Mike Reviews Come Get Some – The Women Of The WWF

Happy Friday Everyone!

We’re back with Come Get Some – The Women Of The WWF, a home video release from 1999. This particular show was requested by that North Eastern rogue Maffew of Botchamania fame. Maffew’s exact words in the comments of my Sable Unleashed review were “Review it, it looks terrible!”. Well, how could I say no to such a passionate request eh? As the title would suggest, Come Get Some is a tape dedicated to the ladies of the WWF, many of whom were popular stars during the Attitude Era. Most of them were famous less for their wrestling ability and more for their propensity to get their kit off at the drop of a hat, but stars they certainly were. Featured will be the likes of Sable, Chyna and Debra, all of whom would pick up the WWF Women’s Title during their stays in the promotion. So, is Come Get Some as bad as Sable Unleashed, or does it have a bit more going for it? I guess we have no option but to watch it and find out. I personally have never seen this tape before, but I remember it being advertised a lot back in the day, usually in wrestling mags such as Power Slam. Thankfully I was able to view this whilst picking up some Fish and Chips.

The trailers prior to the feature presentation set off my nostalgia glands as we get to see the WrestleMania I to XIV collection commercial. That ad is practically embedded in my brain after watching my WWF tapes back in the day. We open up with a montage to start us off, which mixes in footage of the women of the WWF in various states of undress along with them actually fighting. We open up with talking heads Road Dogg, Big Boss Man, Jerry Lawler and Jim Cornette giving their thoughts on the ladies being involved in the WWF. As we’re very much in the Attitude Era, the general consensus is that it’s good to have attractive women appearing on the show, but for the most part they shouldn’t be wrestling. Granted there were a few women around at the time who couldn’t correctly apply a snapmare for the most part, but there were also women around at the time who could actually wrestle, so sticking them all in one category is pretty unfair, but very typical of the timeframe. Cornette outright states that he doesn’t think there’s a place for women in wrestling. Nice to know you wouldn’t see such rampant misogyny from the Louisville Lip these days…

Michael Cole is our host, and opens the tape with “like it or not, they’re here to stay”. That’s a questionable way of setting the tone for a tape dedicated to the women. We then move on to our first focus of the tape, who is Sable. We get a lot of footage recycled from Sable Unleashed, including Sable riding her horse on the beach and dancing in front of a fire at night. Goodness me, they could have at least filmed some new footage for Come Get Some. Sable Unleashed had only recently come out. This is lazy even by WWF Home Video standards of the time. We finally get some new footage, focusing on Sable’s Heel turn, when Sable became an arrogant jerk after doing a Playboy shoot and getting a big head. We then get clips from WrestleMania XV, as Sable defeats Tori in a lacklustre bout following interference from Nicole Bass. Plop though this bout most assuredly was, it makes sense to include it on the tape focused on the women seeing as it was the only women’s match from the WWF’s biggest event of the year. Tori’s bizarre Giant Gonzalez inspired wrestling gear was certainly the talk of the schoolyard the next day if nothing else. We then end this section without exploring the Sable/Bass relationship further.

Next up we move on to Jacqueline, who says that she enjoys wrestling guys more than gals, because the women can sometimes complain too much about her work. Jacqueline was known as a hard hitter who liked throwing down, so that makes sense. Jacqueline gives us some background on her wrestling career, and she even mentions WCW by name, saying that she used to work there until coming to the WWF. The WWF didn’t tend to explicitly mention WCW like that around this time, with them instead normally trying to pretend that WCW didn’t really exist, so it’s quite cool to hear her mention both it and also Eric Bischoff by name. Jacqueline implies that Sleazy E didn’t like that she was a tough customer who was getting over with the fans thanks to her physicality, as he didn’t want women in the ring. This was an interesting interview that mostly felt like a shoot and actually made Jacqueline come across as a real person who you could care about as opposed to just a piece of meat to be stuck in a bikini for photoshoots. We then get clips of Jacqueline defeating Sable on an episode of Raw Is War to win the reinstated Women’s Title in the autumn of 1998. If you’re recapping this timeframe and doing a feature on Jacqueline then you absolutely have to include that. This was a good segment of the tape and actually used new footage rather than just recycling footage used elsewhere. Jacqueline came across as likable and I liked that there was a focus on her wrestling capabilities, as she was predominantly a fighter rather than a model. We of course then get a montage of Jacqueline running around on the beach to sultry sounding music, because 1999.

Next up we move onto Chyna, who says that she considers herself one of the boys rather than being a member of the women’s roster. That’s possibly one reason why some of the women didn’t like her very much, as evidenced by her having a blazing row with Sable on a Canadian chat show. Boss Man is back, to put over Chyna’s toughness, and he sounds sincere doing so. We get to see a montage of Chyna working out in the gym, which makes sense as her muscular physique was always a big part of her character and what helped her get in there to fight with the blokes. I’m not really someone that cares about bodybuilding and that sort of stuff, but if you are then seeing Chyna lift a plethora of heavy things whilst making it look easy is possibly something you’ll find entertaining. There’s an undercurrent to this of “yeah, Chyna is really big and muscular, but she’s still hot”. And yeah, that’s a totally valid stance to take, and I believe the muscular look is far more accepted these days than it perhaps was in 1999. I’m not sure it really needed to be so on the nose though, to the point that Michael Cole is trying to ram the message home with a solemn voiceover. It’s almost like the tape is trying to give viewers permission of some kind to find Chyna attractive, which is a bit weird to be honest. I don’t think I need Michael Cole to tell me that it’s alright for me to think someone is hot. I’m capable of doing that myself, as is everyone else.

This takes us to Chyna’s love story with Mark Henry, as Mizark decides he has a crush on Chyna and starts reading her poetry, which eventually leads to Chyna agreeing to go out on a date with him. We then get some more recycling, as we get the montage of Chyna and Mark’s date that was used on the best of Raw Volume 1 from around this time. D’Lo Brown getting backed into being the chauffeur by his friend for the evening, and Chyna’s incredulous reaction to it, is good fun. Chyna is actually quite funny as the exasperated straight man to Henry’s comedy antics, which are delivered well by Sexual Chocolate. We then get Triple H talking in kayfabe about choosing Chyna as his bodyguard because he needed a strong person who could back him up during his battles in the ring. Chyna was the big addition to the Triple H character, and she really helped him on the path to stardom. It would be nice if they could have acknowledged Chyna and Tri’s real-life relationship, seeing as Jacqueline’s shoot styled interview was done well and added to the quality of the tape, but they avoid mentioning it. We then get clips of all of the people at Chyna’s gym wishing her well, which she seems genuinely moved by. That was nice, and gave us a chance to see a bit of the real Joanie Laurer instead of the usual scowling Chyna character she played on television. Laurer was often described as a funny and nice person in real-life when you hear people talk about her, so it was good to see a bit of that here on the tape.

Chyna talks about how she broke her jaw at a House Show and how that led to her leaning up because she couldn’t eat. I have no idea if that’s true or just something she said for the tape, but I’ll take her at face value on account of not knowing any better. After that we move onto Debra McMichael, who is of course in a hot tub for her interview. Jeff Jarrett appears to talk about Debra managing him, and indeed they were a successful duo at the time. This leads to Goldust challenging Jarrett to a striptease match at In Your House: Rock Bottom, where Debra will have to bare all should Goldy pick up the W. Jarrett actually ends up winning the match when Debra levels Goldust with a guitar. However, Commissioner Shawn Michaels does the impossible and actually makes fans cheer a Dusty Finish, as he reverses the decision and Debbie has to “stop her grinnin’ and drop her linen” as Shawn so succinctly puts. Debra hates doing it at first, but eventually decides that she likes it and takes off her clothes whilst Shawn gets a ringside seat and sells it with some funny facials. However, before Debra can get her top off, Jeff Jarrett and The Blue Blazer usher her away. Michael Cole’s “you go girlfriend” remains one of the gold standard examples of someone incredibly lame trying to sound cool. As exploitative as the whole segment was, it makes sense to include it on a section covering Debra seeing as having her “puppies” on prominent display was a big part of her act at the time.

Debra notes that she was actually a bit of a tomboy in her younger days, and even had short hair, but once boys started noticing her she decided to start glamming up. Interestingly we don’t get any mention of her time in WCW, when we did cover that aspect of Jacqueline’s career. I guess they didn’t want to acknowledge that, even though she did manage Jarrett there too and they could have referenced it. We then get a montage of Debra in a bikini blowing…bubbles in the hot tub. After that we move onto Terri Runnels, who is tasting wine with a gentlemen called Jean Daniel, as you do. Runnels danced and acted when she was younger, so finding her way to wrestling made sense as it allowed her to keep performing. Runnels comes across well in her interview, saying that there’s a nice side to her that we don’t really get to see on television because she plays a villainous sexpot there. Runnels puts over her tandem with Jacqueline, saying that Jacqueline can bring the violence whilst Runnels plays the bratty Heel well who hides behind the tougher woman when her mouth gets her in trouble. There’s also plenty of footage of Runnels dancing in front of strobe lighting, in what could possibly be a cunning plan of the WWF Home Video department to try and flush out any latent epileptics who happen to have purchased the tape. I found the interview parts with Runnels to be decent and they did successfully show a softer side of her that seemed genuine. Everything else surrounding that was superfluous titillation, which makes sense given the tape subject I guess.

We then move onto Tori, not Torrie Wilson, that’s someone different. Tori wrestled previously as Terri Power, both in North America and Japan. We get to briefly see clips of Tori being an obsessed fan of Sable, which was a storyline that was done much better in 2005/06 with Mickie James and Trish Stratus. They seem to have combined the Tori and Ivory sections into one part, which makes sense in that both were still very new to the WWF at the time, but it does also kind of make their section of the tape feel a bit like an afterthought. Speaking of Ivory, who previously wrestled as Tina Ferrari, she made her WWF debut in 1999 as a valet for D’Lo Brown and Mark Henry in their feud with Jeff Jarrett, Owen Hart and Debra. Ivory initially entered the WWF as a babyface, and she’s very enthusiastic about being there in her interview. She comes across as a bit manic, but entertaining to be around at least. You could have done a lot more on Ivory if the tape was released a year later as she had quite an eventful 1999, including multiple Women’s Title wins and some violent hardcore matches with the likes of Tori and Luna Vachon.

Tori gets a chance to mention one of the more important aspects of her life, which is her dedication to yoga. I always thought they could have tried repackaging her as an insufferable yogi who kept talking about realigning everyone’s chakras, whilst actually being psychotically violent when the façade dropped. Whether Tori had the range to pull that one off is another question, though, but it could have been fun and probably more successful than when they tried to make her a ninja in 2001. Ivory’s main hobbies are working out and movies, including the study of film making. And with that, Michael Cole closes out the tape with footage of the women doing a photoshoot on the beach in various states of undress whilst exceedingly 1990s music plays over the top of it. Well, they had to include something for the horny viewers at home I guess. I think some of this footage eventually made its way into some of the Titan Tron’s of the respective ladies.

In Conclusion

Come Get Some wasn’t as bad as Sable Unleashed, but I still didn’t think it was up to much really. The fact they recycled so much from the aforementioned release for the Sable section was a bit questionable, and I don’t think it was necessary either. They could have covered Sable’s feud with Luna Vachon at the start of 1999 and gone into more detail with the Tori feud, which would have fleshed out Sable’s section and would have covered ground that previous tapes hadn’t. It’s not like those storylines were especially interesting or entertaining, but it would have been new footage at least.

I felt where the tape excelled was when it did the interviews and personality pieces that actually let us see a bit of the real people behind the characters. The undisputed highlight for me was the Jacqueline section, as they basically didn’t do any kayfabe material in it and instead mostly presented the interview as a shoot, including discussion of Jackie’s time in WCW. Jacqueline came across as likable and it did a good job of showcasing her in-ring abilities as well by showing her winning the Women’s Title.

I felt the Chyna section had some good moments as well, especially when it focused on showing her interacting with her friends at the gym. She came across as a real person and not just a generic muscled Amazonian. I even like parts of the Terri Runnels section when she was interviewed and again showed a softer side compared to the horny she-devil she was playing on television at the time. Any time the WWF could show their roster in a positive nice way is a bonus in my eyes, as we tune into the weekly show to see the characters but we tune into personality pieces like this in order to see more of the people behind the characters.

As with Sable Unleashed, I found the softcore photoshoots and montages to be some of the duller parts of the tape. I’m as partial to an attractive lady as much as anyone else who is interested in that sort of thing, but if it’s done sans any personality then you might as well just be looking at a mannequin in a bikini. The photoshoot at the end at least had a bit of something to it, but often the lewd breaks on Come Get Some felt superfluous. Yes, we want to see hot ladies looking hot, but we’re here for them as people too, otherwise what’s the point in doing any of the personality pieces to begin with?

I wouldn’t recommend Come Get Some, but if you do happen to watch it there are some decent parts to be found in there.