1-to-20 based on how ready they were for the main roster. She then got implants and was brought to the main roster. The three who ranked the lowest by the coaches, Miles being one of them, were the next three called up. I believe all three quickly flopped on the main roster. She had a short run on the main roster as Shaniqua, the manager of the Basham Brothers tag team, but was cut due to attitude issues of not wanting to train on the road with wrestlers who wanted her to get there early and work out. Gayda lasted a few years, and ended up marrying Charlie Haas. The two were cut on the same day, and Gayda had a run in TNA and eventually became a fitness model and personal trainer.
Losers fared better, including Kenny Layne (Kenny King in TNA) and Matt Morgan (who worked in both WWE and TNA).
Ironically, of the 25 who didn’t make the top 12, they fared far better than those picked. Shad Gaspard, who at the time was an aspiring MMA fighter, would have made the final cast and with his size and look, probably would have won if he could have wrestled, but failed a drug test and was replaced at the last minute. John Hennigan (Johnny Mundo/John Morrison), who ended up in the third season, was cut even though he was the best athlete in the cast, with the feeling among judges that he was there to be a TV star and discovered and didn’t have the heart to be a wrestler. Shelly Martinez (Ariel in WWE/Salinas in TNA) was cut, and ended up getting huge implants and found her way back in. Kia Stevens (Amazing Kong), who had already been a star in Japanese wrestling, was cut and told that there was no interest in WWE or American pro wrestling of a woman of her size. Another one who didn’t make the cast was Kim Neilsen, who had also previously been trained by Dusty Rhodes, was later signed in developmental, but never made the main roster. She went to TNA as Desire, and married wrestler Sonny Siaki, and later, after gaining a ton of weight, appeared on the network TV “The Greatest Loser” show. Chad Lail became Gunner on the current TNA roster. Jessie Ward never wrestled after the show, but was hired in production by WWE, and later worked a few years for TNA, and is currently married to ROH wrestler Tommaso Ciampa.
Hennigan and Matt Cappotelli won the third season, in 2003. Cappotelli was part of one of the best remembered moments of the show, when Bob Holly kicked him in the head for real over and over, which confused everyone on the show that was taught to work and not hurt their partner. Cappotelli, who resembled Brian Pillman and was a good college football player, probably would have made it to the main roster, as he was a top star in Ohio Valley Wrestling, but a brain tumor ended his career.
One of the late cuts from the show was Melina Perez, a Southern California model and beauty pageant winner. She met Hennigan and the two became a couple. Perez also got huge implants, and found her way onto the main roster as both a manager and later a wrestler, and was forever immortalized in the 2011 season when Steve Austin looked at Ariane Andrew, who clearly knew nothing about wrestling, and asked her what her favorite wrestling match of all-time was, and Andrew, clearly panicked, said “Melina against Alicia Fox” while Austin looked like his mind was blown.
The two biggest names who got cut from before getting into the house were Daniel Puder, who won season four, who would have made the final cast except he had a legal issue just prior to filming, and Shawn Daivairi, who later had a run with the company.
The final season, in 2004, with the gimmick being of a $1 million Tough Enough, with the idea that it would attract world class athletes, because of the disappointment with the level of athletes in season three, was an all-men’s cast.
Puder won that season, largely based on popularity garnered in an unscripted challenge. He was not going to be picked for the final cast, even though he won every athletic challenge, because of the feeling he didn’t have a personality. He got in because Martin Wright, a bodybuilder, had lied on his application, saying he was 30 when he was really 40, and was caught.
Wright, who showed incredible charisma in his videos, to go along with a competition bodybuilder physique, probably would have won as long as he didn’t get injured, which, given his age, training and other things, was somewhat likely to happen. When it was discovered Wright was 40, when the rules of the competition stated clearly that nobody over the age of 35 could try out, Wright was cut and in the immortal words of Al Snow, was told “You can’t lie in wrestling.”
Puder got into the show as the final guy when in the tryouts at the beach, they found a pretty girl and told him he had to pick up on her. When he was successful at it, and the girl told the camera men she thought he was cute, they figured that he appealed enough to women to give him the final slot.
The first several episodes of the season, which aired live on Smackdown, was built around the idea of the main roster guys bullying the students. The whole thing was a disaster. They wanted Big Show to bully the guys, but the cast had several huge guys, including Justice Smith and Daniel Rodimer, who were not quite his weight, but almost as big and Smith was a tough guy. Show didn’t want to do it and there were complaints because the guys not having been taught to sell, made Show look silly because they popped right up from his body slams.
It got worse when they arranged to embarrass the guys further. The idea was for all of the cast members to have a pasta eating contest, with the idea they’d stuff themselves backstage right before coming out. Next, they were going to have them go into the ring live and do squats thrusts until they dropped. Puder was suspicious, and on purpose, somewhat tanked the eating contest figuring it was going to lead to management making fools of the guys for throwing up on live TV right after. So in the squat thrust competition, Puder didn’t get sick as quick as the rest of them and was having no trouble continuing. Still, while he was clearly the last one standing, when John Laurinaitis from backstage told the referee that the blond guy won, the ref raised the hand of the wrong blond guy, Chris Nawrocki.
Nawrocki’s reward was to do a legitimate shoot wrestling match with Kurt Angle. The idea was Angle would destroy any of the guys, although Puder was a good high school wrestler and trained at AKA in San Jose for MMA (in the small world notice, one of his main training partners at the time was Shinsuke Nakamura). The idea was between the pasta eating contest and the squat thrusts, they’d be so gassed it wouldn’t be a contest, and ready to throw up after Angle got threw with one of them, which is Vince McMahon entertainment. Really, even tanking the eating contest, Puder should have been a sitting duck, but he came into the competition training like a marathon runner so he was relatively fresh.
Angle destroyed Nawrocki, including breaking his ribs and cranking his neck while the people backstage laughed. Angle then asked if anyone else wanted any of him, figuring after that display, everyone would back down. Puder raised his hand.
So they started grappling. Angle was able to take Puder down and Puder immediately locked on a Kimura from the bottom. Angle was probably done but he was on top and referee Jimmy Korderas, quickly realizing the ultimate embarrassment of the situation, counted to three for the pin, even though Puder’s shoulder was up and he actually very clearly raised it at two.
The WWE figured nobody would know, but after it aired on television, the whole story came out, and became gigantic on MMA message boards. WWE after it had aired, later edited the footage but it had already aired on television.
Puder had become a big favorite with people bringing signs in for him at every taping, and since it was a fan voting, it was pretty clear he was going to win. Bill DeMott, one of the coaches, at the last minute pushed for the company to not rely on the voting and pick Mike Mizanin, who was the better wrestler of the two and a huge fan, while Puder was a fighter whose knowledge of wrestling was nil, not knowing anyone on the main roster with the exception of guys the level of Ric Flair and agent Ricky Steamboat. Mizanin in particular hated that they would be in the locker room with all the stars or they’d have stars from the past and Puder didn’t know hardly any of them. Ryan Reeves even went on some wrestling message boards telling people not to vote for Puder, and when they were down to four and asked the other three who shouldn’t win, all three said Puder.
At first they tried to have Bob Holly beat him into quitting on the house shows, and then sent him to developmental, although Holly said he was told by Jimmy Yang that Puder told him he could beat Holly if it was real, and Holly felt he had no respect and beat his chest raw. Puder said he never said anything of the sort. In the Royal Rumble they did an initiation where Holly, Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit destroyed him and threw him out with him taking a bump he wasn’t ready to take. Terry Taylor, who worked for TNA at the time, publicly said that was clearly a company ordered “hit.”
Paul Heyman, who ran OVW, loved him and thought he had star potential. But the company, whose $1 million prize package was really a four-year contract at $250,000 per year and only the first year was guaranteed, cut him after one year, which they did have the right to do in the contract, even though they had advertised the winner getting $1 million. Puder was offered the chance to stay at $38,000 per year but had to leave OVW for Deep South, and be taken away from Heyman. He did some pro wrestling, was briefly in ROH and New Japan, and did some MMA fighting and now runs an anti-bullying charity.
Mizanin (The Miz) and Ryan Reeves (Ryback) from that season are now on the WWE roster. Nick Mitchell from that season ended up in the Spirit Squad group that held the tag title. He was also for a long time the live-in boyfriend of Torrie Wilson, and later he also did a few MMA fights. Daniel Rodimer, who the company wanted to win, a 6-foot-5, 280 pound blond who looked like a cross between Dave Draper and Superstar Graham, was signed for developmental. Stephanie McMahon earmarked him to be a headliner, as the third member of the top heel group with Randy Orton and Edge, and to feud with John Cena. But Rodimer, who was not a good worker and lost a lot of his charisma when he cut his blond hair, ended up quitting right before he was going to get his push because he said he was making more money in real estate than wrestling was going to pay.
Justice Smith, who finished third behind Puder and Miz, ended up as a cast member of the 2008 remake of “American Gladiators,” on a cast that also included Matt Morgan, Gina Carano and MMA fighter Erin Toughill. Puder ended up being the last person cut because they thought, at 6-foot-3 and 255 pounds, he was too small. Smith also did some kickboxing for K-1 and was later destroyed in an MMA fight by Shane Carwin.
Wright, despite his age, someone in the company decided he had too much charisma to pass on. He was signed, immediately rubbed people the wrong way by saying how if he’d have been allowed on the season that he would have won, and naturally, was rushed to the main roster after only a few months of training as The Boogeyman.
He was on and off the main roster as a cult gimmick guy, best as a babyface, from 2005 to 2009, but suffered a few injuries and they went about as far with the gimmick as they could, and when he was 45 and still not much of a wrestler, he was cut.
The other most notable late cut from the cast was Drew Hankinson, who is now Doc Gallows in New Japan Pro Wrestling.
