DWW has some new blood in their Czech section and is trying to generate interest with a betting game. Predict the result of an upcoming fight, download it, and if your prediction is correct, you'll be refunded credits (not money, as far as I can tell). They only give us one day to send in our guesses.
I like this initiative, even though we should probably infer that the result is entirely UNpredictable. I have seen Marketa fight, and she's spirited and quite aggressive.
DWW has been in a rut ever since they launched their Hungarian HWW section. A while ago, the owner proudly announced that last year was their most prolific ever in terms of the number of fights released. In an apparently unconnected post, he bemoaned the fact that customers on average keep spending less and less money on his site, although the total number of customers is increasing. His reponse to this waning interest has been to churn out as many fights as possible. Well, gee, Guenther, I don't have a business degree, but don't you believe customers might be spending less money because they're disappointed in their purchases? Instead of releasing every single fight you have on tape, no matter how mediocre, how about releasing only the very best? We customers can't tell how good they are before we've paid for them and watched them. If we happen to choose a lacklustre fight indistinguishable from the one we bought last time, we won't be in a hurry to buy the next one. Even if you cut down your catalogue by half, there would still be more fights in it than any reasonable person has the time and money to watch.
Hyping a fight by letting us predict the result might turn out to be a double-edged sword. I'll probably download it. Hell, I'd probably have downloaded it in any event, having spotted two gorgeous blondes and the promise of hard-fought competition. But if the fight doesn't live up to the expectations that they've so deliberately raised in me, then I'm just going to jump off that sinking ship once and for all and head over to Foxycombat.
"This is THE wrestling match many of you had waited for. We were such excited once we could get those two beauties on the mat against each other ! Theoretically we had hoped for a great match and some rivalry but in reality it did finally even outclass our best fantasies !"
The company's back catalogue is both a blessing and a curse. When you've seen Luzia vs Barbara and Eva vs Jana, hype like that is bound to feel more or less silly and disingenuous. Also, those sly Austrians have priced this one at 6 credits, so unless you already have some credits left over you'll need to buy at least 10. (Maybe Guenther is taking his cue from his pal Hana at Foxycombat.)
So, is it any good? Yes, it is. The bickering and trash-talk ("barbie doll") is probably far from spontaneous and feels pretty stiff, but the tension between the girls can definitely be felt in their silent glares. They have a wrestling match for pins and submissions. They're both novices but creative. One pin is by a kind of reverse body press, where the winner is splayed out on top of her opponent whose head is trapped between her thighs. I don't believe I've seen that one used as a pin before. You can tell it's intense when one girl reaches for the other's hair to pull it and at the last instant remembers the rules. The cameraman doesn't dare to break them up when they're half off the mats. It's one of those rare fights where you feel that the outcome matters personally.
(I managed to predict the winner but missed the final score by one point. Apparently nobody else got it right either.)