Originally posted by Peter The Hegemon

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Confession time: I have to admit that this series has quickly become a big guilty pleasure for me. Despite the mostly-clueless announce team (they mentioned this week that some of the competitors might need Tommy John surgery on their shoulders to fix their ACL--and I kind of think that they had no idea why that was funny) and the oddball staging where you only see a few of the matches, it's got some quite goofy charm to it. Or maybe I'll just watch any show with a cute bald bodybuilder chick AND a cute fat sumo-wrestler chick. B^)

The rules are basically old-school dodgeball, with a few minor gimmicks. Nothing very "extreme", actually, and headshots don't count.

One of the most striking features of the show, however, is that it just drips of Vincent Kennedy McMahon, even though I'm reasonably sure that he had nothing whatsoever to do it. The games are not worked, of course, but what makes it seem like the output of Vince's unique mind is the way they've put together the teams. Each team has its own gimmick, mostly based around the jobs that the members have (or, at least, are purported to have), and most of them are echoes of old WWF gimmicks. Here's the handy-dandy conversion chart:

Armed Response = The Big Bossman Team
Sumo Storm = The Yokozuna Team
Ink, Inc. = The Droz Team
Certified Public Assasins = The Irwin R. Shyster Team
(heck, even the name sounds like something Vince would dream up)
Barbell Mafia = The Lex Lugar or Ken Patera Team
(or insert the name of any of the bodybuilder types Vince had promoted)
Curves Of Steel = The Torrie Wilson Team

As far as I know, Vince never got around to doing a jockey or a mime character, so we don't have an exact match for the Stallion Battallion or the Silent But Deadly Mimes. Although I can see Vince kicking himself for not coming up with a Silent-But-Deadly Mime wrestler. (Didn't Chris Benoit once use "silent but deadly" as a catchphrase? Let's all give thanks that Vince never made him put on whiteface and a beret!)

Anyway, it's fun to watch, and I like the fact that the teams are co-ed with different male/female ratios. (Curves of Steel has 4 girls and 1 guy; Sumo Storm has 1 girl and 4 guys.) It works out to be a fun-half hour, and I actually wish they were showing ALL the matches in their entirety--knowing GSN, they'll do, like, ten episodes and then rerun them to death. If you like this sort of goofy semi-sport, it beats Slamball.

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