James Dixon: We start with a brief video package set to music that sees the women featured doing amongst other things running to the ring, staring at a fire, dicking around on a beach and hitting bad wrestling moves. Oh boy.
We get a couple of talking heads discussing the role of women in the WWF, with Road Dogg pulling no punches when he states: “As far as wrestling goes, I don’t think they have a place”. Jerry Lawler has a much different opinion, as you would probably expect, and attributes the WWF’s monster ratings and crowds of 1999 to the women. He is senile. Jim Cornette speaks half in character and half shooting, expressing that he believes women shouldn’t be involved in a contact sport and that no woman can beat a man. A mix of opinions then. Michael Cole hosts the main presentation, which is just swell. “Like it or not they are here, and they’re here to stay” says Cole. Pardon me while I go and jump for joy.
Sable
Sable doesn’t consider herself to be a sex symbol. Yeah, right. Explain the Playboy shoots then… We then get more music, as footage of Sable walking with her horse, washing her hair in the shower and staring into a fire accompanies. Next, she walks down some steps. What a fantastic use of video tape. Sable says she had some issues to resolve in her life, but they were solved by posing for Playboy. That’s sound advice girls; if you have any problems, just whip your kit off and take some pictures so you can regain your battered self esteem by having horny teenagers jerk off over you. Oh man… that voice! That shrill, unbearable, awful, screeching voice. And that’s just Michael Cole! I can’t listen to Sable either of course, she sounds so disingenuous with everything she says. I would rather have a root canal without Novocaine than listen to her speak for thirty seconds. More music, more Sable doing a great deal of nothing, because she is not actually a wrestler at all and has no place in the business. She is a big titted blonde who got a mega push because of her looks, and nothing else. We finally see some footage of Sable in “action”, starting and ending with her horrible match against Tori at WrestleMania XV. The most notable thing about the match is Tori’s bizarre outfit, which looks like it has been painted on. What Road Dogg said earlier is rather vindicated by this match, and the botched powerbomb reversal towards the end is particularly gruelling on the eye. The match ends when the manliest woman alive, Nicole Bass, interferes and beats up Tori. Sable’s only match in her bio piece, and she needs help to win it.
Jacqueline
The tape gives us an exclusive interview with Jacqueline, who says she enjoys wrestling guys more than girls. Jim Cornette and Road Dogg won’t be happy. Jacqueline is actually among the better workers of the women around at the time, but she is a terrible interviewee. Her story of how she got into the WWF? “I was in WCW. Then Jim Ross called and asked me if I wanted to be in the WWF. I said yes. So I signed a contract and now I am here”. What insight! We see footage of Jacqueline’s debut when she is introduced by Marc Mero, which extends to her walking to the ring. Jacqueline then says that in WCW, Eric Bischoff didn’t like that she was being pushed because he didn’t believe women had a place in wrestling. But, if she was being pushed then Eric, as the head honcho, would have been the one pushing her! “I showed him, now I am here, and I am happy”. It’s about as interesting as listening to a monotone child read out a phonebook. Jacqueline gets a match too, against Sable from RAW in September 1998, and it is clipped to hell. That’s probably for the best. The bout in question is for the reinstated WWF Women’s Championship, and Jacqueline wins thanks to an assist from Marc Mero. Shane McMahon on commentary, gets far, far too excited. “They’re really nice here, they treat you really well here” she says, which contradicts everything anyone who was there has ever said about the company during the Attitude era. Jackie’s feature finishes off with footage of her running on a beach in slow motion as Michael Cole waxes lyrical about her beauty and unique talent. The little letch.
Chyna
“Here’s an exclusive look at Chyna” says Cole. No, an exclusive look at Chyna was her sex video with X-Pac, which gave us far too much of a look at Chyna and her bits. Let’s just say that out of the two, X-Pac was by far the more feminine in that eyesore. Chyna doesn’t do running on beaches, instead she lifts weights. Lots and lots of weights. The Big Bossman chimes in that he thinks Chyna is tough for competing against men of his size, while Road Dogg says he is friends with Chyna and accepts her as a wrestler. What, did he forget about her in the opening rant? “Now I don’t look like a man” says Chyna, neglecting to mention that it is because of extensive plastic surgery. More boring gym stuff follows. Going to the gym to workout is boring enough, but watching someone else do it is paint drying territory. The music that accompanies close-up shots of Chyna’s muscles flexing makes this like the softest of soft-core porn. Ironic, given her later career choices. Finally we get something involving a wrestling ring, just, as Mark Henry asks Chyna out on a date and reads a poem. Chyna accepts begrudgingly, then acts like a complete dick to him when they go out. “Let’s just get this over with, Mark!” she says when he greets her. Well, why accept the thing in the first place then!? Ungrateful cow. Triple H quite rightly gets some talking head time, and goes over some of the issues Chyna faced when she first joined the company. He doesn’t say it directly, but implies what is actually the truth: that guys didn’t want to sell for her, put her over or have her involved in their matches. As Ahmed Johnson once succinctly put it: “Ain’t gonna let no bitch hit me!” Back in the gym, some apparently notable large muscled folk who I have never heard of, offer their support. At one point Chyna is surrounded by four guys and asks them to “take it off” before inviting them to “check this out”. I don’t mean to keep bringing up her future porn career but… The Chyna story ends as she tells some whoppers about why she looks so different now than when she first arrived in 1997, claiming that she broke her jaw on a house show and lost 30lbs because she couldn’t eat, and she liked the way she looked so decided to stay that way. Never in my life have I heard of someone losing that much weight, and the majority of it coming off the jaw. Nice try, Chyna, nice try.
Debra
Now the dumb as dishwater Debra, who I always think looks about ten years older than she actually is. Jeff Jarrett puts her over, which is amusing considering his shoot comments about her when he returned to the WWF on RAW in 1997, where he described her as “the definition of the term “dumb blonde””. Debra likes working with the WWF because they have people who do your hair. Yeah, so do salons. We go to the build-up for the Goldust-Jeff Jarrett match at Rock Bottom, where the stipulation stated that if Jarrett won then Goldust would have to strip naked, but if Goldust won then Debra had to show her “tasty cakes”. Jarrett wins thanks to a guitar shot, but commissioner Shawn Michaels comes out and reverses the decision and calls it DQ, so Debra has to strip. The WWF hams it up with stripper music while Shawn Michaels fumbles excitedly in his wallet for some singles. Yes folks, encouraging a randy crowd to whoop and holler as she takes her clothes off is the highlight of her WWF run at this point. Of course the WWF always promised big fake baps and very rarely delivered, and that is the case here too because the Blue Blazer and Jeff Jarrett come out to prevent her fun bags from getting out. Debra says “the real Debra” would never do that, then describes her tomboy childhood. Yeah, sorry, I tuned out. I have no clue what relevance that has to any of this.
Terri Runnels
Probably my least favourite of all the non-wrestling pieces of eye candy is the equine Terri Runnels. I can’t stand Sable, but at least she was hot. Terri is not, and she is even worse a performer than Mrs. Lesnar. After seeing Terri at a wine tasting, we battle potential epilepsy with a psychedelic music video, before Terri discusses “the characters I’ve portrayed”. Goodbye, kayfabe. Terri shares her views on parenthood and then tells potential suitors that she doesn’t like overly macho men. Well, she was with Goldust, so I think we knew that. “We look forward to seeing more of her” says the little pervert Cole, as we wrap up Terri’s feature, which frankly offered absolutely nothing. Why? Because she has done nothing of note. At all. Ever.
Ivory and Tori
These two get lumped together because they are relatively new to the company, but they are both better than most of the other girls featured. Both are fairly verbose and easy to listen to, especially Tori, but there is hardly any footage on offer because they haven’t been around for long enough. Instead they both talk in an empty arena about their hobbies. Tori likes yoga, Ivory likes working out and movies. Riveting. Ivory talks about her scarf, which she used to carry to the ring for every match, and she says she will never go to the ring without it. She lied.
We wrap up with a “warm weather look” at the women from the tape, which means lots of teasing shots of posing on beaches with tits out but covered up, seductive poses and water. Obviously, it is all in slow motion and set to music, but by now you know that already.
Summary: Tripe. This predates the slew of Diva tapes that clog up the release calendar in later years, and is the WWF’s first attempt at encouraging sex-starved teen boys to part with their money so they can catch a glimpse of side boob and nipples through wet shirts. Is there anything of value on here at all? In a word, no. I am a staunch objector of the WWF/E “divas” because I think they damage and expose the business and take television time away from people with talent. If they were talented workers I would have no problem with them, but so very few of them are. Let’s cut to the chase: the women in the WWF in 1999 were there because of their bodies, not because of their wrestling. They made some of them wrestle because they felt they probably had to, but no one, literally no one, wanted to see that. People wanted to see tits, and on a tape dedicated to those very women and thus those very tits, it needs to deliver in that one respect. It doesn’t, so it is worthless.
Verdict: 2
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