Wrestlers Episode Five Recap: A Moat of Piranhas

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Before we get into this episode, if there’s one criticism I’ve seen about Wrestlers thus far, that the show focuses a lot on Hollyhood Haley J and her mom, Maria. Welp, strap in because about 85% of this episode revolves around these two women and their love/hate relationship.

HOWEVER, this episode really does a great deep dive into who these women are, and what has made them who they are today. It is all worth it for the car crash of a match we get at the end of the episode.

To kick off this episode, we get a grand tour of Darkstorm’s eclectic choice of tattoos. In a brief summary, we have:

Ambigram tattoos that say Love/Hate and Truth/Hurts,
His song 2 Gutta 4 U,
The Second Amendment in the shape of an AK-47,
and Dr. Ron Paul, among others.

I honestly thought the Ron Paul tattoo was Bobby Knight before he said who it was. He says that his Dracula tattoo is his only “random” tattoo…I’m not buying it. I’m also hoping his “4 Wink” chest tat is a tribute to his love of Wink Martindale and the game show Tic-Tac-Dough.

We catch up with Haley and Maria who are currently doing work in California for a company called Women Of Wrestling (WOW). Maria sits down to do a talking-head interview with the WOW crew about her real life, to ground her character “Big Rig Betty” with realism. As she talks about being a young mother trying to get her kids out of the projects, selling drugs to make money, and going to jail, the camera keeps cutting back to Haley. Haley seems very reluctant to make any connection that her path in life has any similarity to that of her mother, especially when Maria says she is a carbon copy of herself. Haley is resentful for the time that she spent bouncing around homes growing up while Maria was in jail.

Speaking of resentment, we get Darkstorm in the barbershop, as he gets fresh lines put into his beard. At first, he’s very complimentary of Haley’s ability as a wrestler, both at OVW, as well as WOW. He later says that he helps Haley with her wrestling, while she helps him with his character work. Darkstorm gives us a little history of his wrestling career, which has spanned 21 years, including stints in TNA Wrestling and other national promotions. However, he’s quick to say with how hard he’s worked, he hates that women wrestlers are “getting this s*** handed to them, it’s f****** disgusting.”

After dropping the National Heavyweight Title to “Cowboy” James Storm, Shera is at home with a dislocated shoulder, which will derail his comeback story for a bit. He doesn’t want his family to worry about his injury, so much so that he’s strategically angling the FaceTime camera to not show himself in a sling. Al Snow talks about spending so much TV time, money, and energy to build Shera, as well as a credible opponent, that this injury is taking him back to the drawing board for ideas to build up OVW. *Insert disgruntled Al Snow sigh*

Haley and Maria have returned to OVW from their three-week stint in California. Everyone seems happy to see them, while Darkstorm has no problem taking a couple of shots at women’s wrestling. We find Al and the writing staff/agents discussing how to reignite the feud between Haley/Maria on TV, as it’s hard to keep that fire burning if they’re not there every week. This is all leading up to the two having a hardcore match/death match. Al is not keen on the idea, and calls it “violence to the absurd,” and “an excuse to not be talented.”

A death match is an often bloody match where more violent-looking weapons become involved: thumbtacks, barbed wire, fluorescent light tubes, panes of glass, etc. Maria has a history of doing death matches and LOVES them. She notes that Haley only wants to do one death match, with her mom, because she knows it’s Maria’s thing and she’ll take care of her. Al’s face as the crew makes up absurd weapons appears to be his natural state in this show:

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Matt returns to the office to pitch a match for The Big One, involving Al wrestling on the show. He wants to set up an angle where Al eventually faces Shannon The Dude, which is a surefire way to sell tickets to the event. Matt’s initial pitch sees Al tell him that it would actually end up having Al wrestle Matt, which might be the first time I’ve seen Al smile on this show. Matt sees the Al/Shannon match as a huge draw as he can talk about it on the radio at length to a massive audience. Al takes it under consideration, as he’s 59 and doesn’t want to embarrass himself or OVW.

Before we close out the show with the final half-hour of Haley vs. Maria, we do get a little character development with Matt. There is a tour stop at Courtesy Acura, where America also gets to meet Dan Glass (sweet) and UK Football player Tashawn Manning. Being in Lexington, Matt wants to play up the UK/UofL angle and gets Darkstorm to go look for Louisville merch. When Darkstorm comes up empty-handed (apparently you can’t buy Louisville gear in Fayette Mall), Matt tells him to keep the $100. We also get to see Matt do some introspection on how he could have handled his initial time with OVW and its roster, but things seem to be moving in a positive direction.

Let’s get some quick hits out of the way in the Haley/Maria story:

Haley and Darkstorm have an argument in front of a Hooters. Darkstorm didn’t talk to Haley much while she was gone to hang out with his kid. He says he wants to date Haley Marie James, not Hollyhood Haley J, and she won’t separate the two from home/work.
Maria plays mama bear to other female wrestlers when they need it, and Haley feels slighted that Maria is more willing to help them than she ever was when Haley was growing up.
Al continues to build up the feud between the two. The angle currently runs that Al wants to put Haley in jail for assaulting OVW officials. Maria comes out and is against it as she doesn’t want Haley down that path. Al says the only way she can stop it is if she has a match with Haley to put her in her place. She won’t do it, Haley comes out and hits Al. Maria chooses to have the match to keep Al from doing something drastic to Haley.

For the first time, we get a little more background on Maria and her life. We meet her mom who says she was a big troublemaker growing up. A child of divorce, Maria grew up with her brothers with whom she watched wrestling every Saturday morning, always loving the bad guy. Becoming a wrestler was a way to keep herself out of trouble, which saved her life as a way to channel her anger.

Maria had a hard time being a single mom, trying to make money to allow her kids to have what they needed. Haley was angry that her mom wasn’t around when she was in jail, but also the road life of a wrestler kept her away. She would go out, sell drugs, sleep in parks, etc. A victim of sexual assault at 15, Haley notes that it has changed the ways she is, mentally, emotionally, and always in survival mode.

What results in the final match is a brutal battle. Maria refuses to fight Haley for a good portion of the match, while Haley takes out years of frustration. We get a few shots of all the wrestlers in the back huddled around the monitors just to see this go down. Maria continues to resist, until thumbtacks, thumbtack baseball bats, and trash can lids come out. Al’s in the back just miserable wanting this to be over. You see a few families with little kids leave, as the violence is a little too much, with suplexes and falls into thumbtacks. Haley eventually wins, and the two hug in the middle of the ring after the bloody bout.

Ultimately, in the end, Haley finally sees that her journey isn’t that different than her mother’s. Haley says, ”I’m trying to change things up now because I handled things like my mother…I don’t want to be stuck in my ways, I want to change and grow.” We close the episode with a haunting image of Maria wiping the blood off her face, and sly smile into the mirror. She loves this so much.

Bonding That Bridge

Darkstorm said I should look up Dr. Ron Paul. So according to an NPR article from 2011, here are “5 Things You May Not Know About Ron Paul”:
- He hit a two-run homer in the 18th annual Congressional baseball game.
- “He was a frat boy”
- He delivered over 4,000 babies
- He almost ran for office against Frank Zappa
- He was the victim of a political scam
Number of times Dan Glass says “Sweet” – 10