After an 18 year absence, Women of Wrestling (WOW) finally came back to television courtesy of AXS TV. WOW debuted on AXS last month to mark the promotion's first appearance on network television since 2001.
The mastermind behind all of this is WOW founder David McLane. Many issues led to WOW being taken off TV back then and being dormant for over a decade, but McLane vows to not let those same mistakes happen as he explained on Women's Wrestling Weekly.
"For one thing, it will still be around," McLane said of what will be different this time. "Those other renditions - I had business partners that never had the same vision that I did and subsequently they didn't last very long. Especially the second one, it was a rendition right out of GLOW, so it was like taking GLOW. When I left GLOW, as Little Egypt will tell you, 28 out of 32 women left with me."
After WOW was taken off TV in 2001, McLane had several attempts to relaunch the show over the next decade. They never amounted to anything until WOW original shows made their return to a Las Vegas ABC affiliate in 2011.
"So that said, that was just an under-financed and unorganized scramble to just go out on the road and see what we can do," stated McLane. "This is the ultimate dream, this is the ultimate vision that I've had for 30 some years. This is the presentation of women's wrestling that I will be most proud of because this combines everything that was great about GLOW with the athleticism and the presentation of the athletes that I've always dreamed women's wrestling would become.
In addition to founding WOW, McLane also founded Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling aka GLOW which, in a way, was WOW's predecessor as a women's wrestling promotion. GLOW relied more on the "entertainment" part of sports entertainment and often featured many comedic skits and storylines.
WOW treats itself as a legitimate promotion, and because of that, McLane doesn't foresee much crossover between WOW and the former stars of GLOW.
"We had many of the WOW wrestlers at one of the live events in Los Angeles and paid homage to them [GLOW wrestlers]," said McLane. "And we even had Jacqueline Stallion at the live events and she will be on the TV taping, thanking her for supporting women's wrestling for so long.
"But in terms of in the ring, no. The athletic ability of the wrestlers today is so superior to anything that was even five years ago, more or less 20 or 30 years ago. WOW is the ultimate competition in women's wrestling and when you see each of the competitors you'll know why. This isn't a comedy event, this is real women's wrestling."
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