Tough Enough Redux

Tough Enough Season Five was a reality show on MTV from April to June 2011.  The premise of the show was that contestants would learn to be pro wrestlers.  The most talented member of the group who survived all ten weeks would win a WWE contract.

From the start, two front-runners were Martin Casaus and Luke Robinson.  Both athletes were already wrestling in Indy feds.  Both won three competitions on the show, more than any other contestants.  Both were fit, muscular, handsome, and determined to win.

The two were portrayed as opposites with cute kid Martin being cast as a heroic, eager Baby-Face while sexy Luke was depicted as a cocky, over-confident villain.  There was a feud in the making, and in their interviews, it was very clear that there was no love lost between these rivals.

In episode seven of the ten-week series, poor Martin suffered a freak ankle injury while in the ring.  He was taken to the emergency room and told he would have to quit the competition.  CRY  CRY  CRY!

For fans of the show, this was a tough blow — we were all pulling for this Baby-Face to win and achieve his dreams.  The bad guy Luke (perhaps happy to see his biggest competition going home) took the opportunity to give Martin a cheek-to-cheek goodbye hug.  Anyway, another dude on the show ended up winning in the end.

But the fans never had closure  We never found out who WOULD have won between these two studs if Martin had not been injured.

Fortunately, Martin’s ankle is now fully healed and he continues to compete in Independent wrestling, and so does Luke Robinson (who also performs for some less mainstream wrestling feds using a different name).

So a Tough Enough re-match is possible.  In fact, their paths crossed in the UCW ZERO federation earlier this year where they set up a match to find out which of the two men was truly Tougher.

To build heat for the match, both men provided some insulting interviews to mock, challenge, and flirt with one another.  The best is the below video where Luke delivers a sexy, homoerotic speech calling Martin a “little bitch” and threatening to “snap that pathetic little twig that you refer to as an ankle.”

Luke absolutely purrs on this video like a Batman villain as he makes fun of Martin’s weight gain, crying spell when he left Tough Enough, and cowardice for running home rather than staying and fighting for his dreams:

So on 3/31/2012, the two rivals finally met in the ring to settle it like Men .  Cocky Luke Robinson wore skin-tight boy shorts that were cut to show off his bulge, thereby highlighting his masculinity and sexy pervert nature.

The good boy, Martin, wore white from his ass-hugging square cuts down to his knee-high kickpads.  He is playing the White Knight out to slay the villain.

Luke, whose body is still as hard and ripped as the day he was screwed out of his well-deserved Tough Enough victory, has been teasing Martin about his recent weight gain.  The jawing and mockery continues as the two prepare to really hurt one another…

They battled back and forth, each man finally able to inflict pain on his  long-hated rival.   They also show off the slick moves and beautiful suffering that they learned on Tough Enough and elsewhere.

Martin is the local Baby-Face, born and raised right there in Utah and co-owner of the UCW federation that is promoting this show.  So he of course suffered the majority of the abuse from the visiting show-off, to the chagrin and outrage of his loyal fans.  They love it when Martin gains control and the cocky Bad Boy, who told Stunning Steve Austin he is a “future legend,” is on his knees howling in pain.

Martin is too good and honest to be true, like an old-school Baby-Face from the 1980’s.  He is always polite, humbly thanking everyone for helping him and giving him an opportunity.  He overcame his ankle injury and is stronger than ever.  He always talks about his goals and hard work and trying to become a better person and have an amazing life, like Oliver Twist or somebody.

When asked to describe himself in an interview, Martin said: “I like long walks on the beach, wearing spandex, and I smile a lot.” Wow, what a perfectly Facey thing to say.

The captions and photos make it sound as though Martin Casaus lost the match (because the cruel sadistic side of me wants him to lose to Luke).  Actually I think they wrestled to a draw.  So we still don’t have an answer!  The burning question of which contestant was dominant is still not finally resolved!  (But in the wonderful world of wrestling, is anything ever finally resolved?)