WOW Women of Wrestling recap & review: Line them up & knock them down

Last week’s episode of WOW was not my favorite. The home grown talent was not enough to carry the show and the need for a secondary belt was increasingly obvious. This week’s episode didn’t present much of a change - no titles was introduced - but the match-ups were compelling, a new competitor was introduced and the overall show was very fun!

Hopefully, that means that last week’s stinker was an outlier and that WOW is committed to building up their mid-card.

You don’t have to like her, but you have to respect her

WOW

Tessa Blanchard once again opened the show to declare her dominance over the WOW locker room. It was short and sweet, but effective. Amidst the raucous booing of the crowd she let McLane know just how she felt about her competition, “You can line these bitches up and I’m gonna knock them down.”

Before she could continue, however, Havok’s music hit for her scheduled match with Eye Candy. I really liked how they did this because it made Havok a potential threat for Tessa’s title without taking away from the title feud already in progress. Furthering the idea of “now that you’re the champ, you have a big target on your back.”

Tessa reacted in true heel form by getting the F out of the ring. Again, this is a great use for Tessa right now. Jungle GRRRL and the Beast are duking it out for their #1 contender-ship and Tessa is skirting around having to actually defend her title while still letting everyone know she is the champ.

Is there a better heel in women’s wrestling than Tessa? Because IMO she is the Queen B.

A Monster among us

I had some harsh words for Havok in her debut match against Fire because I know that she was capable of more and her match with Eye Candy proved me right. I don’t know if it’s because Eye Candy and Havok are more similar in size and perceived strength that Havok and Fire, but it felt like more of a competition and when Havok went over it actually felt like she had accomplished something.

This match had a really nice pace and the two of them had excellent chemistry. Havok moved a little slower, but in a more calculated way - almost like she was stalking her prey - while Eye Candy threw everything she had at Havok -flying drop kicks, cannonballs, insiguris - and just couldn’t seem to get the upper hand on the Monster of Madness.

Unfortunately, for Eye Candy a missed moonsault resulted in Havok gaining control, hitting a scary beautiful demon drop and getting the win.

This was probably my favorite match of the night. This is the Havok I love and I’m so glad it only took one episode for her to show up!

Wrasslin’

Could I live without another MAGA storyline in wrestling? Yes. Do I love the way Jessie Jones says “wrasslin” so much that I don’t really care about this lazy story line? Also, yes.

I mentioned this before too, but as much as I dislike the whole idea of a “Make Wrestling Great Again” story line I do think Jessie Jones and the writers are doing a decent job of not making it outwardly offensive. I mean, the whole concept of MAGA is inherently offensive, but Jessie toes the line really well.

This was another really fun match up as Jessie was facing off with peace loving party girl, Chantilly Chella. The juxtaposition of their characters and their wrestling styles made for a lot of nice in-ring moments.

Chantilly flashed the peace sign a couple times to try and get Jessie on her side, but it only seemed to enrage her and when Chantilly tried to work a fast paced high-flying style, Jessie hit her with an old school beatdown. She worked Chantilly’s shoulder and arm over and over again, until she eventually tapped Chantilly out with a very unique looking armbar.

Sometimes, when you stick to the classics you get the W. Maybe that’s what she means by make wrestling great again, and not the terrible racist and sexist undertones!

* eye roll emoji *

Once Jessie was finished with the match she grabbed a mic and cut a promo on Chantilly. “Wrasslin’ isn’t about parties, it’s about hard work!” She may have a point, but the audience - especially one hilariously over the top person in the crowd - did not agree!

Still, Jessie remains one of their strongest mid-card heels and continues to produce solid matches.

Legend POP

There was a nice moment where they featured NWA hall of famer and tag team champion Joyce Grable in the crowd. She looked like she was having a blast and said that WOW “was the best women’s wrestling she had seen since the seventies baby!”

I was hoping they would use her appearance to introduce the tag titles but alas, I was mistaken.

It just seams so weird to me that they don’t have the titles in the picture yet because (a) we know they have them, (b) their stories desperately need them & (c) women’s tag team wrestling is HOT right now. Why not capitalize on the momentum?

Welcome to the Temple...I mean, the hotel

WOW

The self-proclaimed world’s greatest attorney (literally the best title), Sophia Lopez is back and she has brought Lucha Underground’s own Queen of the Reptiles, Kobra Moon, to WOW. I’m not really sure how all the wheelings and dealings of WOW & LU happened, but I am glad they did because WOW is the perfect place for an over the top character like Kobra Moon. Also, for us LU fans it’s nice to see Kobra be a bad ass without her harem of Lizard Men to protect her. There is a reason she is a queen and this is it! She is at WOW to “Conquer new worlds” and I am here for it.

This match was excellent. Kobra has such a solid grasp of her character both in the ring and out and her and Azteca had good chemistry. Although, I assumed Kobra would win as it was her big debut there was moments in this match when I genuinely didn’t know who would go over which was exciting.

My one complaint about this match has nothing to do with the excellent competitors in the ring and has to do with commentary. Oh, man, do they need to get it together. First of all, having any knowledge of wrestling moves would be great. Really lame to hear things like “Kobra Moon tries do to a maneuver.” BUT I would rather hear that than to hear the commentary team just make stuff up! They called a slingshot elbow drop a “tope suicida” and Kobra Moon’s finisher a tombstone. To quote Arnold Schwarzenegger, “IT’S NOT A TOMBSTONE!”

In the final moments of the match, Azteca got Kobra into a half crab and almost picked up the win, but Kobra was able to break the hold, regain the momentum and finish Azteca with her actual finisher, a fire thunder driver.

Great match & I look forward to watching Kobra slay in the tem...the hotel.

Tempting Fire

I’ve been very blunt about my distaste for The Temptress in both WOW & Impact, but I’m a big person and I can admit when something I dislike is good. And this week’s match up of Fire (a fav of mine) and The Temptress was great. While I don’t think Temptress is an excellent wrestler she put on the best match I have ever seen her have with Fire. Fire did most of the heavy lifting - she sold like a champ & pushed the momentum of the match - but at no moment was I furious that Temptress was on my screen. I actually think this over the top character works really well for her and makes her naturally cartoonish behavior more acceptable than when was in Impact.

Temptress won with a little help from Dagger, but just like last week when the two tried to gang up on their opponent they were met with resistance from an outside force - Keta Rush.

It’s clear that the teams of Dagger & Temptress and Rush & Fire are going to be staples of the tag division and this is the ground work for that.

When The Beast comes around

WOW

So the main event was weird. Not really sure why the Beverly Hill Babe got to face Jungle GRRRL as one of them is embroiled in the title picture and one of them is strictly mid card, but here we are. This match was...fine I guess? I don’t know, it was super unbelievable to me that the Beverly Hills Babe would have Jungle GRRRL against the ropes for so much of the match.

But really it doesn’t matter because the real reason that this match existed was for The Beast to have another baller closing moment.

Just before Jungle GRRRL was about to hit her beautiful splash on BHB, The Beast came out and stood in the middle of the ring, daring Jungle GRRRL to jump. Naturally, she did, but was caught in a choke slam by The Beast and laid to waste.

The show ended with Jungle GRRRL absolutely fed up and calling BOTH Tessa Blanchard and The Beast out.

Full circle!

---

Overall, a really good show with some truly excellent matches. Honestly, some of the best of the season! A secondary title is still desperately needed, but the match ups and character work got them through one more week with only a single belt.

Grade: A