World of Hurt: "Blood, Sweat, and Tears" (episode one)
Aired on The Cave in Canada
Report by Dot Net contributor Chris GST

The show opened with clips that obviously are centric to the episode as they show Irena and the multiple personalities that she is going to interact with throughout the show.

The trailer that hit the web begins and is being used as the opening video for the show with Lance Storm talking about what the show is about and how before these wrestlers make it, that they are his, and he is the one that is going to tell them if they are ready to begin a life of being a pro wrestler.

The show opens with shots of Canada and then enters the training center of Lance Storm's Wrestling Academy. Lance is seen sitting on the side of a made up ring with the World of Hurt Raw-esque logo on the ring apron. Lance is talking about how a huge part of wrestling is about being able to come back from personal injury and implies that a person cannot make it in this business if they cannot take pain.

They showed Irena, who is the main talent of this particular episode walking into the training center on day one. She is a brunette and has a pretty nice figure, more of a Mickie James figure than a Michelle McCool. As she walks through the gym we are introduced to two polarizing characters in Taya Valkyrie who is a Canadian woman who basically shows she is probably Irena's best friend here at the school. Dylan Knight is introduced as a buffed up blonde guy who while he is also from Australia as Irena is, he hates her. Going so far to say, " She is just a retard."

Another person who we are shown on camera is Tanille Taya who is said to be Dylan Knight's roommate and says that she can't be part of the boys and hasn't acclimated to the back stage environment very well, and that it is because of this that Irena will not be successful in the wrestling business. We are shown a clip of Dylan Knight pumping some weights and blatantly telling Irena to, " F--- off".

At 7:29 am, we were shown Lance Storm walking into the gym. He told the crew to start their bumps and rolls drill in the middle of the ring one at a time. We were shown several of the students doing what they are supposed to do and Lance over seeing it. Irena was the main person shown as she doesn't seem to be able to perform the front flip bump correctly.

Lance told her to do it over. On what was supposedly a third try, she basically fell straight onto the back of head/base of her neck. It was a scary bump and all the students noticed, and Lance rushed to her side. She was obviously in pain and was crouching in the middle of the ring as Lance talked to her.

We were introduced to a new persona - the "French Stallion" and he basically came off as a sexist guy who clearly stated, "This business is not made for women," and added that he feels they have no need to be in it.

As Irena was calmed down by Lance, she showed mental toughness to try it again as Dylan Knight was clearly making fun of her. Lance commented that the toughness she showed for wanting to continue with the drill is a positive and that everyone makes mistakes.

As Irena was back outside the ring and standing next to Taya, Dylan Knight came up to the side and stated that if Lance is teaching piledrivers that day, Irena would be the stand out and then he laughed. Irena called him out on it and while they bickered, Lance came to them still in the ring and told them to stop. Lance said that Dylan making jokes about someone making a mistake in the ring and possibly being seriously injured is not something to laugh about and that he doesn't want to hear it.

Irena left the gym and we go to break.

Back from the break we were in the women's washroom as Irena was crying and trying to get away from the camera. She felt she might be losing some of her vision and she obviously was in great pain as Lance was shown coming in to talk to her. While this is taking place, we were also shown both the French Stallion and Dylan Knight in the kitchen talking about how they both hope that Irena quit that day because they both can't stand her.

Lance told her that she had a mistake occur but that if she wants to be in this business there are going to be a point of pain every day, and she has to take control of it. He seemed to cheer her up. She took it well and went back out to the gym, which to me showed a mental toughness that you can't teach. Lance was in the middle of doing short match drills. Several of the students were shown hooking up until we got back to Irena getting into the ring with another woman, who was introduced as K.C. Spinelli from New Jersey.

KC stated that she feels Irena is a bit sloppy from her bad bump that morning and they showed Lance continually interrupting their drill to remind Irena of the basics and ring position. Dylan was shown from the side of the ring heckling her by calling out her mistakes and telling her to not bump her head. It got to the point that Lance Storm showed an angry side and told Dylan to stop. Dylan said he thinks he sees Irena crying. "I don't give a s--- what it looks like!" Storm said. This leads to the next break.

We were shown Irena back in the locker room talking to Lance, who is clearly hinting that she might have a serious injury if she is having dizzy spells and blackout moments. Irena stated that she is not and hoped to just tough it out through the next few days.

Day two through seven are shown was shown in small tidbits as we were told that each day brings a new lesson. Transition drills, aggression drills, motivation drills, and others. Each time they really only showed Irena with Lance making comments on her work in the ring with others. It was said that Irena is not showing enough motivation and will not be perceived as real when she's showing a lack of aggression.

Lance brought Dylan into the ring to try to get Irena to show anger. He told her that she needs to remember people like Dylan who can motivate her to look angry and bring a real anger to the moves she does when she's facing an opponent. Day 5 was presented as a Live Event was being set up for. Lance was putting KC Spinelli from the hook up drill against Irena. KC showed that she is not very fond of Irena and thinks she acts like a "diva."

Three hours out from the event, Irena was still not there and Lance brought the talent over for pre-match promos, possibly for a DVD release. It was there that Lance noticed Irena was not there and asked where she was. KC voiced more displeasure about how she feels Irena is not taking advantage of this show.

The show went live at 8:30 p.m. At 9:08 p.m., we were shown Irena entering the locker room a whole 17 minutes before her match with KC. Both her and KC got into it verbally with both throwing out that the other needs to get their mind on the ball. Clearly, Lance wants to get Irena to open up about her pain and where she was but she brushed him off politely and said she is ready despite the voiceover saying it was two minutes before the match and that she was talking about the pain in her neck.

The match occured and it was clear that KC is more professional and was showing more in the match. Lance was watching from the side and clearly saw the mistakes that Irena was making, such as bad timing and not showing the motivation at all that Lance told her to bring to a live match. We went to break.

Day 7 came with Irena entering an empty gym to have her evaluation with Lance Storm.
Lance gave her a life lesson about the business where he says the reason she hasn't "made it" yet is because of her lack of ability to adapt to the social aspects of this business. He told her that there has been a lot of drama and that while her in-ring work can be fixed, she has to learn to work around the drama that she seems to start.

Storm gives her an analogy that if a promoter hears of drama with one person on one side and three on the other, that it is easier for the promoter to fire the one over the three. Lance then told her to continue on training and try to be a bit smarter when it comes to social expectations in the backstage of wrestling.

The show ended and the credits rolled while we were shown some closing statements from Irena.

In an interview with Dave Lagana, Lance stated that Irena was signed to a WWE developmental contract with WWE so we might see her in the future either on Raw or Smackdown.

Overall thoughts: This show is definitely better than Tough Enough other than not having Stone Cold's diatribes at the end. It had a more "real" feel to it and it showcased what Tough Enough could be. In a short span of time (literally within a 30-minute period), it gave me more interest than Tough Enough or Ultimate Fighter in the people, and I do hope to see the following episodes around the other characters presented to me.

You can contact me either at cgstong@gmail.com or find me on Facebook @ http://facebook.com/Spawnsyxx9

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