DVD ReviewI have some fond memories of watching pro wrestling during the 80s. I couldn't wait until the weekend when WWF had their syndicated shows, All American Wrestling and Superstars of Wrestling, there was the incredible World Class stuff from Texas, and the NWA at 6:05 ever Saturday on TBS. With all that great wrestling, the show I really wanted to see came on late Saturday night and was called Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. I'm not ashamed to admit that GLOW was a camp classic that truly had it all. Take the worst skit you ever saw on Monday Night Raw, and I can almost guarantee you that it will seem written by Charlie Kaufman or Joss Whedon when compared to the skits on GLOW. Remember the legendarily bad mixed tag match on Raw with Jackie Gayda & Harvard Chris vs. Trish Stratus & Bradshaw? That was like the Dragon Gate Six-Man match at ROH's Supercard of Honor compared to your average GLOW match-up.
Don't get me wrong, the bad matches and even worse comedy was what made GLOW priceless. The shows were run out of the Riveria hotel in Las Vegas, and to be quite frank, we're not talking about the Bellagio. GLOW wasn’t SHIMMER or Masterpiece Theatre, and while watching it, you can be entertained even though every program in my ROHBot addled brain is saying I should hate this amalgam of sports entertainment and bad wrestling. I think Disco Inferno said it best when telling TNA viewers to “turn your brain off,” and in order to properly enjoy GLOW, I believe you need to do this as well. The gimmick characters that the women of GLOW portrayed stuck with me to this day, including Hollywood, my all time favorite wrestling diva, beating out Maria, Trish Stratus, Sunny, and Stacy Keibler. Hollywood had a Britney Spears-like look, years before Britney came onto the pop culture scene with Hit Me Baby (One More Time), and a bad ass attitude. Other personal favorites include the psychotic Dementia, the naïve Farmer's Daughter, and the bizarre Big Bad Mama. GLOW was even years ahead of its time with a "reality" show within the wrestling show. That's right, long before Tough Enough or The Ultimate Fighter, Life in the GLOW House was a weekly staple in my life.
Now, 20 years later, thanks to Big Vision Entertainment, I can finally watch me some GLOW again! Because it's Big Vision, you know that the quality is there. The Ultimate Insiders DVD series is the gold standard for wrestling shoot interviews and if you could see what I've seen concerning Wrestling Society X, you'd be writing MTV every day demanding that show be put on the air post haste. The Very Best of GLOW contains one full episode of the series (season 4, episode 86) and a ton of bonus features. It's true, only one episode is on this DVD. While that might suck a little, at least Big Vision picked an entertaining episode which shows how great GLOW was, and is probably the only criticism I have of the disc. Wonderful material, but ends too quickly
The four main matches on the DVD are:
1) Babe “The Farmer’s Daughter” (w/Tulsa) vs. MTV “Melody Trouble Vixen” -Babe is from Hog's Hollow, Nebraska and has a stereotypical gimmick you'd see in any porn film. Babe's partner Tulsa was sitting ringside next to Jackie Stallone, that's right, Rocky's mom and psychic to the stars. Melody Trouble Vixen does a Cyndi Lauper-on-crystal-meth gimmick and even brings a pink guitar to the ring. Hollywood made a run-in at the close of the match before Tulsa came in for the save. Keith Lipinski thinks that I should be describing more about each match, like all the moves the girls bust out. On this subject, I think Keith is insane. If guys want great in-ring action, get SHIMMER. If guys want the match times to GLOW matches, there's a bridge I'd like to sell you they should jump off of.
2) Hollywood vs. Roxy Astor - As you know, I'm in love with Hollywood, so this match is roughly 4 1/2 stars. Roxy's gimmick is that she's from New York I
guess. At least that's all she talks about. Compared to the other girls, Astor
seems about 10 years older. As the saying goes, she's good from afar, but far from good. Two matches so far, two appearances by Hollywood. Can't complain about that, even if the matches aren't anything to write home about (unless you're writing a suicide note).
3) Liberty & Justice vs. Daisy & Dementia (w/Gremlina) - Justice is a cross between Roz from Night Court and 911 from ECW. Seriously. Liberty comes to the ring like a walking Statue of, well, you know what. Dementia is such a great gimmick. Wearing a torn wedding dress, painted white like a goth chick, and wielding an axe, this girl knew how to play nuts. Daisy looks like a homeless aerobics instructor. She's also about 10 feet tall. The Great Khali of GLOW. Gremlina is this small girl who legit looks like a human crossed with a skunk.
4) A 21 GIRL OVER THE TOP ROPE $10,000 BATTLE ROYAL - Just about every GLOW girl you can think of was here, including: Hollywood & Vine, Big Bad Mama, Mt. Fiji, Godiva, Stinky, Tiffany Mellon, Zelda, Mt. Fiji and more. Tulsa gets the big win and the "$10,000."
It should be noted that GLOW's play by play was done by "Motor Mouth" Mike
Morgan, another example proving Joey Styles wrong in his claim that he was the
first man to call a wrestling show solo. If you are a fan of puns, than Morgan is the guy you've been looking for all your life. After the girls were announced, a short video clip aired of them doing a rap. We're talking about Super Bowl Shuffle level material. Here's what Hollywood "sang"
"I'm Hollywood and I'm from L.A.
And you listen to what I've gotta say
Keep yourself in the ring and I'll step on your face
Then you'll know that you've been disgraced!"
During the matches they have picture-in-a-picture dealies where the girls shoot a small promo on their opponent, something we are seeing brought back on ECW and SmackDown. Some sound effects were added in post production, as I noticed there was a humorous "boink" when Hollywood threw Roxy into a ring post. Who knew GLOW used a foley artist? In between the matches were a series of skits, including Zelda's Zingers, Godiva's Bare Facts, and Tiffany's GLOW Gossip. These were the most god awful pun-filled skits you'll ever see. Believe it or not, Mellon would later dabble in the porn industry as Tiffany Million. There was the dirty-old-man skits with Dr. Grope. Believe it or not there was a anti-drinking and driving PSA with Hollywood.
One skit that could not be left out is Life in the GLOW House. GLOW House was a running skit that asked the viewers to believe that the good girls and bad girls of GLOW lived in the same house. As you can imagine, this leads to a bunch of whacky skits. The title card alone should tell you how much money was put into the GLOW House. Let's put it this way, that house wasn't located on Laguna Beach. I consider the GLOW House to be way ahead of it's time though, and seeing the heels and babyfaces interact on this type of level is something we wouldn't see in wrestling until the Attitude Era almost 15 years later.
Bonus Matches:
1) Broadway Rose & Hollywood vs. Thunderbolt & Lightning
2) Mt. Fiji vs. The Widow & Star in a handicap match
Bonus Features:
The GLOW scrapbook includes some neat stuff, including scanned in articles focusing on Babe, the farmer's daughter and Hollywood. Lots of pictures and lots of text. Some fan mail from the old GLOW magazine. A bunch of triva questions that also look like they came from the GLOW magazine. There is a nice little trailer for Dave Prazak's SHIMMER promotion.
Overall Thoughts: A true blast from the past, Big Vision's The Very Best of GLOW was a sight for sore eyes that are sick of watching three brands of WWE ( four, if you count TNA. WWE Lite). Everything that I loved about the show was here in rare form. The quality was top notch and brought me back to another time in my life that I couldn't wait to stay up past midnight on a Saturday to watch a wrestling show. Now I can't even be bothered to remember Impact is on Thursday at 10 or even SmackDown, the show that's changing Friday Nights. GLOW may not be for everyone, but anyone who was a fan of the show back in the 1980s or has heard jokes stolen from the show at cocktails parties, this could be quite a treat. Could the DVD be longer? Yes. But when it's good enough to make me want more, that's a great sign of a good disc. If you would like to purchase The Very Best of GLOW, Click HERE or head on over to www.BigVisionEntertainment.com and check out all the other great DVDs they offer. Be sure to take a look at the incredible Ultimate Insiders series if you are a fan of shoot interviews.
Don't forget to check out Derek's Weekly Enjoyment Index, Gimmick Table columns, Opinion Pieces, MySpace page~! and goofy stuff on The Wrestling Fan.
Special Thanks to the Dr. Keith Show's own Keith Lipinski for his help with this review.
Upcoming Reviews:
Vince Russo's Ring of Glory DVD
Jeff Gorman's This Side of the Mic book
Ring of Honor: Chi-Town Struggle
James Hold's Out of Texas book
Recent Reviews:
ROH: Milestone Series
On The Road with Honky Tonk Man DVD
Straight Shootin' with Christian Cage DVD
Best of Japan 2005 DVD (with English commentary!)
Derek Burgan has been writing for the Wrestling Observer/Figure 4 Weekly~! family since October, 2005. He previously worked as a right wing as a Punjabi prison guard. If you have any questions, corrections, feedback, comments and ideas, he can be reached at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
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