Saturday, October 18 – 9:39 P.M. (CT)

I wanted to like "Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling." The last time I watched a reality show on CMT, I entered with low expectations and found myself surprisingly entertained by "Ty Murray's Celebrity Bull Riding." The celebrities who appeared on that show seemed to genuinely respect Ty Murray and went out of their way to work hard and earn his respect.

I didn't know what to expect from the new CCW show. I knew the basics when it came to the names of the celebrities, the judges, and the team trainers. It seemed like a campy concept, but I convinced myself that it might surprise me like Murray's show did.

No such luck. The first episode of CCW was just plain bad. Whereas Murray was a down to earth guy who came across genuine and endearing while interacting with the cast members, Hogan delivered rehearsed lines and kept his distance from the celebrities while serving as one of the judges of the show. Eric Bischoff isn't playing the Simon Cowell role or at least it didn't come across that way in episode one. Meanwhile, Jimmy Hart must be Randy Jackson because he's just kind of there.

Brian Knobs and Brutus Beefcake are oddball characters in real life, but they're not ideal candidates for reality show trainers. Never mind the absurdity of Knobs and Beefcake training anyone. I just don't see the celebrities bonding with them in a way that makes for good reality television. Perhaps they'll prove me wrong.

The D-list cast is what you'd expect for a show like this and there are some wild personalities involved. Unfortunately, we didn't learn much about them in the premier episode because everything felt so rushed.

We were told that the celebrities were going to learn three basic moves: kick to the mid-section, forearm smash, and the clothesline. They showed some of the basics of training and then rushed into matches that were clearly filmed after the crew had received additional training that wasn't shown on camera.

I didn't expect them to show as much training as they did on WWE's "Tough Enough," but it would have been nice to know what the celebrities thought of the process and how dedicated they were during the training sessions. We only got a few sound bytes regarding the training sessions and we really never learned much about the cast members as a result. We later heard that Dennis Rodman was rough on the other celebrities, but it would have been nice to see their reactions.

The matches were lousy, but I think everyone expected that going in. The canned heat (phony audience reaction) with an audio track of fans chanting "CCW" while the real live crowd sat on their hands only added to the campiness, and Bubba The Love Sponge added nothing to the show with his play-by-play call that came and went throughout the matches.

The funniest moment of the show occurred when Hogan stated that Team Nasty "made me feel I was at the greatest wrestling event of all time, which I was." Really? Come on.

As a viewer, I didn't feel like I got to know enough about the celebrities, the judges, or the trainers, which is what the first episode should have been all about. When the time came to eliminate the first contestant, I just didn't care when Hogan told Tiffany that she's a jabroni and ordered her to get out of his ring.

What did you think of the first episode? Send a paragraph or two of comments to dotnetjason@gmail.com for possible inclusion in a mailbag feature that will be posted on Dot Net.

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