“The worst thing to happen to women’s wrestling in 20 years”? That’s how one keen observer of the women’s wrestling scene characterized Wrestlicious, which debuted last night. Pretty strong words, but if you want to see what all the buzz is about missed it on TV, you can still see the whole debut episode above (without the commercials!).

Speaking for myself, I watched it out of pure curiosity and because I knew at least some of their workers were top flight indy talent. It seemed to want to be a reincarnation of GLOW. Now I happened to enjoy GLOW when it was on, but I have to say (as many others have already said) that GLOW was fine in that place and time. But too much water has gone over the dam since then to warrant a re-do. Thanks to a lot of factors, real women’s wrestling has earned a lot more respect and attention than it had in the early 1980′s. Women’s matches are some of the most popular segments of WWE and TNA. SHIMMER and WSU and other women’s promotions have arrived and demonstrate the appetite for excellence in women’s wrestling. Places like MLW, Slamminladies and Clickwrestle have made quality women’s wrestling available to everybody. To create a GLOW clone is just not the way to go. I think the producers understood that implicitly, however, by realizing that they needed women who could actually wrestle, and to that extent, the tag match on the debut, which included Mercedes Martinez, Rain, Amber O’Neal and Lorelei Lee was far better wrestling than you would have seen on GLOW or POWW or WOW or any of the other failed imitations. Still, the match seemed ‘dumbed down’ a bit (perhaps to accomodate the two untrained models who shared the ring with them) and not up to speed for any of the women involved. (I liked the costumes though! lol )

But watch the video above and judge for yourself!