The original G.L.O.W. series - cheesiness at its finest

[Fukui San]

Do any watchers of the Netflix series feel the need to hash over the original Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling? Adolescent me watched enough of it on late night syndication to make some sort of impression. And a lot of it is on YouTube now.

We of course have to start off with reliving the cheestastic theme song where everyone raps their intro.

 

There were terrible skits interspersed between matches.

"Tina Ferrari" had better in ring skills than most. She would go on to have a lengthy wrestling career as Ivory in the WWF.

Mt. Fiji was the jovial big girl.

I vividly remember this one where the two psychotic bad girls completely savage and humiliate the good girls for a long, long time. It even needed a part 2. Actual chainsaws and burning hoops are introduced.

I won't link the match where the good girl cheerleader team of Susie Spirit and Debbie Debutante go up against the evil Headhunter team (just as sensitive as you'd expect). This is because during the match a gruesome injury occurs as Susie Spirit dislocates her elbow after her opponent drops a knee on it. A seemingly minor spot that puts her bones completely out of joint, AND THEY KEEP SHOWING IT. It's hard to watch, but they keep showing it. They also have a follow up storyline where Susie Spirit rehabs the elbow and faces them again, which gives them another chance to show the original injury again. Bleah. It's findable if watching gruesome injuries is your thing.

All in all, I'm amazed in retrospect how long the show lasted. Five seasons, I think, before it folded. There was a revival of sorts, and a documentary, neither of which I've experienced firsthand, and now the Netflix show which I'm glad seems well-regarded.

Did anyone else see this when it first came out?

Edited June 25, 2017 by Fukui San

[SVNBob]

I have a recollection of one match, but it's been a while so I don't recall many specifics, like names.

On the "good girl" side, there was a couple of "superheroes", one blonde and one brunette, that I think were called Thunderbolt and Lightning.  Or something similar.  Also on that side was a stereotypical nerd girl of the 80s.  Thick black framed glasses with white tape in the center, pigtails, sad sack posture, kinda ugly leotard with longjohns underneath for ring attire.  And that character was not one of the better wrestlers.

On the "bad girl" side, there was one woman, comparable in size/body type to the aforementioned Mt. Fiji, that was a "voodoo priestess".  Possibly one of the aforementioned Headhunters.

The match I recall had the superheroes and nerd girl teaming against the voodoo queen and I think 2 others (who are not vitally important to this story).  At one point in the match, the voodoo queen was in the ring with the brunette superhero (Lightning, if I recall correctly) and the nerdy girl, and she used her "voodoo powers" to "swap" the two women's personalities.  The superhero immediately slumped over like the nerdy girl, and her strength was sapped.  So she started getting beaten down by the voodoo queen.  In the meantime, the nerdy girl perked up, stood up straight, removed her glasses, and started going on a huge offensive like the character had never done before.  She was still physically not as buff as the superhero, so it wasn't as effective, but she did distract the voodoo queen from the beatdown.  In response, the voodoo queen used her powers again, and restored the nerd girl's real personality to her, while still having the superhero think she was also the nerd girl.  At this point, the blonde superhero, who had been tied up outside the ring by the other two bad girls, entered the ring and took the voodoo queen down to the floor.  The last image I recall of that match is the two women in the center of the ring, stooping in mirror image to each other, simultaneously calling each other by the superhero's name.

Goofy as all hell in retrospect.  Somewhat less goofy as a pre-teen.

Edited June 25, 2017 by SVNBob

[Dream Boy]

2 hours ago, SVNBob said:

I have a recollection of one match, but it's been a while so I don't recall many specifics, like names.

On the "good girl" side, there was a couple of "superheroes", one blonde and one brunette, that I think were called Thunderbolt and Lightning.  Or something similar.  Also on that side was a stereotypical nerd girl of the 80s.  Thick black framed glasses with white tape in the center, pigtails, sad sack posture, kinda ugly leotard with longjohns underneath for ring attire.  And that character was not one of the better wrestlers.

On the "bad girl" side, there was one woman, comparable in size/body type to the aforementioned Mt. Fiji, that was a "voodoo priestess".  Possibly one of the aforementioned Headhunters.

 

The nerd was Zelda the Brain and the voodoo priestess was Big Bad Mama (RIP). This had to be either season 3 or 4 where they O.D. on the camp lol

[SVNBob]

18 hours ago, Dream Boy said:

The nerd was Zelda the Brain and the voodoo priestess was Big Bad Mama

As I was writing that, I thought that Zelda was the right name.  It was either that or Wendy, though I could have also been vaguely  recalling Wendi Richter, who was never in GLOW.

Found a couple "Where are they now" articles put out earlier in the week regarding the original GLOW.  One about 4 of the performers, and one on GLOW itself.

Turns out GLOW is still somewhat in existence, and currently owned by Ursula Hayden, aka Babe, the Farmer's Daughter.  She's selling DVDs and other GLOW merch on the official GLOW website.

[JakeyJokes]

David McLane tried to revive GLOW with WOW in 2000. They only had one pay-per-view and it was atrocious.

Tina Ferrari (Lisa Moretti) is so interesting to me because she's the only GLOW girl who really had a second act in wrestling. She was working for Revlon when she was flown in by WWF to be a Godfather ho (they needed a girl who could "bump", as in take a wrestling move). She saw it as an audition and once she found out how much money she could make -- this was 1999, the height of WWF's success -- she got a tape made and became Ivory.

[The Crazed Spruce]

And at the opposite end of the spectrum, there's Tiffany Mellon, one of the Park Avenue Knockouts, who changed here stage name to "Tiffany Million" and went on to become a porn star. She later left the porn industry, got married, had a couple of kids, and became a private eye and bounty hunter. She even had a reality show about her later career for a little while.

[Last Time Lord]

On 6/26/2017 at 6:30 PM, JakeyJokes said:

Tina Ferrari (Lisa Moretti) is so interesting to me because she's the only GLOW girl who really had a second act in wrestling. She was working for Revlon when she was flown in by WWF to be a Godfather ho (they needed a girl who could "bump", as in take a wrestling move). She saw it as an audition and once she found out how much money she could make -- this was 1999, the height of WWF's success -- she got a tape made and became Ivory.

2

O_O

I had no idea! Ivory my biggest love to hate villain around that time.

[Captain Carrot]

On 6/26/2017 at 8:20 PM, The Crazed Spruce said:

And at the opposite end of the spectrum, there's Tiffany Mellon, one of the Park Avenue Knockouts, who changed here stage name to "Tiffany Million" and went on to become a porn star. She later left the porn industry, got married, had a couple of kids, and became a private eye and bounty hunter. She even had a reality show about her later career for a little while.

That's one of the stories you couldn't make a movie about, because people would think it was too unrealistic.

[transitfan]

LOVED GLOW back in the day.  Used to watch it on channel 56 (KDOC, I think) in L. A.  I even would buy the magazines that would sometimes appear on the newsstands.  My favorites were Little Fiji and Little Egypt (I like exotic girls).  I also liked Hollywood, even though she was a Bad girl.  I always LOL'd when Aunt Kitty tried to fix her up w/ David McLane  :)

 

It wasn't the same when MacLane left  :(