Tough Enough 4, Episode 2: Jumping the Gun

Before getting into this week's "piggybacked" episode of Tough Enough 4, we here at RNO thought readers would like to know what is happening with some of the earlier TE contestants.

We would have to start off with a look at the two winners from the first season of Tough Enough - Maven Huffman and Nidia Guenard. Maven, who has an official website at www.mavenhuffman.com, was the first Tough Enough winner to make it on to the official shows as a regular wrestler in the roster. He was also put into an early "David vs. Goliath" angle with the Undertaker and he seemed to be on his way to going up the ladder when he managed to break his leg doing a baseball slide in a match during 2002. This put everything on hold for his career, as he rehabilitated the leg and spent some time in OVW (WWE's developmental promotion) to get back into shape for his return to WWE. Maven finally returned to the RAW promotion side of WWE and has been slowly working his way back up. This is highlighted by his addition to a group at this time called the "Anti-Evolution" that includes Randy Orton, Chris Jericho, and Chris Benoit. Not too shabby of a group to be in. It appears they will be going up against the main heels on RAW, the Evolution, when Survivor Series arrives in November.

Nidia Guenard spent a little longer in OVW training after winning Tough Enough, finally getting a face-run in OVW before being brought in as a heel character on Smackdown with Jamie Noble. She played a hick character with Noble for quite some time, eventually seeing the characters through a period of wealth and then a period where Nidia was "blinded" by a mist spewed in her eyes by Tajiri. This led to her appearing infrequently for a time and wearing large, dark glasses and a cane when she did appear. During this period, Noble started using Nidia as a blunt object to put between himself and his opponents, with Nidia getting the worse for wear. She eventually came back with a smaller nose, a bigger chest, and a face-turn that saw her going over to RAW to do matches with many of the best of the women wrestlers WWE has. Certainly a better place for her than the strictly "diva-oriented/let's have a bathing suit competition to settle our differences" roles women play on Smackdown.

By the way, Nidia's sister is still working as a valet for Bolin Services in OVW, and as Nurse Lulu, she takes the occasional bump in the ring as well.

Meanwhile, two other finalists in the first season of Tough Enough also went on to working for WWE. Chris Nowinski (who has an official website at www.chrisharvard.net) spent time going through the independent circuits until he reached OVW and was there for a time before moving up to WWE. Nowinski surprised a few of us by proving to be a great heel in OVW and WWE, and was working his way up the roster on RAW when he got sidelined by a head injury in July 2003 that causes recurring physical problems. He has been out of the ring since then, but is still working for WWE promotionally, especially as a political commentator for the "Smackdown Your Vote" campaign. It is still unsure when he will or ever will return to the ring, and if he doesn't it will be a shame, as he was truly becoming a wrestler to watch before the injury occurred.

Josh Matthews, the other male finalist of the original Tough Enough who was always making fun of Al Snow, worked his way into WWE as well. In Josh's case it was as an announcer on Velocity, WWE's Saturday night hour-long wrestling show on SpikeTV. Josh also does some promo interviews during Smackdown, as well as hosting the WWE internet interview show, Byte This!, on occasions. That makes four out of five finalists from the first season still working in WWE, and all as on-camera personalities. As to Taylor Matheny, she is still supposedly working on the independent scene and in Japan, although there hasn't been much word about her progress since late 2003.

The somewhat controversial season two of Tough Enough saw two of the girls win the contest, Jackie Gayda and Linda Miles. Both were pushed on to WWE pretty early on, with Jackie getting the blunt-end of scorn by fans for her somewhat awkward actions in the ring. Jackie will probably always go down as a participant in what many consider one of the worst WWE matches of 2002: Bradshaw and Trish Stratus vs. Chris Nowinski and Jackie Gayda. Jackie blew a number of moves during the match to the point that Nowinski and Bradshaw disappeared into the crowd, leaving Trish Stratus to finish the match against Jackie.

It was after this match that Jackie and Linda were both sent down to OVW, where they really should have spent time before going up to WWE in the first place. At OVW, Jackie played a heel in the Revolution, a group featuring Doug Basham and Damaja (who would go on to OVW as the Basham Brothers). She never really quite got the hang of the wrestling moves, but she did get better on the mic and came back to WWE as a valet for Rico (another OVW alumni) and Charlie Haas (another OVW alumni). Gayda and Haas recently announced that they are engaged to be married.