WWF Tough Enough – Season 1, Episode Four: “The Billionaire Princess”

Now that WrestleMania season is over, it’s time to get back into Tough Enough.

Previously on Tough Enough: It was time to play The Game. Triple H shows up and talks to the trainees about the love of the business and Goldberg. Chris playfully flirts with Nidia by trying to drown her. Jason leaves the show.

Season One, Episode Four: “The Billionaire Princess”

Following our opening video package, we enter the Tough Enough house to the crew getting ready and solemnly eating breakfast, all looking exhausted. Perhaps they’re not tough enough. John “Big” Gaburick, WWF Talent Manager, arrives to usher the crew to training. He takes Victoria in the Hummer with him while the others ride together. Asking where her mindset is, she questions wanting to be a wrestler, saying she’s not sure she can do it and didn’t think she would get picked. He says to give it time to happen, which is exactly the point of this short thirteen episode season. She says she isn’t ready to quit now.

Trax Training Facility. WWF Superstar Al Snow reminds the troops that there is a contest, and they will be cutting a person that they’d have 24 hours’ notice. Maven asks if it will be a male and a female or one person, and Al tells her one person. Shadrick thinks that at least he can look back on this knowing he gave 100% (he has not given 100%).

Al says they have to make them take bumps every day to get them used to it, as we go through a montage of bumping. Josh says that Victoria scares the hell out of him every day, while Greg winces at her landing on her neck. The crew do headlocks, with Al telling Josh to quit landing on his head. “I’ll bite your nipple off,” Al threatens.

Al works on leglocks with Darryl in the ring while the other trainers work outside the ring with the rest. Al asks Darryl when the last time he washed his pants was, then pulls him aside and tells him he’s got to start washing himself. Darryl mutters as he walks away and Al calls him back, telling him to not piss him off. Darryl tells us he doesn’t care why Al is mad, while Greg tells us Darryl is ignorant to how he offends everyone else. The recruits in the car tell us they don’t want to work with him because he hurts them all.

WWF Training Center (the gym at Titan Towers). We see the bruises on the recruits’ knees working as they work out. Darryl is talking to himself, and Chris Nowinski tells us Darryl is in denial of how people react to him. We watch Darryl shadow box as we go to commercials.

Back from commercials, they’re all tired again. Victoria tells us she isn’t sure she wants this. Paulina asks the confessional camera if they can’t hack it, can she hack it? Bobbie Jo feels like this is a lot of work. Well, yeah. We watch more bumping at Trax, big Big John saying Bobbie Jo didn’t know what she’s gotten herself into. Darryl thinks Victoria will be the first to be cut because she gets hurt bumping.

Bobbie Jo and Victoria go talk to Big John and both tell him they don’t want to be there. He tells them it is their decision to make and tells them to pack up and he’ll arrange a car. In the locker room, Bobbie Jo says the rest were surprised and Victoria feels like she wasn’t giving 100%. Nidia cries as Al tells the recruits about the two quitting. Paulina questions if she belongs here because it hurts when she falls too.

Al asks the recruits what they think, and Greg is surprised. Al can’t answer if there will still be an elimination, and he can’t answer but says he won’t go easy because he’s afraid another one will quit.

Back at the house, Nidia and Greg feel like it’s going to be a chain reaction of quitting. Nidia tells someone on the phone its crazy people are quitting, while Paulina says things are rough. Darryl prays in the bedroom loudly while stripping his clothes off.

Meanwhile, Josh is in the girls’ room talking. Maven comes in to playfully pull him out and knocks over a candle, setting a bed to fire. The next day, Darryl questions the fire because he slept right through it as the girls crack up about it. Darryl tells us he feels left out and perhaps it’s jealousy. Or, perhaps, it’s because you went to bed early! It is always my friends’ faults when they do stuff without me when I’m in bed knocked out on Ambien.

At Trax, Al tells the recruits that there will not be a cut this week. He ceremonially takes away the two folding chairs of those that left, adding them to the first one against the wall. He hopes the next one will be an actual elimination and not because of a quitter. WWF Superstar Tazz tells the recruits that the ones that left are quitters. “We weeded out the crap.” Bumps and bumps! Al pulls Paulina aside and tells him he knows it hurts because she’s landing wrong. They remember Taylor half an episode in, giving her a talking head segment to say she can tell Pauline is hurting.

After break, Al Snow works with the recruits on back moves as Big John laughs.

A limo pulls up to the house and WWF Superstar Stephanie McMahon Helmsley shows up, here to pick up the women. We go to EXCLUSIVE FOOTAGE inside the limo, as Steph downs a Diet Mtn Dew and says that they buy their own clothes. Nidia asks how she likes to play the bad girl, and they laugh as Steph says she loves playing the bad girl. She says how hard it is to not crack up doing segments, and the guys try to make her laugh in the ring. They ask what happened to Trish Stratus, who apparently was supposed to be the one coming instead. The show hasn’t told us that until right now, so surprise! The boys were apparently disappointed. Stephanie tells them they have the best roster right now, with a funny, hard-working crew. “When you’re a travelling show, you need to be a family.” She knows the women’s locker room hasn’t always gotten along, but she was talking to Lita about how they finally have a female locker room that is all about each other.

Stephanie and the girls are at a restaurant for lunch. Nidia calls Steph real and loving, Taylor says she felt like a friend. Paulina says it reminded her there is another side to all of this.

Meanwhile at the house, the boys sit around the table and eat. Josh is tired of hearing Darryl talk about football. Nowinski and Darryl have a talk, with Darryl asking and saying he feels tension. Chris tells him that it’s obvious he doesn’t work as hard as they do, and Darryl says he isn’t straining himself if he’s worn out. Nowinski says he talks like a peacock. Greg tells Darryl he demands respect but doesn’t even show it. Maven destroys a sandwich and says he only worries about himself and tells Darryl to be himself but to chill out.

Back at Trax, Big John gathers the team. Al has a match on SmackDown, so we’re all going to SmackDown. Woo! Al tells them to be professionals and to not run around acting crazy.

And we go to SmackDown, back when it had the circular entrance way. We see the crew front row on the broadcast and waving at Tazz, who looks at them like they’re crazy. Maven talks about what a fun time it was as we watch clips that perhaps were from the same episode. Josh says it was overwhelming, Nowinski says after being this close there’s no going back. Stone Cold celebrates with the rookies ringside as we fade to the end. Paulina: “That’s why I want to be a wrestler.”

Next time on Tough Enough: “Dinner with Mr. Patterson.” A legend comes to dinner, Darryl does stuff, and a cut is made.

For a 23-minute episode, this one felt like it was packed with filler. The Stephanie limo ride went on for quite a bit with stretches of silence, and of course there was a three-minute video of various wrestlers wrestling presumably at SmackDown. That said, perhaps that is what happens when you suddenly lose two people. It wasn’t a bad episode and went by quickly.

Now, for our two that we’ve lost. Bobbie Jo’s wrestling career ended and so did her dream of being in Playboy, as that never happened. According to Cultaholic, she is married with kids and works in a daycare. Victoria also left the business, now a stay-at-home mom and a skincare consultant.