YMMV / WWE Tough Enough

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • One way to interpret "Stone Cold" Steve Austin eliminating Ariane first is that he definitely saw potential character- and athleticism-wise, but chose to cut her because she had no training and would be better off going at her own pace in developmental, as opposed to struggling to keep up on the show (and she would've been sent to developmental regardless, as Andy was when he won). Another possibility is that he knew Ariane had potential but wanted to Break the Haughty and make her work for her spot.
  • The decision to give the win to Andy instead of Luke could be this. Given Luke's Smug Snake nature, it's likely they intended to make him want to work hard for his spot, knowing he would probably be even more cocky if he won the contest. Of course in this respect, it failed with Luke but succeeded with Ariane.
  • An interpretation of Michelle not being eliminated first in Season 5 could be that she had prior training and would possibly be ready to go after a few months in FCW - and putting her in the bottom three was a Break the Haughty moment to get her to work off her ring rust. Obviously Austin couldn't have foreseen Michelle opting to leave to be with her daughter.
• Award Snub: After Jeremiah finished third in Season 5, John Morrison, John Cena, and Ted DiBiase Jr. all thought that he should have won it. He was ultimately released after he supposedly behaved badly towards officials and wrestlers.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Andy from Season 5 eventually grew into this. He was nowhere near as universally hated as Luke was but he still had a fair share of critics who believed he was terrible on the mic and that the only reason he was really picked was because of his size and WWE trainers giving him more chances than he deserved while eliminating other contestants for much less. The fact that WWE finally released him for supposedly not improving at all in the ring did nothing to quell his detractors who felt guys like Martin, Jeremiah, and even Luke were much more deserving than him.
  • Christina from Season 5. She got a lot of hate directed at her for perceived coddling from the other trainers; when she was injured, she was given preferential treatment in contrast to Ivelisse who was told to "suck it up". Christina also wasn't blamed when she injured Ivelisse, while Bill DeMott visibly blamed AJ for Christina's injury. Others note that she did improve her game significantly when she was given a pep talk by Stone Cold, and she won over a lot of detractors with some good matches in FCW.
  • ZZ from Season 6. He's very popular with the WWE Universe, having easily survived multiple elimination votes. On the other hand, he's also despised for being very out of shape, to the point that he's last in nearly every physical challenge and had shown no improvement in that regard since the competition started. It didn't help that he's avoided elimination over competitors such as Patrick and Mada.
• Better on DVD: Season 4. As it was part of a weekly segment on SmackDown!, as opposed to a full-on reality show like the other seasons, fans didn't get to know the contestants as much. However, the DVD version provides a lot more insight into their backstories, motivations, and personalities. None of this stuff was ever shown on TV.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Some of the weekly challenges really had absolutely nothing to do with being a WWE superstar. Highlights include cheerleading, waiting on tables while wearing roller skates, getting chased by attack dogs, and playing basketball against a team of midgets. Then again, as WWE became more slapstick and random in its promos and gimmicks, it does make some sense.
• Broken Base:
  • When it comes to his Tough Enough and WWE career, what went down between Daniel Puder and Kurt Angle has remained to this day one of the most discussed controversial incidents and opinions on who's the bad guy and who's to blame in the situation will differ wherever you look. Some will point to Kurt Angle as being the bitter, disgruntled veteran who took out his frustrations out on new guys and pro-Puder voices will point to how Kurt seriously injured a previous contestant, leaving Puder no choice but to defend himself and do what he did. Others, including some in the industry like Hardcore Holly, believe that Puder was getting too big of a head for his own good and seriously crossed by line by going into business for himself, nearly crippling Kurt, and got what was coming to him in the 2005 Royal Rumble. Nowadays, you also have a third voice in the situation, blaming everything that went down on Vince himself for booking a shoot match in what's supposed to be a worked environment, not making anything clear, and ending up with a situation where either one of his big stars or a promising new prospect could have gotten seriously injured because of his lack of consideration.
  • Ariane's elimination is very divisive, and it usually depends on how much one believes WWE's Diva matches were in the Girl-Show Ghetto at the time. Notably Diva Dirt agreed with her being eliminated - although more because the whole episode showed how out of her depth she was.
• Creator's Pet
  • Andy for some. The trainers seemed to show selective favoritism when it came to him, giving him a free pass in places where others wouldn't get one.
  • Amanda, who was saved from elimination despite placing in the bottom three by the judges and coming dead last in fan voting, leading to the elimination of fan preferred contestant Mada.
• Discredited Meme: Melina has said she's fed up of people quoting the "my favorite match was with Melina and Alicia Fox" incident at her. She personally never found it funny, and Stone Cold was even forced to publicly apologise for the implied disrespect towards the women.
• Elimination Houdini:
  • Stone Cold made a point to defy this in the case of both Rima and Ryan. In Rima's case, she would have been in the bottom three for the third week in a row so he eliminated her without picking two others for the bottom three. Same case with Ryan in the next episode.
  • ZZ from Season 6. He was in the Bottom 3 more than anyone, but the WWE Universe always saved him. He even made to the final four where he lost to Josh.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • For Season 5, Martin mostly for being the most direct competition to Smug Snake Scrappy Luke, with many fans believing he could've won had he not been injured.
  • Jeremiah was also well liked for his heart and passion, and being good enough to avoid being in the bottom three despite his inexperience.
  • Christina was this for the girls, once she upped her game.
  • Andy was also pretty popular for a while, mainly because he wasn't Luke. Just to give you an idea of how popular Andy had gotten and how hated Luke was, during the final elimination in front of a live Raw, the entire arena was cheering Andy over Luke.
  • From Season 6, Mada, no doubt owed to his resemblance to Tommaso Ciampa.
• Fan Nickname: Diva Dirt liked to give Rima a new nickname every week. This included "Miss Ghetto USA" and "Miss Late USA".
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • In Season 5, Bill DeMott's Drill Sergeant Nasty habits was played for comedy. DeMott would later be accused of bullying and harassing trainees during his time as head trainer of NXT.
  • In Season 6, Paige's hilarious reactions to Amanda's "ring rat" comment becomes downright uncomfortable after her sex tape was leaked in 2017.
  • Terri Poch appearing as one of the trainers in Season 1, considering one of the reasons for her release was that WWE wanted her to relocate to OVW to get more training, to which she disagreed.
  • Bill DeMott's Training from Hell shtick, namely the penchant for pushing guys extra harsh, disrespecting the trainees via derisive nicknames, etc., until they earn his respect, is definitely viewed as this in light of the allegations surrounding his former role as head trainer of NXT which suggest that his Tough Enough persona was him turned way down. Also notable is the part in one of the earlier episodes of Season 5 where he splashed Ivelisse in the corner. Special attention is drawn to how painful it was for her. In 2015, Ivelisse came out and said that while she was in developmental, she was released for speaking up about DeMott and his treatment. Ivelisse claims that she was made an example of.
  • Similar to the Ivelisse example is that Christina would be released around the same time as her - and when the DeMott allegations started surfacing, the report said something about the release of "at least two Divas" who went unnamed. Ivelisse was agreed to be the first, and no reason was given for Christina's release other than something vague about "not a good work ethic". Further muddying the issue was that Christina was the reigning FCW Divas' Champion when she was released and had just made her debut on NXT. What makes this especially harsh is that she was clearly one of DeMott's preferred contestants on the show. To this day, she hasn't spoke about her release.
  • The late night practice sessions between Bill and Rima, where Bill is rather dismissive towards Rima's attempts to get better. After the show wrapped, Rima revealed she had actually been nursing a broken rib at the time.
  • Bob Holly's mistreatment of Matt Cappotelli in Season 3. Cappotelli was later forced to retire due to a brain tumor which he was battling over the span of 12 years, finally passing away in 2018.
  • The aforementioned incident had Crash Holly call Matt a "crybaby" for complaining about the treatment. Crash would ended up committing suicide just two years later.
  • Ivelisse Velez's scathing elimination Take That! to Christina for causing her injury that she later expressed regret over seemed to be an Out-of-Character Moment for an otherwise professional and dedicated worker. Fast forward nine years to AEW, when Ivelisse allegedly gets in hot water for losing her patience with Thunder Rosa. ^note Velez started the match started with Velez seemingly giving Rosa a potato. She pulled her next punch but Rosa still gave her a receipt. The two proceeded to blow their attempted spots and continue to lay in stiff shots while the referee failed to calm them down, until Ivelisse stopped selling altogether and made faces at the camera. Thunder Rosa was cross promoting as NWA World Women's Champion at the time and after the match she would be signed by AEW while Ivelisse would disappear from television and soon be let go. While she claimed to be let go due to issues with a coach, Velez didn't hesitate to make her dislike of Thunder Rosa clear.
  • Brian Danovich, a potential contestant during season 4, who was really passionate, but was cut due to being injured; he was happy when Snow told him he would pay to let him have training in OVW once he was healed up. Sadly, that training either didn't happen or went nowhere and he never appeared in WWE, though remained active in the wrestling world until his death in 2017.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Trish Stratus being chosen as the female trainer for Season 5. She would be inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2013. And her best friend Lita would be inducted the next year, and be chosen as female trainer for the next season.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • Episode 10 of season one has Maven leave for two days to visit his mom in the hospital. She gives him the go ahead to return to the show and the other contestants happily welcome him back. Bonus points for said other contestants writing letters of support to Maven, who is grateful that they did so.
  • The Season 1 finale shows that the remaining contestants have really bonded with their trainers, and become Fire-Forged Friends. They even present the trainers with a thank you letter.
  • While Martin's elimination was sad, Stone Cold gives him the honor of hanging up his own belt on the wall.
  • Rima's elimination in a sense. The trainers agree that she's eliminated solely because of her greenness, and not because of lack of passion or determination. Luke of all people even says she earned his respect.
  • In the Season 5 finale, Luke is revealed to have a very close relationship with his mother. He's even crying Tears of Joy as he thanks her for everything she's done for him.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Stone Cold and Bill DeMott working together; Austin famously ripped apart DeMott's Hugh Morrus moniker during his heel run in 2001, which was also the first time he did the WHAT? phrase:
  Austin: Your name is Hugh Morris...What? Your name is Hugh Morris...What? Is that funny? Is that humorous?
  • Stone Cold and Booker T working together. This is especially notable considering their feud, which involved the infamous supermarket brawl.
  • The Miz's entire journey can be seen as this. He went from being "that guy who was on The Real World" in Season 4, to replacing Hulk Hogan as judge on the show eleven years later.
  • In Season 4, Ryan Reeves was always shown eating, with the other contestants stating he never stopped. Thus Ryback's gimmick becomes "Feed Me More".
  • Season 6 saw Paige as a judge, with two of the contestants being named Amanda and Daria. Come Paige's return in November 2017 to her retirement in April 2018, Paige led a villainous trio called Absolution. The other two members? Amanda and Daria, now under the names of Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville.
• Informed Wrongness: Loads in the fifth season.
  • Rima hurts her hip and wears padding to allow her to still run the ropes. This reveal is given with big dramatic music and a Death Glare from Stone Cold. Apparently wearing something to help you train through an injury counts as cheating.
  • Matt is chosen for elimination for not "standing out from the pack" - namely in a demonstration, Trish appears to be annoyed that he doesn't do a bunch of mad high spots. And Luke, who's his partner in this, opts to make himself look good rather than Matt - and the thing is treated as Matt's fault. Especially egregious when Jeremiah later does a high spot in a drill and is told off for being reckless.^note To be charitable to this one, the latter might be because Jeremiah was so green, whereas Matt had over a decade of experience.
  • The reverse of the above is Ryan being told off for being too goofy and over-the-top. In professional wrestling! It might make sense if what we see of him is particularly hammy, but he appears to be just standard selling and no more over-the-top than the average wrestler. His status as the goof seems to be entirely an Informed Attribute; WrestleCrap even pointed out that Bill was nitpicking that Ryan didn't run the way he should have when he had an attack dog dangling from his arm.
  • When Christina injures her ankle doing a spot with AJ, Bill can be seen saying "that was all him". While AJ may have been a little too close to the corner (as he insists when Christina returns from the hospital), she still very obviously landed wrong.
  • Ariane saying that her favorite match was between Melina and Alicia Fox is supposedly an indicator that she didn't have a passion for the business - when she openly admitted she had newly discovered wrestling. The kicker was this being treated as worse than Eric showing up out of shape or Michelle claiming to have started eleven years ago and yet not even being able to do a roll. There were other valid reasons to eliminate her - her inexperience for one - but this appeared to be the deciding factor. The fact that she ended up putting work in developmental, in spite of the difficulties of having to be on the road as part of Total Divas (and would later willingly give up her spot on TV to get more training in NXT) shows how short sighted this was.
  • Trish and Stone Cold take the time to randomly complain about Ivelisse making something called "the boo face" whenever she's listening to them. The clip of Ivelisse chosen to demonstrate this just shows her listening normally, making this an odd complaint; especially in reference to Stone Cold's "I'm not impressed with the girls; Ivelisse? What's happening?"
• Never Live It Down:
  • That Jackie Gayda match, despite Jackie staying in the wrestling business for several more years and not having a match anywhere near that bad again.
  • Daniel Puder will probably never live down the kimura lock incident and his No-Holds-Barred Beatdown at the Royal Rumble despite having a successful MMA career after wrestling and running many successful business ventures later in life. If the man is ever mentioned, that's always what is brought up.
  • Michelle and her eleven years of experience. To clarify, she actually said she started eleven years ago but had been out of the industry for about six - which adds up to five years of experience.
  • Ariane/Cameron is still remembered for the "Melina vs. Alicia Fox" remark. She pokes fun at it herself, however.
  • Amanda/Mandy Rose is still attacked over her "ring rat" comment, despite Mick Foley issuing a retraction for the article he wrote criticizing her.
• Older Than They Think: Season 4 (a.k.a. the $1,000,000 Tough Enough) was mostly held at SmackDown! tapings in front of a live audience where contestants would take part in challenges (some as mundane as dressing up and seducing Hardcore Holly) before asking fans to vote for them online. Add the Fleeting Demographic Rule, and you pretty much have the initial version of NXT. Ironically, both featured Ryan Reeves.
• Questionable Casting:
  • In Season 1, Bobbi Jo was picked over another several other contestants who would eventually become good wrestlers - when she blatantly admitted that she hoped WWE would give her the exposure to pose for Playboy. She ended up leaving the contest.
  • In hindsight, picking Lisa over Melina in Season 3 doesn't seem like the smartest move. Melina ended up honing her craft on the indies, making it to WWE on her own and becoming a five-time champion. Lisa would have to be removed from the season due to her mental health problems.
  • Booker T was noted by some to be a strange choice as a trainer in Season 5. In contrast to Stone Cold and Trish Stratus, who were retired from WWE, Booker T was still appearing as a commentator for Smackdown - and thus had to miss numerous days because of TV tapings.
  • Some choices in Season 5 raise a lot of eyebrows, such as Andy, Jeremiah, Rima, and Ariane. None of them had any prior experience in wrestling (although Andy had been in FCW for a little while) - and even if they won the show, they'd have to still spend months or years in developmental to perfect their skills. This had been proven by all the previous winners (except Maven and Daniel Puder) debuting long after momentum from winning the show had dried up. Michelle and Christina were in grey areas; the former had experience but was out of the game for years, and the latter had been training in FCW for a year.
• Replacement Scrappy: Bill DeMott replacing Al Snow as the trainer for Season 5. Rather than a Cool Teacher, he was a full on Drill Sergeant Nasty who gave the contestants mocking nicknames, picked on Ryan for no apparent reason, showed obvious favoritism and seemed to get off on some contestants being hurt or humiliated. Retroactively once he left WWE amid the abuse scandals, his scenes become even harder to watch.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Needless to say there was an outrage when Ariane announced she'd been signed when the first episode of Season 5 aired. However, she'd gained quite a few fans for herself from people who had seen her FCW work or else just like what she'd done on TV.
  • Once Eric was eliminated from the show, he buckled down and worked hard to improve his conditioning and got good reviews for a lot of his matches, such as those for the NWA remnants like Vendetta Pro.
  • Post-Tough Enough Luke became this to a certain degree. While support for him is by no means universal, more and more fans nowadays feel that he should have won Season 5, especially in light of how Andy never made anything of his win and was released by WWE for not improving himself at all as a wrestler.
  • Amanda achieved this for some after continuing with her training and putting in some appearances at NXT.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • A few Season 5 contestants would surface on Lucha Underground - Martin (as Marty The Moth), Matt (as Son of Havoc) and Ivelisse (under her real name).
  • Ariane got this once she gained a spot as one of Brodus Clay's dancers, eventually graduating to a wrestling role and landing a spot on the hit reality series Total Divas.
• The Scrappy:
  • Tazz was a scrappy for Season 1, due to his dickish attitude in contrast to the other WWE personnel, Al Snow, Jacqueline, Tori, etc., who were seen as stern but fair.
  • Rima, Mickael, Eric, and Luke are notable in Season 5:
    • Rima was doomed to this role from the beginning, being a former model who got on the show while Annie Social, Roxie Cotton, Brittney Savage, Sara Del Rey and Mercedes Martinez were turned down.
    • What made Luke infuriating was that he's a selfish prick who's extremely annoying. However, he also happened to be the single most talented competitor of Season 5, and therefore really couldn't be called a Creator's Pet or an Elimination Houdini.
    • Mickael was a pompous Joisey meathead who talked nothing but trash about his fellow contestants. Diva Dirt especially called him out for making sexist comments to the female contestants after mentioning that his wife was supporting him financially.
    • Eric got himself quite a bit of heat for never improving or showing anything remotely impressive during his run and even staying on for as long as he did while others who were clearly more talented than him like Matt got eliminated early on. During an episode of Raw, where all the contestants were there to witness the final pick between Luke and Andy, the crowd let Eric know their displeasure with his performance when his name was announced by showering him with vicious boos that rivaled what Luke would get later on.
  • The Miz became this in Season 6 when he went from host to judge after the firing and blacklist of Hulk Hogan, namely for saving Amanda two weeks in a row (once officially, the other through mind games with the other judges) specifically because she's hot. This despite (a) The Miz being supposedly Happily Married to former WWE Diva Maryse, and (b) the WWE roster, and even the Tough Enough cast, having no shortage of attractive women with highly varied levels of skill and experience. What made it even worse was the two people most likely screwed by The Miz's smitten antics were Mada, who prior to that episode's challenge was probably the frontrunner among the men, and Chelsea, who was the most popular remaining woman not named Sara Lee and thus could've stood more of a chance against Sara in the final running than Amanda did.
  • Paige was seen as unnecessarily rude and bitchy to the contestants and many felt she was the wrong choice to be a judge, considering she was only 22 at the time. She's been wrestling since she was 13.
• Seasonal Rot:
  • Season 2 got an induction by WrestleCrap. The finale, where they did an abrupt swerve and announced two female winners instead of one male and one female, is only the least of it. In most of the confessionals, Al Snow was constantly talking about how badly the training was going, to the point where "these kids aren't ready" should have been the show's tagline.
  • Season 4 (a.k.a. the $1,000,000 Tough Enough) got both an induction by WrestleCrap and an episode dedicated to it in Wrestling With Wregret. It being held at SmackDown! tapings in front of a live audience, having challenges such as dressing up in drag and seducing Hardcore Holly, and it having a cash prize soon drew unfavorable comparisons to the Diva Search.^note Which was held at Raw. One of the first challenges faced by the contestants had them being dressed down by The Big Show, who ripped into them for being handed an opportunity without paying their dues. This was seen as hypocritical as in 1995, the Big Show, then known as The Giant, defeated Hulk Hogan for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship in the main event of Halloween Havoc in his very first wrestling match.^note Hogan had defeated The Giant in a Sumo Monster Truck match prior to the main event. In the main event itself, The Giant won by disqualification. However, a pre-match stipulation meant that the title changed hands. Then came the debacle of the Kurt Angle/Daniel Puder shoot-wrestling match, and the final contest being a boxing match, which brought back memories of the Brawl for All.
  • Within a few episodes, people were already calling Season 6 the worst of the lot. Paige was seen as an insufferable judge who was hypocritical, most of the challenges were considered silly, and the eliminations were decided by public vote, meaning that some of the more useless contestants would be saved over the talented ones (see below).
• Shocking Elimination:
  • Matt Cross in Season 5 considering he had nine years of wrestling experience and watching one of his matches will show that he would have been a great addition to the roster. Unfortunately, Matt choked when he was put on the spot to show his experience, and was swiftly eliminated for it (see Epic Fail). Although when other trainees tried to show their experience they were criticized for showing off so it may have been a no win situation. Regardless, Lucha Underground would eventually be thankful for the learning experience.
  • Season 6:
    • Patrick's elimination was widely considered to be a huge shocker, so much so that the coaches disagreed with the elimination. Mick Foley went one step further and tweeted that he was done watching the show as was becoming more of "a popularity contest." A few weeks after Season 6 ended, Booker T reiterated that he disagreed with Patrick's elimination.
    • Mada's elimination was a shock, especially since he seemed to be one of the frontrunners prior to this.
    • Giorgia's elimination was seen as this on this women's side. Like Patrick's elimination, Booker T disagreed with it feeling that she was the best of the female contestants.
• Smurfette Breakout:
  • In Season 5, which featured five female contestants against eleven males, Ariane, Christina, and Ivelisse got signed while Andy was released a year later. Ariane became the first to debut on TV (as Cameron, one of Brodus Clay's dancers) while Ivelisse became the first to debut in a wrestling role (for the WWE version of FCW, then its replacement, NXT).
  • Downplayed in Season 6. Amanda got to join the cast of Total Divas and got a little bit more exposure than the rest of the remaining cast members. Later, she joined NXT under the name Mandy Rose before being called up to Raw in 2017 along with fellow Tough Enough and NXT wrestler, Daria Berenato, who changed her name to Sonya Deville during her time in NXT. Chelsea Green also began appearing on NXT and Raw in 2020.
• Tear Jerker: Martin's elimination. Martin was consistently a good performer and was well liked by the trainers. He came in on crutches saying that the doctors wouldn't allow him to continue. He would have gone through the show with a fractured ankle if the doctors had let him. Stone Cold gave him the distinction of hanging his own belt up, rather than taking it from him.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: In Season 5, there's an episode where the Divas guest star to take the contestants out for the night. Said Divas are Kelly Kelly, Eve Torres and the Bella Twins. Rather than having some of the really experienced women wrestlers in the company offer advice - such as Beth Phoenix, Natalya Neidhart, Gail Kim or Melina - to show that the men can learn from the women as well, their purpose is entirely based around being escorts. They do show Kelly Kelly giving some advice on listening to the trainers at the dinner, but it's not touched on.
• Win Back the Crowd:
  • Season 5 got a lot of fans interested when it was announced that it would feature wrestlers from the indies as opposed to entirely untrained rookies.
  • Diva Dirt got extremely excited once Trish Stratus was announced as a trainer.
• The Woobie:
  • Any of the contestants that have to leave due to injury.
  • Eric, whose severely mentally handicapped brother was his prime motivation for competing in Tough Enough.
  • Rima had an uphill battle from the start, being looked down on for her status as Miss USA - with AJ bluntly saying to the camera that he thinks she's just using wrestling as a stepping stone. And the fact that Bill DeMott appeared to not even bother helping her at the extra practice sessions (she also later revealed she had broken ribs at the time and kept it quiet).