WOW Women of Wrestling founder Dave McLane was a guest on the X-Pac 1-2-360 podcast this week. In it, he discussed the incredible turnout the company had for tryouts, creating compelling characters, and meeting Tessa Blanchard.
Check out some highlights below:
The tryout process:
We put out the word that we wanted to have a tryout for WOW Women of Wrestling and were bringing it back into the marketplace. And we had 800 hundred women show up. And out of 800 women we only selected 10. I am not good at math, I don’t know what percentage that is but it’s not too good. They tried out and they had that special little thing and if anyone watched the debut last Friday night at 9’ o’clock on AXS or you watch this Friday night at 9 o’clock, you will see a phenom. Andre the Giant was a phenom. Chyna was a phenom. We have a phenom. We’ve got The Beast and she’s a phenom. During the tryouts, and I saw her tearing up. She said she watched GLOW as a little girl and wanted to become a wrestler from watching that. The nicest messages I’ve been getting from wrestling fans are from parents saying that they watched with their daughters and it’s just so special to me.
Creating characters:
My background is character driven, I have a few [characters] and I have three that I have been trying to fill for twenty-something years and I can’t say their names because I want to find the right person. When I walk in and I think ‘we’re going to have this character and that character’ some have never come to fruition, some you find the exact right person; there is training for four or five weeks and they blow up. Some get all the way and get on television for one event and then they’re not good in the locker room, they’re a cancer so we have to get rid of them, some don’t show up to work on time, some don’t do what their supposed to do. If there not professional they have to go. So, I grab the person’s persona listen to their background story and come up with a name. Jungle Grrrl’s parents were from the Amazon, they were from Colombia. Then she came into the ring and leaped off the third rope like Jimmy Snuka and I just hit the mat and I said ‘that’s Jungle Grrrl!’
Meeting Tessa Blanchard:
Selina Majors kept telling me “You have to hire this Tessa Blanchard. You have to hire her.” And I said, “I’m not going to hire somebody because their last name is famous.” I said forget it. I was at a local event here in LA, I was backstage and literally she picked up something, she had just finished wrestling, she was gonna eat and our elbows hit. Just like that…I said “what are you gonna do?” and she says, “I’m gonna grab a bite to eat now I am done for night,” and I said, “want company?” She said, “Sure, sit with me.” And we sat, and she had just signed her IMPACT deal at the time. After we spoke, I walked away and I told Bambi [Selina Majors], “She will be in WOW Women of Wrestling.” She’s a great person and she’s professional and has the same vision for Women’s Wrestling.
On making authentic characters:
I am a firm believer in the characters. Let’s say Undertaker, who would he be without Undertaker? People just love the Undertaker. You look at The Rock, he grew into the Rock you look at Stone Cold he grew into that. Some may even say Triple H grew into that. Cause many of them started at Jarret’s down at Jarret’s territory wrestling so they found themselves and became those superstars due to authenticity, yourself [direct to Sean], your authenticity is what made you into a superstar.
GLOW’s documentary:
Without Mt. Fiji, the documentary may not have resonated that well. Angela aka Little Egypt was able to reconnect all of the women from GLOW to see Mt. Fiji because she was in poor health. That reunion really made the documentary. The documentary then made it to Netflix. The two women who helped produce GLOW were inspired after watching it and went to Jenji Kohan. The documentary comes out, and that I credit with being the main ingredient to put WOW on it’s platform with AXS TV every Friday night at 9pm in primetime.
Check out the full podcast below:
