Would Tough Enough have survived if John Morrison won Season 1?

[IrishCanadian25]

I was thinking about this while watching The Ultimate Fighter Finale on Spike Saturday Night. The TV show "The Ultimate Fighter" has been wildly successful. It has at least one fight each week, has polarizing personalities, drama, and that "reality" flavah.

But in essence, it's just a kicked up version of WWF Tough Enough, which was one of my favorite shows for three years.

So I asked myself - similar to how Diego Sanchez (fighting for the UFC Lightweight Title this weekend) and Forrest Griffin (former LHW Champ) won the original TUF competition and went on to great things, WOULD TOUGH ENOUGH HAVE DONE BETTER HAD JOHN MORRISON WON SEASON ONE INSTEAD OF SEASON THREE?

Maven had a neat run. He won the competition, feuded with the Undertaker, even eliminating him from the Royal Rumble. He also feuded with Triple H and had a good title match with him on Raw one week. Maven won some titles too.

But John Morrison is the only bona fide superstar ever made in the history of the show. Maven didn't last. Puder was a waste. Capotelli had to retire. Jackie Gayda popped out two of Hass's kids and faded away.

But Morrison won the contest the year after the abysmal season 2. Do Would it have turned out better for WWF had Morrison won Season One instead of or in addition to Maven?

 

[It's...Baylariat!]

The concept of Tough Enough was great. One problem: It tried to be too much like the Real World due to it being on MTV. If you put Tough Enough on Spike, I'd say it does killer ratings. I thoroughly enjoyed the show, the trainers, and the wrestlers that came in and scared the shit out of the wrestlers. HHH's appearance when he came into the ring, fell flat on his back, popped back up, and asked if any of them could do that was priceless.

But it wouldn't have mattered if Morrison would have won. The MTV brass wanted to make it into a soap opera. Remember Jackie and Josh Matthews? I mean really? REALLY? It was a good competition, but it could be done a lot better if it had the seriousness of TUF and had Vince McMahon being more apart of the show, much like Dana White is in TUF.

SO Morrison wouldn't have made a difference in Tough Enough surviving. It was a soap opera that had a wrestling theme to it.

 

[Chango04]

Tough Enough was a great concept. I loved it. If it were only still around.

With any competition, to remain successful depends on highly on the first winner. For instance, American Idol. It has become so succesful because everyone sill remember kelly clarkson. She was the first to ever win and made it big.

I loved Maven. I don't know what happened to him. He and Nydia had a decent run, but they have become a footnote in the WWE. I think that is the reason why Tough Enough was not as successful.

Morrison would have been a great first winner. He would have brought great credibility to Tough Enough. It would still be around today. Years from now, he could be saying "I'm a multi-world champion. It all started with Tough Enough."

Also, I think having a yearly competition was too much. The competition should have been every other year or so.

Great Thread.

 

[klunderbunker]

I think maybe. The problem was that more or less the winners got to be jobbers that were pushed as credible guys. The other issue is that even with Morrison winning, it's taken him years to really get the hang of things. That's the biggest issue with the show: it takes a year or so to really be ready to compete on the main roster. When I say ready, I mean lowering your level of suck to a point where you're not a disaster. Maven had a lot of extra training but even then he wasn't ready for the main roster, at least not as a viable contender. Morrison was Johnny Blaze for awhile. It wasn't until he was completely repackaged with Mercury that he became anything of note. I think Tough Enough was kind of destined to stay where it was, unless it had a lot more seasons for the wrestlers to establish themselves in.

What I mean by that is that in TUF, the guys are ready to go in the big time almost immediately. You see them on PPVs in big time fights. In WWE it took a few years, which is just too long. I had forgotten Morrison won Tough Enough as it was so long ago. In other words, unless the show went to say season 5 or 6 and Morrison was just starting to be a big deal, then no the show never would have meant anything. There was going to be a period in there where the fans would likely have wondered what the point of this was as none of the winners are doing anything, and I think taht was destined to kill it.

 

[Toroc102]

Agree with Klunder wholeheartedly, the biggest problem with Tough Enough(I always make the mistake of calling The Ultimate Fighter Tough Enough on accident)is that at the end of the show the guys still had about two more years of seasoning to do before they could safely work in the business which would usually kill all of their momentum.

I think what the WWE should do is take guys that have been around already but never in ROH/TNA/WWE/FCW(or maybe just not in TNA/WWE) and give them shots, that way they're already seasoned in the ring and can keep their momentum going by competing right away, then again they'd have to change the format of the show drastically, since you wouldn't be teaching them how to work which was a big part of the show, however I'm sure there are ways to adjust it to cater to that type of talent.

Also I was always skeptical of the winners on the show, like of all three women that won, I never thought any of them were gonna make it, I mean really none of them except maybe Jackie we're really the type that Vince normally goes after(why he started going the Diva Search route instead, "We'll teach em bout the business later, lets just get some gorgeous ladies in here") I always thought Maven, Matt, and John we're t0o small and I'm surprised John has had the success he has had(He's actually bigger than I remember him being and he definately has the look, if only he had the voice he'd be a Superstar already, imagine if he had HBK's voice). I don't even count Puder, that was a waste.

 

[Blade]

I don't think it would've really helped in the long run if Morrison had won the first series. They were lucky to even get someone with the talent and potential Morrison had in any of the series. It could have just been 3 series of talentless wannabes. Morrison was the definition of a diamond in the rough.

So basically, when you open the door of pro wrestling to any wannabe in pro wrestling the way that Tough Enough did, you're gonna get some real losers in there, whether it's sooner or later. If John Morrison had been in series 1 instead of 3, then series 2 and 3 probably would've been crap and it would've gone down even faster, if that makes sense. Like it's been said, it was an interesting idea. But they opened the doors too wide and too many talentless people got into the show. It was doomed to fail from the start.

 

[Dave]

I don;t think it would have, to be honest.

You see the problem with comparing the Ultimate Fighter and Tough Enough was that Tough Enough was entirely staged and was heading into a staged business. When I say staged though, I don't mean that Morrison was destined to win it since he first appeared. No. What I mean is that the criteria for winning the Ultimate Fighter was hugely different than the criteria of winning Tough Enough and you know that when anyone wins TUF, they have legit skill and are destined to get a massive push when they eventually get past the show. Tough Enough is based on the WWE's expectations for people though and when people win it, they still have to impress Vince and get written into an angle etc. When someone wins TUF, they are definitely great fighters and will more than likely get the chance to prove it.

Had Morrison won the first one, I have no idea if it would have survived or not but I have a feeling that it wouldn't have. You see, due to all of the criteria that I mentioned before, the people who come out of Tough Enough would still have had to prove their worth and not a lot of them ever did. You could argue that Morrison is the only legitimate reason that Tough Enough was a success and for that reason, I would have to say that it would not have survived.

 

[healyz84]

I always liked Tough Enough, but I don't know if it ever would have survived, even with Morrison as the first winner. If you look at the success of the Ultimate Fighter, it is not just a training competition, but its a ufc competition. They have a match of two guys on virtually ever show, and the winner goes on while the loser is eliminated. This is what makes the concept work. The wwe and Tough Enough could never have a concept like this, because the wwe isn't real. Sure the guys are atheletes, the moves are real at times (just not so much the punches) and it all looks amazing, but the winners are predetermined. So unless they made the Tough Enough show a competition with real wrestling, no punches or kicks, and had the loser of the bouts be eliminated, then this would work.

The way they should have done it was get 16 competitors, and train them for 8 weeks of the show. Every week, the worst trainee gets eliminated. This way all the guys learn the basics. Then with the remaining 8 guys, you have a single elimination tournament, with the winner gaining a wwe contract. I don't know how much this would work, as I don't know how much you can really incapacitate a guy using just basic moves where your trying not to injure a guy, but if you could, then there yea go.

For Morrison, if he had been able to come right out of the gate, create an impact then like he is doing now, then Tough Enough would have lasted maybe a bit longer. But its impossible to know if a guy who can win a competition can translate this to the wwe world. It took Morrison a lot of years to get where he is, so I don't think it would have mattered.

 

[HBK-aholic]

I liked watching Tough Enough in the first series, I don't think I actively watched any of the others though. The problem with Tough enough was that, even though a competitor was good enough to win, they weren't yet good enough to be a big star in the industry. And by the time they are, people have lost a lot of the interest they may have had from the start. I don't think Morrison winning the first one would have made any difference. The concept was good, but not something that was really feasible in the WWE with the heigh of talent and the length it takes to be considered great. However, if TNA had a version of Tough Enough, I think the wrestlers would do quite well.

 

[stop-it-jamaican-me-crazy]

They should've taken a lot of prospects from the indy's. John Morrison would've been an amazing first winner because he's pretty much been the only successful person to come out of Tough Enough. The thing about the Ultimate Fighter winners is that they are given extremely easy opponents for their first fights which they are obviously going to win. John Morrison wasn't even very successful in his first WWE run when he was kissing Bischoff's arse by naming himself Johnny Nitro. It wasn't until he came back with MNM that he started gaining some success. What if Maven would've started off in a successful tag team when he started off. No, I'm not counting his short partnership with Al Snow. What if today the commentators started billing John Morrison as a former Tough Enough winner? Then people would be like, "If Tough Enough was able to produce someone like that, then I want to see Tough Enough bring in more people". I think that's why The Ultimate Fighter has been more successful than Tough Enough ever was.

 

[KillBill]

For Morrison, if he had been able to come right out of the gate, create an impact then like he is doing now, then Tough Enough would have lasted maybe a bit longer. But its impossible to know if a guy who can win a competition can translate this to the wwe world. It took Morrison a lot of years to get where he is, so I don't think it would have mattered.

Exactly. Maven, even though he didn't have a great career, made a huge impact right out of the gate, by eliminating Taker at RR 2002. It doesn't matter if Morrison won season 1, because I doubt many more superstars would have come out of those other seasons anyways, because their weren't any great winners. A lot of runner ups or tryout people ended up being stars instead.

But John Morrison is the only bona fide superstar ever made in the history of the show. Maven didn't last. Puder was a waste. Capotelli had to retire. Jackie Gayda popped out two of Hass's kids and faded away.

I will have to diagree with you about JM being the only superstar made in the history of the show. JTG, Melina, Miz, Matt Morgan, to a lesser extent, Chris Nowitski, Davairi, Josh Mathews, Kenny King who is in ROH also came out of Tough Enough one way or another, I actually thought Mathews was gonna win the 1st season.I think I'm forgetting someone else. But I would say Melina in her division, and Miz and Morgan are superstars, or at least on their way there.

 

[Ytoojae]

Exactly. Maven, even though he didn't have a great career, made a huge impact right out of the gate, by eliminating Taker at RR 2002. It doesn't matter if Morrison won season 1, because I doubt many more superstars would have come out of those other seasons anyways, because their weren't any great winners. A lot of runner ups or tryout people ended up being stars instead.

That's a lot like most reality shows -- American Idol being a prime example. While Idol has had a few memorable champions (namely Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood) the majority of people who have placed as the runner up or had try outs have gone on to bigger and better things in the industry.

Morrison won Tough Enough back in what? 2003? He got over huge in 2005-06 with MnM - so even then it took him a good three years for him to get over. Then it took him even longer, only 2009, for him to break out as a singles star outside of MnM and Miz & Morrison.

I believe Morrison made the transition probably as well as what anyone could have possibly done so. To show that it took him a good two or three years to become a valued tag-team partner and a further two or three years to truly break out as a singles competitor is far too long to ask anyone to remember.

Today's society is about now, now, now. You can't ask the public to wait that long and still care. It will not happen.

If the WWE brought back Tough Enough it would work best if they used it to put their developmental and other top indy stars not in the WWE a run.

Can you imagine how a series featuring the likes CM Punk, Nigel McGuinness, Samoa Joe (I know I'm going back a few years, but I'm just picking out the guys who have now 'made it' but were on the Indy scene for a long time) would go in a Tough Enough series format.

Not only would the winner be as ready-made as you could hope for but he'd be entering the company with name value. I'd actually really like to see that.

(Hello all - my first post - been reading for a while and contribute on a different wrestling forum under a different alias but this is my main alias that I use most places. 29 years old, male, from Australia. Nice to read you all).

 

[darbare]

im surprised no one mentioned the miz, thats how he got his start also. matt morgan was like on season 2, and look where he is now.miz and morrison are def the most successful. imo its just luck of the draw...u get some winners like those, and u get some losers, like the boogeyman lol

 

[RicSpade]

Honestly if you really want to know what the problem was, Tough Enough was supposed to be the breeding ground for new talent. but with certain seasons of American Idol the men eliminated before the finale became the stars. In American Idol you had guys like Daughtry and that one fruity guy who lost to the big black guy, in TUF you see half of the guys who had gained experience in there become viable players, and in Tough Enough you seen The Boogeyman, The Miz, and half of the divas from the show become top stars.

Putting the fate of it on John Morrison is like saying he was the Hulk Hogan of Tough Enough that the show was destined to be a failure if they had never shown him on it.

Honestly if you really want to break it down the WWE should've used tough enough as an invasion angle of new blood like John Cena and his debut of "ruthless aggression". The one thing I do agree on is that they should have done something more to package these tough enough kids, Maven didn't really get turned into anything until the end of his run and that was because they turned him heel but they had nothing for him. The Miz started as nothing more than an interviewer, but still has no credibility due to his reality tv show background, Josh Matthews who would've been a decent wrestler being a finalist ended up lookin like a nerd in a cheap suit, and the guys now are just an after thought with the exception of Morrison.

Its a shame to have all this wasted talent, but what can you do

 

[The Doctor]

Honestly, I don't think it would have made any difference, at all. Tough Enough was a great idea in concept, and even an enjoyable show, but I think it was on the wrong network. However, that's a debate for a different time.
Morrison was as many people have said "a diamond in the rough", but it took us a while to figure that out.

I don't think the fate of the show can be pinned on Morrison at all. It isn't until recently that he's really come into his own. There were many reasons the show didn't work out, ranging from trying to be a "Real World" style reality show, to people not caring by the end, to being on the wrong channel. The main problem with it (and the reason it doesn't compare to TUF) is that these guys are in no way ready by the end of the program. They're green in ring and on mic. Wrestling is just a different animal from MMA.

 

[Tenta]

People needed someone to see right then and there. Period. There's no way Tough Enough could have made wrestlers in such a short span, compared to the training wrestlers receive over years. There's just no way anyone could have taken that much information, and ran with it in such a short time. And the problem is, our instant gratification mindset makes it almost impossible to remember certain things like a wrestler who was on a reality show three or four years ago. I won't lie... I actually forgot Hennigan was actually a part of Tough Enough until two years ago. Perhaps that's just me, but I just couldn't remember it was the same guy. Maybe if we had a guy on there who had many years of training before entering, we'd accept him more. But Hennigan really only had a year or so of training, and that was nowhere near enough to have performers in time for the audience to pick up that it's the same guy. How many viewers do you believe remember Morrison from his Tough Enough Days? Us smarks,but who else?

The show was great in theory... In practice, it can't work. Wrestlers need years of training to be ready for a big promotion, and be accepted by the fans. And fans don't have the ability to remember years. We'd have to have a superstar ready now

 

[Da Prophet]

I think it would have done better if morrison won season 1 instead of season 3.

He is really the only winner to get anywhere.IC CHAMPION,TAG CHAMPION,ECW CHAMPION,AND WILL BE A WORLD CHAMPION SOME DAY.

If morrison had won season 1 it would have had more cred.

WOO WOO WOO

YOU KNOW IT!

 

[The Wolf]

Tough Enough Could of been done very differently. To be honest I think it should of been done like Celebrity Championship Wrestling + American Idol= a great tough enough. For those who dont know what I am talking bout CCW was a show on CMT where Hogan, Bishoff, and Jimmy Hart judged 2 teams of celebrities in wrestling matches and eliminated one Celebrity each week. During the show each team would get a new skill and move to learn and that is how they judged them. Now the American Idol part would be us the fans we should decide who goes cause if we dont buy into the characters they will not last. How it should go is have the try outs and bring it to like fifty ppl and have the couches work them on the basics and trim the fat. When they get to bout twenty is when the show should start full episodes ( up to that point just wkly clips or run downs). Now during those episodes will see them grow as in ring talents and develope their characters, then have matches then the fan vote on the matches and the individual in the matches that with what the couches think will decide who goes home.

 

[Judgeman03]

I think what killed alot of the momentum of the show was the controversy over the winner of the second season. I hated that they picked two divas instead of one of the two guys who deserved it, especially when they clearly gave the implication that one man and one woman would win.

 

[Y 2 Jake]

John Morrison won Tough Enough 3? I knew it, I'd just forgotten about it.

It's a bit like asking if Big Brother would have the same ammount of viewers if Jade Goody had been in the last series. Of course not, it's run it's course.

If John Morrison had won Tough Enough one then at the very least he'd have two years more experience, in which he'd hopefully have developed a personality. The show would still be finished.

Anyway, Maven eliminating Undertaker from the Royal Rumble is still more memorable than anything Morrison has done yet. And if Morrison had won the first season he probably would've had a similar career to Maven.