The Very Best of GLOW: Volume 1 DVD Review

Most people that I’ve talked to about GLOW seem to best remember the series’ first season, which featured characters like Matilda the Hun, The California Doll, Spanish Red, the Heavy Metal Sisters, and Tina Ferrari, who would go on to become GLOW’s most notable alumnus when she joined the WWF as Ivory. After those first couple of years, creator David McLane either lost control of or decided to leave the promotion, depending on whose side of the story you choose to believe. He took many of those more famous GLOW girls with him to form Powerful Women of Wrestling, a more “serious” promotion. However, other individuals retained the rights to produce GLOW, which kept its filming location (The Rivera Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas) and its television distribution. Many new actresses had to be added to the series, though a few old favorites like Hollywood and Mountain Fiji remained.

In 2006, Big Vision Entertainment secured the rights to distribute footage of GLOW on DVD. Since that time, they have released four volumes of a series entitled The Very Best of GLOW, each of which features an episode from the show’s later days and various bonus matches. They’ve also released one DVD which compiles footage from the McLane era of the promotion, entitled GLOW: The Early Years. Most recently, the first three volumes of The Very Best of GLOW were re-released in a box set known as GLOW’s Greatest TV Moments. The fine folks at Big Vision were kind enough to provide 411 with a review copy of the box set, so this is the beginning of yours truly taking a look at each of the three discs that makes it up.

Let’s get to the action!

The Main Program

We start out with some of the Hee-Haw style comedy for which the promotion was known, as generic GLOW authority figure number #273 says he’s going to punish heels Sara and Mabel (not Big Daddy V) by making them work in the complaint department. It’s tough, because the other GLOW girls submit their complaints ON ROCKS!

We’re off to a rough start.

Up next is “Tiffany’s GLOW Gossip” with Tiffany Mellon. Tiffany (birth name Sandra Margot) may rival Ivory as the most famous woman to come out of GLOW, as I’m told that she has a rather extensive resume in the realm of pornographic films under the name “Tiffany Million.” She somehow managed to parlay that in to a starring role on the 2007 reality series Wife, Mom, Bounty Hunter, which aired last year on cable channel WE: Women’s Entertainment. At this stage of her life, Tiffany hehe has an obnoxious hehe habit hehe of giggling after hehe every word hehe she says. She tells more bad jokes in the guise of backstage dirt about the girls, including a line about officials “flipping” for a wrestler with a cheerleader gimmick. Oh yes.

And now we get to the traditional GLOW rap. Truly, a better song has never been written, though I miss David McLane bee-bopping in the middle of the singing girls.

Match Numero Uno: Babe, The Farmer’s Daughter w/ Tulsa vs. Melody T. Vixen

Despite being portrayed as a simple country bumpkin, Babe may in reality have been the most business-savvy member of the GLOW roster, as in 2001 she wound up owning the rights to the promotion’s name and footage. She maintains an official website for the company, at which you can purchase DVDs of individual episodes that are not yet available from Big Vision and various other GLOW-branded merchandise.

In case you’re missing the subtle humor, “Melody T. Vixen” abbreviates to MTV, and she’s doing a rockstar gimmick. She puts on a wacky hat and mocks Babe with a phony southern accent prior to the bell, suckering her opponent in to a monkey flip. Babe responds with a dropkick but gets armdragged down. Ground rule for GLOW match reviews: When I name a professional wrestling move that the competitors are doing, I’m usually using the move name in the loosest sense imaginable. A second armdrag follows but only gets a two count. A Vixen slam results in more of the same, after which she gets sent in to the turnbuckles. Babe follows that up by a STOMP from the top rope. Not a double stomp, mind you, but a regular, one footed stomp in which it was painfully obvious that her left foot hit the mat well before her right foot hit Melody. At that point, MTV’s partner Hollywood does a run-in and falls down. Not to be outdone, Babe’s partner Tulsa also does a run-in and ALSO FALLS DOWN. Unbridled athleticism here in GLOW, ladies and gentlemen. The four women brawl for a while, with several men twice their size having to pretend that they can’t hold these pint sized women back.

Match Thoughts: For those of you who may not have seen it before, this match was pretty much GLOW in a nutshell. It’s pretty clear that most of the women had athletic backgrounds, as they were capable of doing various flips and leaps that would’ve looked decent in most other contexts. However, they didn’t really have a grasp on the finer points of how to integrate those athletic movements in to the greater context of a traditional professional wrestling match. Of course, if you came to GLOW actually expecting something like that, you came to the absolute wrong place.

“Zelda’s Zingers” is next, with Zelda being a woman playing an Urkel-esque role. The weird thing about the segment is that the jokes here are written not to be funny . . . but none of the humor on GLOW that is supposed to be funny actually works, which in turn kills Zelda’s gimmick.

Match Numero Dos: Hollywood vs. Roxy Astor

Hollywood is still active in the entertainment industry, doing stunt work and bit parts in both film and television. You can check out her official website here. She proves that she’s a true heel by spraypainting a pillar in the middle of the Rivera Hotel with the phrase “Hollywood Kicks Astor,” after which she tosses the ring announcer out of the squared circle Risque! Holly kicks off the offense in the match with an armdrag and a couple of elbows, though Roxy responds with a clothesline and some boots to the leg. “Savate-like” kicks, says our crack color commentator. I’ve seen savate, and that, my friends, is no savate. Hollywood regains the advantage with a clothesline, and an insert promo from Ms. Wood provides us with our first actually funny joke of the evening, namely, “Who takes out the trash on Park Avenue? Anybody who has a date with Roxy Astor!” Hollywood controls in the match in addition to the studio, as she whips Astor in to the ring apron and slams her in to some chairs. She then grabs her spraypaint can, gets in to the ring, and brandishes it in such a way that Roxy is afraid to get back in between the ropes. This was used to tease a count out, which I have to say is a spot that I haven’t seen before. (Though, really, the referee should’ve been disarming Hollywood instead of counting.) Roxy eventually gets up on the apron and kicks the can from her opponent’s hand, after which she fires off a bodyslam. Hollywood quickly regains control, but she’s caught by a “duck under go behind takedown” (whatever the hell that is) according to the announcer. It sets up a schoolgirl, and we’ve got a winner in Roxy. There’s another run-in after the bell, but we cut away before I can even figure out who it is or who she’s attacking.

Match Thoughts: Of all the GLOW girls, Hollywood has probably retained the biggest cult following in 2008, and it was easy to see why in this match. First of all, she’s the most attractive girl of the group by modern standards, in large part due to the fact that she didn’t cake on nearly as much garish 1980’s makeup and glitter paint as her coworkers. Perhaps an even larger contributing factor is her charisma, as she’s the only woman on the show who seems to be a natural in her role, while the majority of the others may as well be reading off of cue cards in promos and show very little personality in the ring. That charisma made this match somewhat better than your typical GLOW fare.

Godiva provides us with a few more one-liners before we head to “Life in the GLOW House,” which is referred to as the promotion’s own sitcom. See, in storyline terms, all of the wrestlers live together in one home. That has to be some kind of zoning violation. Girls make jokes about other girls being “trash” and “bags” in grocery and refuse themed skits. Eventually, top heel Big Bad Mama, who for some reason wears her wrestling facepaint around the house, decides that she’s going to run for mayor so that she can put an end to a garbage strike. We’re treated to her debate with the incumbent, which looks like it was filmed on a budget of $1.50. There are more puns, and I’m left trying to figure out whether Mama applies her facepaint and then her lipstick or her lipstick and then her facepaint. Perhaps one of our female readers can enlighten me as to what a more sound makeup strategy would be. Eventually, Mama accosts the mayor when he makes one too many fat jokes at her expense. If only real politics worked this way.

Match Numero Tres: Liberty & Justice vs. Dementia & Daisy w/ Gremlina

Liberty is your generic American patriot, while Justice has been described to me as having a “Black Panther” gimmick, though I don’t really see that in her. I’d imagine that you can figure out the roles the other women are playing just by looking at their names. Dementia attacks Liberty to start, hitting her with a clothesline and then just sitting around, selling the fact that she’s insane. That allows Liberty to get a legsweep and a toehold, which gives me an opportunity to comment on how bizarre it is that Dementia is so crazy that she wears a tattered wedding dress around . . . though she seemingly has no problem finding and putting on brand new basketball shoes for her matches. Liberty then moves in to an airplane spin, and both women pretend to be dizzy before Dementia begins choking her opponent in the corner. Liberty eventually turns that in to an atomic drop and follows up with an armdrag. Daisy tags in at this point, hitting a big boot but missing a second. That allows the tag to Justice, who armdrags Daisy before being hit with the very same maneuver. A monkey flip and an elbow are next from Daisy, but Liberty responds with a back body drop. That almost gets three, but Dementia makes the save. Liberty cuts that off, tossing the crazy lady from the ring. Back on the inside, Justice throws Daisy in to the ropes, and Daisy just falls down. A bodyslam and a legdrop from the freedom fighter finish the match.

Match Thoughts: There wasn’t a heck of a lot that was notable about this match. It was just your standard GLOW fare. The funny thing is that they COULD have made a big deal out of the contest of they wanted to, as Daisy and Justice were probably the two tallest performers to ever participate in GLOW, so their eventual “battle of the giants” could’ve played in to the story of the match a bit more. As it was, the women’s height just got an offhand mention by the announcer and then was completely forgotten about.

Bumpkins Sara and Mabel are asked to use the word “ruffian” in a sentence. Their response? “If he ain’t ruff he ain’t with me.”

Match Numero Cuatro: Twenty-One Woman Battle Royale

Twenty-one barely trained women all crammed in to one ring at one time? I see the potential for some bad things happening here. Apparently this is a team battle royale of sorts, as the ring announcer brings out the heels as a unit and then the faces as a unit before announcing that the “winners” are to receive $10,000. Early on, this looks like every battle royale ever, with the Widow being the first woman eliminated. Yes, the Widow. They really had a girl whose gimmick was that she was mourning the loss of her husband . . . and this somehow made her a heel. Lightning and Star are out next, with Lightning being one half of a “superhero” tag team and Star having a gimmick in which she constantly talked about the zodiac (not Ed Leslie). Zelda hits the floor, and Mt. Fiji drops Hollywood before four women gang up on her. Fiji avoids elimination, and the announcer tells us that the plural of “battle royale” is “battles royale.” That makes sense, if you think about it. “Royale” is actually a modifier of “battle” and not a second noun. Somewhere during my discussion of grammar, Fiji eliminated herself to save Zelda from a beating on the floor. We’ve got about half the women gone now, actually, and punk rocker Beastie is sent flying by a Tiffany dropkick. Mama squashes Mellon shortly thereafter, and Tiffany eliminates herself to avoid a second avalanche from the big woman. Cheyanne Cher is Mama’s next victim, and we’re down to our final five. As soon as we get to that point, women start flying so quickly that it’s hard to figure out exactly what’s going on . . . but our finish was the eliminated Babe reaching back in to the ring and helping her partner Babe get Mama over the top for the win.

Match Thoughts: Though I feared for the competitors’ lives before the match started, this wound up being a fairly run of the mill battle royale. I’ve seen better versions of the match from wrestlers with more training, but, believe it or not, I’ve also seen much worse versions of the match from wrestlers with more training.

Hollywood does an anti-drinking and driving PSA to close out the show. That’s certainly an odd message to have coming from a heel.

Bonus Features

GLOW Scrapbook: This is an interesting one. It appears that somebody took an old GLOW program or magazine, cut it up, and scanned the contents so that they could be included on the DVD. The Farmer’s Daughters and Hollywood both have profiles included, and there are also “trivia” and “fan mail” sections. This was a nice idea for a bonus feature, as I’m sure a lot of the fans of the promotion dug the opportunity to see content from one of its old magazines again. Unfortunately, the majority of the fonts in the articles wound up being too small for me to read without sitting an inch away from my television screen. I guess it’s time for me to either get a bigger TV or a new prescription in my glasses.

SHIMMER Trailer: This trailer previews the Volume 1 of the SHIMMER: Women Athletes DVD series, which is also available from Big Vision Entertainment. (Actually, as of this writing, BVE has done retail versions of Volumes 1 through 5 of SHIMMER, with Volume 6 hitting in a couple of weeks. They’ll also be doing a “Best of SHIMMER” release in the next few months.) Oddly enough, this sixty second trailer wound up containing the best pure in-ring action on the disc.

Bonus Matches: Hey, more grappling!

Bonus Match Numero Uno: Broadway Rose & Hollywood vs. Thunderbolt & Lightning

Lightning, briefly referenced in the battle royale above, amassed an impressive body of stunt double work after her time in GLOW, and she continues to work to this day, with recent credits including 24, Spider-Man 2, and even some wrestling related work in Jim Carrey’s Man on the Moon.

Thunderbolt and Hollywood kick it off, and the bad girls throw torn up comic books at their opposition. That “offense” is followed up with a bodyslam by Holly, and the two women then spend an uncomfortably long period of time fighting over an Irish whip. It results in Thunderbolt getting a monkey flip and a dropkick, though a second attempt at the same misses. This allows Hollywood to slam ‘Bolt’s face in to the mat a couple of times before slightshotting her across the ring. That was a poor choice from a strategic standpoint, as it put Thunderbolt in the perfect position to tag Lightning. The other half of the face team comes in and . . . gets her ass kicked. So much for that comeback. Hollywood takes her over with a back body drop and applies a headlock, which is ultimately turned in to a bulldog. That sets up the tag to Rose, who drag’s Lightning’s face over the top rope. Lightning finally gets things going her way and slaps on a full nelson (Nobody can escape the Masterlock!) and takes her opponent down with a snap mare that was actually halfway decent looking. Rose kicks out at two after a Lightning splash, though, and here’s a big slam from the “Broadway” star. The bad girls double team Lightning in the corner for a bit, after which Hollywood tags in. But, as the referee is admonishing Rose for the cheating, Thunderbolt dropkicks Holly in to a sunset flip by Lightning, allowing the superheroes to get the win. After the bell, Broadway Rose and Hollywood tie the referee up in the ropes and smack him around for a little bit. The look on this man’s face as he is taking the beating is hilarious, as I think he’s trying to shove his tongue out of the left side of his mouth as far as humanly possible.

Match Thoughts: This was completely indistinguishable from the tag team match earlier on the show, though I have to say that I’m more of a fan of Hollywood in singles action, as her personality is given more of an opportunity to shine when fewer women are involved in the match.

Bonus Match Numero Dos: Mountain Fiji vs. The Widow & Star

The Widow (who is actually the same woman that played Dementia earlier on this DVD) gives Fiji a black rose before the bell, allowing Star to come from behind with an illegal choke. The bad girls dominate early on with a double armbar and some kicks from that position, after which Star comes off the top with a big right hand. The beginning of Fiji’s comeback is actually obscured by an insert promo from the heels. When we get to see the wrestling again, the big Samoan avalanches both of her opponents in the corner and then slams the two women. The heels try to escape, but Fiji grabs them and ties their legs around each other for an odd looking submission hold. After that, she just flips the two women over on to their backs and pins them with a single foot to the chest.