A Look at Sahara Spars' Heel Turn in WOW - Women of Wrestling

As a diehard women's wrestling fan, I absolutely love WOW - Women of Wrestling! It's been around for over two decades, yet I started catching this a few years ago on AXS TV. A lot of good talent from WWE, AEW, and Impact Wrestling have worked in WOW; women such as Santana Garrett, Diamante, Kiera Hogan, and Nikkita Lyons (who was in WOW as Faith the Lioness). AXS TV dropped WOW in 2020, and the promotion was largely affected by the pandemic, but they are back and have been since the fall of 2022, and their weekly series airs every Saturday evening.

I was so happy to see WOW back on TV, and with a mostly different roster of women. One such new addition came in the form of Commander Sahara Spars, and I literally beamed, because I recognized her as Amber Rodriguez, who has competed on the indy circuit for a decade. Sahara Spars was portrayed as being in the Coast Guard, and she was introduced as a babyface who fans could easily get behind. She had her foes in the form of The Disciplinarian and Samantha Smart, but she would have backup in the form of Jessie Jones, who respected Spars for her military duties. The alliance lasted for quite a bit, but it all came to a very abrupt end on the February 4 edition of WOW.

As the aforementioned latest episode of WOW seemed to reveal, Commander Spars turned heel against Jessie Jones, and it was off-screen to boot. As described by David McLane, Spars and Gigi Gianni actually attacked Jessie and Americana by smearing makeup all over their faces. That's it. Their past history was brought up; how Jessie saved Spars and stood by her, but during that narration, she wasn't referred to as Spars. Rather, she was referred by her real name: Amber Rodriguez. So in a fell swoop, the once heroic Commander now has a villainous gimmick and her real name, and she and Gigi were put right to work, doing so in defeat against Jessie and Americana.

I do like Amber's new look; it reminds me a bit of Shaul Guerrero's brief stint as the villainous "Ultra Diva" Raquel Diaz in WWE. Also, Amber's done the villainess thing before in wrestling, she is quite a natural at it. However, I was hoping that she would turn heel as Sahara Spars, because evil military villainesses are rare (though we are currently seeing that with Lacey Evans in WWE). Even though WOW currently has GI Jane acting as a villainess in recent weeks, it would have been epic to see a heel alliance between GI Jane and Spars.

Also, while I did like the turn, I wish we got an explanation for it right off the bat regarding what motivated the heroic Commander Sahara Spars to become the evil Amber Rodriguez. I had a few ideas, and I admit that they are "out there," but here they are. One idea is that some sort of strange military experiment caused Spars to develop this current heel persona of a bullying fashionista and cosmetologist. Another idea I had could see Amber having a split personality, with this persona taking over for Spars. Here's a wild one that entered my mind: maybe Amber could be portrayed as a con artist who posed as a military officer to gain fan popularity, and Jessie could have recognized Amber out of her ruse, leading to the attack. I admit, my ideas are a bit on the wild side, but I've seen crazier gimmicks in bigger promotions.

I've been a fan of Amber Rodriguez for several years. She's an amazing wrestler, and she plays her characters very well, no matter what they are. I loved her as Sahara Spars, and after only one week, I am really enjoying Amber's new heel gimmick and her look. I can't wait to see more of Amber on WOW; definitely one of the many highlights of their weekly program.

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