Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Wrestling

I actually sat through the whole of this season (8 epsiodes) in about 4 days. The concept was pretty simple, 10 'celebrities' compete against each other to become the CCW Champion. In each episode the celebs are taught 3 moves, they practice them with their trainers Nasty Boy Brian Nobbs and Brutus 'The Barber' Beefcake and at the end of the day they put on a match in front of a live audience. At the end of the evening, the judges, Hulk Hogan, Jimmy Hart and Eric Bischoff, eliminate one celeb.

I have no idea where they dragged the celebs from but they were really scraping the barrel with this lot! The line up consisted of:

Nikki Ziering - Erm... still trying to work out who she is!
Tiffany - Apparently an 80's pop icon!
Frank Stallone - Famous for being the brother of Sylvester
Dennis Rodman - Surprisingly, someone who is actually famous!
Erin Murphy - Tabitha from Bewitched! That was on like a million years ago! Has she had surgery done, she's aged very well for someone who is ancient!
Dustin Diamond - Double D, famous for being Screech back in the day in Saved by the Bell, now famous for being a douche!
Trischelle Cannatella - Apparently she's a reaality star, the best looking of the girls, so she was alright with me!
Butterbean - The guy who knocked Bart Gunn out in WWF back in the day!
Todd Bridges - Wow if you thought Tabitha from Bewitched and Tiffany from the 80's was bad, they managed to drag Willis from out under some rock!
Danny Bonaduce - He's apparently a child star and a radio show host. I like to call him Danny Bona-douche bag!

The first few shows were obviously a little weak as the celebs were still learning the moves. Both Brian Nobbs and Brutus Beefcake came across as really good teachers and really knew their stuff. It was obvious from the start that celebs like Tiffany, Erin and Frank just weren't cut out for the show and they were quickly dispatched with Hulk's "You're a jabroni (sp?) get out of my ring" still ringing in their ears. A pretty lame catchphrase from the Hulkster in my opinion!

I thought Trischelle was by far the best female performer and she proved it by outlasting all the girls and some of the guys too. Her downfall was the hardcore match where she was afraid to take chairshots. Although Butterbean played the part of the big man well (duh! of course he played it well, he's massive!) but personally I thought he was some what overrated by the judges. Dustin Diamond obviously had some passion for the sport and it showed in the way he worked the crowd. But unfortuantely his facial expressions just reminded me of Screech rather than a bad ass wrestling heel! Danny Bona-douchebag is a mad man! The ill feeling between he and Dustin Diamond made for a great hardcore match including one spot where DD tossed Danny through a wall and what did Danny do? He got up and smashed through another part of the same wall! Having said that, Bona-douchebag was a little too cocky, he thought he knew the game too well and his arrogance was his ultimate downfall.

The final was fought between Todd Bridges and Dennis Rodman. The crowd was always red hot for 'Rodzilla' but he seemed to wuss out of a lot of stuff in training. Todd was a high flier who seemed to have a good grasp of the more advanced moves and was generally pretty solid in the ring. He seemed to get the heel psychology down to a tee too. Some of Rodman's colleagues complained that Rodzilla worked too stiff and that he was hurting them but it didn't seem to worry the judges too much as he was crowned the first ever Celebrity Championship Wrestling Champion!

Personally I wasn't too happy with Rodman's win. Bridges was by far the better candidate and the better all round wrestler. What's worseis the fact that everyone who watched WCW back in the 90's will know that Hogan and Rodman are good friends and the two tagged together at WCW pay per view. Sounds like a fix to me!

I enjoyed this and the show has the potential for another season if they could improve their line up a little more. The show format was well done with different types of matches every week that stopped it becoming repetitive and the special guest appearances added more scope to the show. If there is a series 2 I'll probably tune in.