March 2003 was a difficult time for WWE. The Attitude Era was truly over, and they were losing the young, male demographic that had been so important for them in those boom years. Running out of ideas, the product became more violent, more sexualised, and worst of all, featured a LOT of Triple H.
One of the lesser remembered endeavours during this time was a collaboration with Girls Gone Wild. A live, uncensored PPV special that would combine WWE superstars with the exploitative reality-pornography company.
The event was over-hyped, and under-delivered. Legal problems marred the event, and WWE are so embarrassed that they haven’t mentioned the event on-air since it happened.
But how did it come about? And where did it all go wrong? Our journey starts nearly seven years earlier.
Girls Gone Wild
In September of 1996, Real TV made its television debut. The show featured amateur home movies and other extraordinary clips of daring rescues, escapes and accidents. These clips would otherwise never have made it onto screens. The show was a success, and ran for five years.
A production assistant on Real TV, a man called Joe Francis, spent his days watching this odd and obscure footage, looking for gems to include. However, he also found a large amount of video that would never make it past the network’s standards and practices.
Much more intense footage existed of executions, graphic accidents, and disturbing disasters. Joe Francis licensed and collated these clips into his own collection, which he sold by mail order under the title of Banned From Television. The series ended after three tapes, by which time Francis was burned out by the volume of atrocities he’d watched and compiled.
A side effect of his obsessive tape watching was the discovery of Mardi Gras and Spring Break footage. College women would flash their breasts and drunkenly show off at the camera. This gave rise to Joe’s next, and most lucrative endeavour: Girls Gone Wild.
Joe took his own camera crew to colleges, parties, and beaches across America and Mexico, and recorded his own footage of Girls “Going Wild”. This became a million DVD selling series, and the Gone Wild name was synonymous with young, drunk women taking their clothes off.
As 2002 ended, the company had a library of 83 different DVDs, and were looking to branch out further: A live Pay Per View event.
Eric Bischoff and Jason Hervey
Jason Hervey is a former child star, who came to the public’s attention on the 1988 TV show The Wonder Years. In 1988, aged just 15, he was hired by the NWA as a “judge” for the Ric Flair vs Sting NWS World’s Heavyweight title match. His association with wrestling continued, and he made a second appearance in a talk show segment at June 1991’s Clash of the Champions XV: Knocksville USA.
Paul E Dangerously hosted The Danger Zone, where he was set to interview Hervey. Dangerously spent the entire interview insulting Hervey and his then girlfriend, Missy Hyatt. The interview degenerated into violence when Dangerously used his hilariously oversized mobile phone to knock Hervey to the ground. Hervey recalls:
“I told him if it was the Wonder Years I would have called for a stunt double or a prop phone. He was just like “you’ll thank me later.” It was not gimmick, and was heavy as can be.”
“I saw stars when he conked me. I had a big egg on my head, and walked to the back and people shook my hand and I thought ‘that was cool, I’d do that again!’”
More importantly for Hervey was that this appearance was where he first met Eric Bischoff. “Eric was WCW’s vice president and we had a great relationship and a similar taste in genre and a way that we like to tell stories. He’s a guy I learn from all the time.”
This friendship grew into a business partnership. In 2003, with Eric no longer working as an executive, the two made their partnership official, and Bischoff Hervey Entertainment was born.
Enter the McMahon family
Mandalay Entertainment had recently acquired the Girls Gone Wild brand. Jason Hervey also worked in the sports division of Mandalay. Hervey and Francis met and created enough of a connection that they wanted to work together further.
Bischoff and Francis finally met through their shared connection in Hervey. Bischoff was at this time working for WWE, as an on-screen character, but still had his backstage connections to the WWE executives – the McMahon family.
According to Bischoff, the McMahons were interested in buying Playboy magazine. Not just one issue, but the whole company. Joe Francis had similar interests, and so Bischoff brought together Joe Francis and Linda McMahon for a meeting in Los Angeles.
Playboy remained unpurchased. But the meeting between Francis and McMahon led to an agreement of a different kind. Papers were signed allowing a cross-promoted Girls Gone Wild / WWE Pay Per View to take place in March of 2003.
While Bischoff Hervey Entertainment were to take control of production, they paid WWE a fee to use their existing cameras, crew, and expertise. In addition, WWE agreed to send their superstars to appear on the show: Torrie Wilson, Stacy Keibler, Nidia, Test, Josh Matthews, and Jonathan “The Coach” Coachman.
Linda McMahon saw this as the first step of a long-lasting relationship, looking forward to further shows, deeper WWE involvement, and even taking over international distribution. Expectations were set at around 300,000 buys.
WWE promotes the PPV
WWE began to promote the Pay Per View on their own television programming in March of 2003.
On WWE Raw, March 3rd 2003, Chris Jericho faced Test in a match. Beforehand, Jericho aired footage of Test signing a fan’s breasts. His on-screen girlfriend Stacy Keibler gots upset, but the commentary team were way more interested in getting in a plug for the upcoming PPV.
The same week on SmackDown, a storyline was set up to be paid off on the PPV. Firstly, an extended video package was shown of Torrie Wilson’s upcoming Playboy photo shoot. Then a skit aired of Tough Enough winner Nidia turning up unannounced at the Playboy mansion, and getting embarrassed when the bouncers turn her away. Nidia invites Torrie to a Naked Body Challenge on PPV, and then takes her top off – revealing her breasts to announcer Josh Matthews, and her back to the camera.
A week later, on March 13th, the day of the PPV, WWE tried the same flashing gimmick with Dawn Marie’s back. The whole time, she was complaining about how she had a hot enough body to make it onto PPV, and she would prove them all wrong. This of course was an excuse for the announcers to say “Girls Gone Wild” approximately seventeen thousand times.
Florida
However, Joe Francis’s reputation with Girls Gone Wild had attracted the interest of Panama City Beach Mayor Lee Sullivan. He called Francis “scum-sucking trash”, and threatened to arrest Francis on racketeering charges if he came to town.
“Here comes a company that is going to put on a show and basically turn our town into a theater for some soft porn movie. They are very good at getting young people that have been drinking to do things that are, at best, risqué. But more appropriately, illegal and nasty.”
Francis filed a first amendment lawsuit, and won. Despite having a legal all-clear to go ahead with filming, local police followed Francis and his team around waiting for a sniff of a legal infraction.
The decision was made on March 8th, less than a week before the PPV would air, to move the live portion of the PPV to South Padre Island, Texas. Girls Gone Wild claimed it was a “technical reason”, but the truth remains open to interpretation.
The Event
Thursday, March 13th 2003, 10pm. SmackDown goes off the air, and the Pay Per View begins.
Live! From Tequila Frogs in South Padre Island, Texas, and hosted by Jonathan “The Coach” Coachman, and Stacy Keibler. The PPV cost $20, and was rated MA.
Joe Francis opens the show with a typically bullish bluff at the police: “Come arrest us! Come get us!”
The biggest difficulty that the show faces is a lack of understanding and agreement over the level of explicitness that is allowed. As a high-profile, outdoor show with a strong police presence, there were restrictions over what constituted public nudity (legal) and sexualised content (not legal). As a result, any time a contestant was too wild for one of the “wildest nights in Spring Break history”, The Coach would panic, shout “no no no no no”, and escort the women off the stage.
This action makes Coach incredibly unpopular with the live crowd, who boo and jeer him whenever he starts fun-policing.
In direct contrast to Coach are the judges: Joe Francis, Torrie Wilson, Test, Snoop, and model Kylie Bax. They start the evening drunk, and only drink more. Their heckles and demands are WAY too much for Coach, and their microphones are repeatedly cut off.
One contemporary reviewer sets out their horny expectations:
Now, having seen my share of [Girls Gone Wild] videos, I had a pretty good idea of what I was at the very least expecting to see going in. Tits, sure. Ass, definitely. The occasional softcore lesbian action, why not? At the very least, I figured, for $20 and with the WWE hyping the “who looks better naked” challenge with a former stripper and a current Playboy centerfold, there’d be SOMEONE from the WWE showing their shit as advertised.
The show itself is structured like Miss World: Twelve contestants are individually brought onto the stage, facing a barrage of demands from the drunk judges. Keibler introduces them with a “fun” mild sex fact. The level is pretty low, “she always does the housework naked”, and not particularly realistic sounding.
Each is asked a lame sexual question, where there’s an obvious “correct” (crowd pleasing) answer. If their answer is too wild for this uncensored PPV, then Coach freaks out and says “okay, okay, okay” over the top of them, and has them leave the stage.
The first eleven contestants keep all their clothes on at this point, but when the final woman, Staceie, takes her top off, Coach reacts with an audible “oh no!”
This weak setup is repeated twice(!) more, with the crowd getting more bored at the lack of variety.
During the show, there’s a 15 minute intermission, where video clips are played on the big-screen, one after another:
A promotional video for Wrestlemania XIX. A collection of clips from another Girls Gone Wild DVD. Coach reading Torrie Wilson’s edition of Playboy. A Behind the Scenes look at Torrie’s photoshoot (that was previously aired without controversy on SmackDown, to give you an idea of the level).
It feels like cross-promotional padding, and as always, WWE do a stunning job of trying to get even more money out of you.
The show starts to really fall apart with the “body challenge”. This is the storyline that had been hyped on WWE TV for the past few weeks. Who looks better naked? Nidia, or Torrie?
Back to our contemporary reviewer for their explanation:
Nidia comes out, refuses to take off her top (despite being a former stripper) and thus draws heel heat. Why you would want to piss off your audience? Torrie comes out in a bikini and Stacy does a tequila shot off her chest (only lasted about two seconds), and she’s about to take off her top when Nidia clocks her with a chair in a lame bit and they get into a quick fight before being dragged apart by security. Yes, they booked a WRESTLING ANGLE on a softcore porn PPV. And a bad one at that. Torrie is “injured” and Snoop is so concerned that he yells “Get the ass shot!” as she’s lying in pain on the stage. You wouldn’t think that you could fuck up a challenge where girls take off their tops, but there ya go. So basically they get people to pay $20 to see something you can’t see on Smackdown, and then deliver the same stupid non-finish you see on Smackdown and just as much skin, if not less.
The crowd are very deflated at this point, and it appears that their mics have been turned WAY down from here on out.
The twelve women from earlier are called out one last time for the Talent Contest. Drunk Test spins a wheel with a load of misspelled “talents”. “Balls in the mouth” is drawn: How many marshmallows can you fit in your mouth? “Fake an orgasm”: Moan unconvincingly until Coach gets scared. “Be GGW”: Take your top off.
Drunk Snoop chants his demands at each contestant until his microphone is cut off. “Git nekkid!” “Show your ass!” “Lift your shirt!” I honestly don’t know why they keep turning his microphone back on, as he’s utterly relentless. “Nibble my balls!” “Balls in the mouth!”
This round degenerates into more nudity and more pressure piled onto the contestants. The camera crew work overtime to carefully zoom, pan, and hide anything that might be a bit much. The vibe becomes even seedier with the drunken judges trying to push the envelope way beyond Coach’s limits. The stand-off is a bit tense, with these poor women in the middle facing a dilemma of getting booed for being a prude, or getting arrested for going too far.
It’s a horrible, no-win situation for the women. They don’t seem to really have been briefed on what is expected of them. One girl, a virgin, is booed for being a virgin. Snoop chants “you’re bullshit” at her when she won’t take her clothes off. She is absolutely within her rights to set her own limits, and it’s especially difficult to do with so much pressure on you. It’s a black mark against whoever cast the event for deliberately putting her in a situation she’s not even slightly comfortable with.
The entire event limps to a close with Donna Sun named Miss Girls Gone Wild 2003 – an accolade that seems to have disappeared from the Internet completely, along with Miss Sun. As the show runs out of time, women from the audience are invited onstage for the “world’s biggest flash”. Fittingly, it’s a disorganised mess where you can’t see what’s going on. Coach bids everyone goodnight.
Our horny reviewer summarises the failings in his mind:
It was scheduled as a two-hour show and it ended up running 80 minutes.
The show was basically sold on the WWE divas and none of them showed so much as a boob, which is ludicrous.
The Girls Going Wild weren’t particularly attractive or wild. Whatever the selection process was for the “final 12”, it sucked.
Their choice to run a live, outdoor show basically crippled their ability to do ANYTHING the least bit crazy outside of endless flashing. Where’s the drunken lesbian sex? Hell, some of the contestants didn’t even go topless! The point of the GGW stuff is supposed to be random people showing their stuff, not the same twelve annoying people walking on stage four times.
The Aftermath
The PPV was never mentioned again on WWE television. The initial expectations of 300,000 buys was first reduced to 70,000, but “indications are it won’t come close to that”. There was no second PPV, no international distribution, and no follow up storylines.
The Wrestling Observer reported that “most of the reports on the Girls Gone Wild PPV were very negative”
Joe Francis was arrested in Florida in April 2003. His taunting of local law enforcement backfired. Unrelated to the Live PPV, Girls Gone Wild had filmed children aged 16 and 17 in sexual situations. This was the start of many legal troubles for Francis, including tax evasion charges, bribery, and non-payment of gambling debts.
Girls Gone Wild was officially declared bankrupt in 2013, and Francis skipped the country with debts still outstanding.
Bischoff and Hervey continued their partnership, working on such cultural highlights as “I Want To Be a Hilton”, and “Beer Swamp Recovery”. They returned to the wrestling well with “Hulk Hogan’s Celebrity Championship Wrestling” and “Hulk Hogan’s Micro Championship Wrestling”, in which celebrities and little people respectively are taught to wrestle. Their endeavour shut its doors in 2019.
The event came back to slight prominence during Linda McMahon’s first failed run at Senate in 2010. Politico ran a long article about the collaboration, forcing a public acknowledgement of the event:
WWE spokesman Robert Zimmerman told POLITICO that the event was a one-time occurrence, for mature audiences, and that the firm has since gone from a TV-14 rating to a TV-PG one.
Since 2003, WWE have never reignited the relationship with Girls Gone Wild or Joe Francis. The event has become an embarrassing reminder of how bad WWE were at treating women with fairness, dignity, and respect.
Wrestle Inn 