Lady 00 Wrestling

[Enon Zoberman]

TheJordan Burroughs Wrestling Shoe celebrates the continued success and accomplishments of professional wrestler Jordan Burroughs, a 7x Gold Medalist. Representing the tireless pursuit of greatness, these wrestling shoes are a physical expression of Burroughs' own mantra - an ambition to which we all aspire: All I see is Gold.

Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling (also known by its initials as GLOW or G.L.O.W.) is a women's professional wrestling promotion that began in 1986 (the pilot was filmed in December 1985) and has continued in various forms after it left television. Colorful characters, strong women, and over-the-top comedy sketches were integral to the series' success. Most of the performers were actresses, models, dancers or stunt women hoping to enter show business.

David B. McLane created the series while working as an announcer and promoter with Indianapolis-based World Wrestling Association (WWA) after seeing fans react to women's wrestling. The show runner Dick the Bruiser believed that Indianapolis audiences would not be receptive to a wrestling promotion featuring female wrestlers and dismissed the concept as an unprofitable novelty.

Undeterred, McLane went to Hollywood and posted casting notices in The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, leading to over 500 women showing up for auditions at The Hyatt on Sunset. The first audition was at Gold's Gym,[1] and the dozen finalists selected trained for six weeks at the Broadway Boxing Gym[2] at 108th and Broadway[3] in the South Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts. McLane hired professional Mexican wrestler Mando Guerrero to train them and later brought in wrestling veteran Cynthia Peretti (professionally known as Princess Jasmine) to take over from Guerrero. Peretti also wrestled in the series as "Pepper".

McLane partnered with the television distribution company Independent Network Incorporated (INI), headed by former Lorimar-Telepictures executive Irv Holender. Holender's previous credits included producing Gumby, which was revived about the same time. It was through Holender that McLane met Meshulam Riklis, chairman of Rapid-American Corporation, a conglomerate which included ownership of the Riviera Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. Riklis arranged for the Riviera Hotel to host GLOW. Holender's firm was in charge of distribution (in a joint venture with a New York City based syndicator, MG/Perin) and McLane headed the venture. Matt Cimber, who had recently directed the movie Butterfly, starring Riklis' then wife Pia Zadora, was brought in to provide creative services and direct the shows.[4]

A number of the original dozen wrestlers moved to Las Vegas[5] and were supplemented by local women, many of whom had been actresses and showroom dancers. Lauri Thompson, a Las Vegas attorney and lead dancer in the Folies Bergre at the Tropicana,[6][7] played Susie Spirit. Thompson recruited others, creating a recruiting chain of other friends and dancers.[1] One of those, Lorilyn Palmer, who played Colonel Ninotchka, took over training the new women.[5] According to David McLane, the first actress hired was Jeanne Basone (who was working as a phlebotomist at the time) as the character Hollywood. Basone also appeared in Playboy, part of a pictorial titled Lethal Women. She went on to do stunt work and started her own wrestling production company Hollywould Productions.

The show was introduced at the 1986 NATPE Convention. Following the successful initial sale to 30 major television markets in the US and six other countries, McLane brought in Jackie Stallone, mother of Sylvester Stallone, to play kayfabe GLOW owner and the manager of the Good Girls. Kitty Burke as Aunt Kitty, was the manager for the Bad Girls. Stallone had been promoting a physical fitness gym for women only.

They wrestled approximately eight matches per live event.[5] The show itself differed from Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in that the venture held live events only for the purpose of taping television programming, versus running live shows in various city locations each week. They had actual television seasons consisting of 26 episodes that were each rerun once to complete the year, with a total of 104 episodes produced and aired. As Cimber focused on producing, Andrew Hecker directed later episodes. A fifth season was being shot when the show went off the air in financial turmoil. Hecker directed an initial revival attempt in 1991, which became the pay per view special, GLOW: Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling: Canvas Carnage, which included clips from every performer in the company's history including McLane's return as host.[8] McLane later created Women of Wrestling, also directed by Hecker and syndicated to TV stations by MG/Perin, in 2000.

McLane performed as the ring announcer and host for Seasons 1 and 2. McLane's announcing voice was replaced in Season 2 to add more comedy feel to the episodes, using Miles Headlock (a computer generated knock-off of Max Headroom),[9] and "Motormouth" Mike Morgan (who sounded a lot like Howard Cosell). Steve Blance was the senior referee in Season 2 before becoming GLOW's "commissioner" in Seasons 3 and 4. He was the regular recipient of a GLOW Girl beatdown in Season 2. Johnny Cafarella (as "Johnny C.") was the ring announcer for Seasons 3 and 4, was the figurehead owner (buying David McLane's "interest" in a storyline) and also served as company manager after the departure of McLane in 1987.

Each of the GLOW performers had their own rap song (personalized lyrics using the same backing track). It was shown on videotape prior to that wrestler's match. Similar to other wrestling promotions' use of wrestler-specific entrance themes, this gimmick may have been influenced by the Chicago Bears' "Super Bowl Shuffle". The music for the rap was written by Hank Donig, who did the music for the first two seasons supervised by Morris I. Diamond. Music for Seasons 3 and 4 was created by Brian Bogle and Ed Ryba under the name "Music out the Yang". Hecker gave each performer personalized Digital video effects including 3D effects and personalized logos, with Ann DeVilbiss as graphic designer.

A documentary film, GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, was released in 2012. The film was directed by Brett Whitcomb and written by Bradford Thomason. It features the music of ESG. The film premiered to positive reviews at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, and has since been featured in New York Magazine, LA Weekly, RogerEbert.com, VICE, /Film, The Village Voice, and Mental Floss magazine. It won the Best Documentary award at the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con Film Festival, and Audience Choice Best Documentary at Sidewalk Film Festival in Birmingham, Alabama.[11][12][13]

GLOW is a TV series that premiered on Netflix in 2017. A scripted comedy drama, it tells the fictional story of a 1980s professional wrestling promotion that is based on the actual Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. It was created by Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch, and stars Alison Brie, Betty Gilpin, and Marc Maron.[14][15]

I'm not what you would call a fan of wrestling. The idea of people so obviously pretend-fighting in a ring in such dramatic fashion just seems so very silly. And bro-y. Not even Mickey Rourke's dramatic comeback in The Wrestler, which illuminated the heart and camaraderie of the sport, made me change my mind about it. So when the buzz started rolling in about Glow, the new Netflix series highlighting a makeshift all-women wrestling crew, my eyes instantly rolled to the back of my head.

I had just assumed that this newest iteration of a wrestling narrative would surely feature women in skimpy duds, flashing score cards for the "real" wrestlers, the men, in the ring. But no, Glow is actually legit. It centers women and gives them agency where you least expect it. In fact, the men are actually the supporting players in this story.

Oh no, these women have zero wrestling background, or even sports experience for that matter. But what they do have is drive. So they put on their color blocked leotards and leggings with stirrups, spray their bangs so much that they stand straight above their heads, and work their asses off to figure out this whole wrestling thing. As a result, camaraderie is formed in a sport that hadn't previously written them in.

But it's not just about the women collective. It's about each of them, determined to make their own mark, find the success that matters to them. Though the plot is centered on Ruth Wilder (Alison Brie), we soon learn that there's more lying beneath the surface of each of the women she meets throughout production. Ruth is a down-on-her-luck actress, tired of the unremarkable roles she's been up for, consistently falling under the radar of anything substantial. Essentially, she's looking for her big break.

But fans looking for a more in-depth analysis of each women's (outside of Ruth and even Debbie) character, similar to how Kohan presented the women of OITNB, won't get that, at least in this first season of Glow. In fact, while the cast is nicely diverse, several of the lesser-seen characters of color are subjected to stereotypical tropes. In the name of comedy, so to speak. I'll explain.

As many already know, acting auditions are brutal. Acting auditions for people of color are even worse, where they are asked to perform stereotypes that mainstream audiences are more comfortable seeing. In that sense, watching Arthie being told in an audition that she needs to be more like the destructive Native American images we see far too often in mainstream media (including The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), is indicative of what a real audition, especially in '80s Hollywood, would look like. It's hard to watch because Mani perfectly portrays Arthie's acknowledgement of what she's being told, while at the same time, her exhaustion of this request. In just a few seconds with her reaction, we know that this is not something new to her. But without a beat, she obliges. The same goes for Tamme, and other ethnic characters. While it's necessary to show this, it's unfortunate that these are the few scenes they're in where they are the stars. Kohan seems committed to the idea that in order to present characters of color, audiences need to first be lured in through the point of view of a white woman character.

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