Mud Wrestling

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

There's something appealing about the idea of two sexy women (or two sexy guys) fighting, which leads to the popularity of the Cat Fight and other related tropes. This trope takes that Up to Eleven by having the combatants grappling in mud. Despite its name, it doesn't have to be just mud; it can also be jello, pudding, or some other lubri---um, substance. The result is intentionally invoked Fetish Fuel, unambiguous pandering, and....and...sorry, what were we talking about, again?

Can result in Pass the Popcorn.

Examples of Mud Wrestling include:

Anime and Manga

  • Girls Bravo: Occurs between Kosame and Kirie.
  • Queen's Blade: Leina participates in several of these (but with oil instead of mud) to raise money for her travels.
  • In One Piece, the villain Caribou (whose Devil Fruit power lets him create and control mud) may have been designed with this sort of fetish in mind, as his attempt to kidnap Shirahoshi, was rather suggestive. But then, that is true with most scenes involving Shirahoshi.

Comic Books

  • Incredible as it may seem for the G-rated comic, a 1970s Archie story had Betty suffer amnesia and end up being exploited as a sideshow mud wrestler.
  • Mentioned, but not played straight, in the Monica's Gang story "Summer Vacation": during a troubled camping trip, Monica gets stuck in the mud, and Marina winds up like this as well while trying to help her. Smudge then comments "Yippee! Girls fighting in the mud!" (ignoring the fact that Monica and Marina aren't even touching to begin with) and gets beaten up by the girls in response.

Smudge: [after being beaten up] This camping trip is going to be way more fun than I thought!

Fan Works

Film

  • Stripes. While in a mud wrestling bar Private Dewey "Ox" Oxburger (John Candy) has a match against two female wrestlers, and ends up with both of their bikini tops.
  • All the Marbles has a mud wrestling scene involving the two female wrestler characters.
  • Happens in the 1999 film version of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
  • Bubbleboy has a handicap match where one of his opponents is former WWE Diva Stacy Keibler.
  • Mortal Kombat: Annihilation has Mileena vs. Sonya. (which inspired the page quote)

Literature

  • In Thud, Angua and Sally square up for a fight in a muddy underground tunnel. Sally eventually notes that they could sell tickets.
  • Subverted in John Varley's Wizard, when Robin and Gaby settle a grievance by fighting a naked hand-to-hand duel in a muddy field. The incident is treated seriously, the descriptions focus on their combat tactics rather than Fanservice, and there are no witnesses around to gawk.

Live-Action TV

  • In the Quantum Leap episode "The Leaping of the Shrew," an argument between Sam and a girl soon degenerates into mud wrestling. Al, watching them, snarks, "You guys should wear bikinis and charge admission."
  • Survivor features variations of this many, many times
  • Fort Boyard has one challenge featuring mud wrestling, with the female contestant trying to get past the wrestler to grab a key and exit the room.
  • Old School features this as one of the fraternity events.
  • Community has two examples. In a fantasy sequence, Annie and Britta end up fighting in a pool full of foam while dressed in cheerleader uniforms. In a non-fantasy sequence, Annie and Britta end up getting the contents of a drum of oil dumped on them and end up fighting.
  • Drake and Josh has a twist on this in one episode witht he two title characters wrestling not in mud but in a pool of chocolate milk.
  • There's a male parody in the Robin of Sherwood episode "Alan a Dale", where Robin and Guy attempt to fight by a river but fall into the mud, and end up thrashing around for several minutes in a futile attempt to land blows on each other. This troper's candidate for a Crowning Moment of Funny.
  • Happens in Relic Hunter. You can check it out here.
  • In Sledge Hammer! this was one of many indignities Sergeant Dori Doreau had to endure, doing so to rescue Sledge from two women putting on a show like this in a bar. At very least, she won the match.

Video Games

  • Rumble Roses has mud wrestling matches. Hardly surprising; it could have been called Fan Service Fighter.
  • Leisure Suit Larry gets a lucky draw to wrestle a woman this way in Leisure Suit Larry 5.
  • In Spellcasting 301, you have to help a girl win one of these as step one of a plan to win a wet t-shirt contest.

Web Comics

  • Shortpacked has Ethan fighting the Author Avatar, and Robin pushes them into a tub of pudding.
  • Skin Horse: Tip and Konstantin mud-wrestling is eagerly observed by the female staff of Annex One, including lesbian Gerda and nonhumans Gavotte and Sweetheart.

Web Original

  • The contest to choose The Nostalgia Chick came down to three finalists, so the The Nostalgia Critic declared they would settle it by mud wrestling. All three women flatly refused, so he just chose Lindsay Ellis and the other two anyway. Then asked them if they'd do the mud wrestling anyway. (No.)

Western Animation

  • In Avatar: The Last Airbender, there's a brief scene where Toph (an Earthbender) and Katara (a Waterbender) have an angry sparring match, with mud as the inevitable result.
  • In an episode of Kim Possible, Kim and Shego have a fight in a spa that, at one point, has then wrestling in the mud bath.
  • Beavis and Butthead once tried to get into a mud wrestling match, after practising between themselves.
  • In Teen Titans Raven and Terra have a fight in a big pool of mud, and despite both having long range telekinetic powers, they do end up grappling hand to hand a couple times.