Lingerie Fighting Championships: Lace VS Leather

Released by: Wild Eye Releasing
Released on: April 22, 2014
Director: Shaun Donnelly
Cast: Various
Year: 2014
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The Movie

Much like the tag line to Juan Piquer Simon's cult horror movie Pieces, Lingerie Fighting Championship: Lace VS Leather is “exactly what you think it is.” In other words, it's an excuse to ogle vaguely attractive bimbos as they roll around on top of each other and pretend to fight one another, all on the pretense that they're participating in an 'official' MMA fighting championship league.

We are introduced to the Lingerie Fighting Championship's history by the League President Ronny Taylor, a leggy, red-haired vamp. She explains that the LFC got its start after she watched a fight between two Ring Girls at an actual MMA match, and then got the idea that men would pay money to watch women with hot bodies fight each other. Hence, the LFC was born.

Lingerie Fighting Championship: Lace VS Leather covers the pay-per-view event of LFC 18: Las Vegas. The DVD goes back and forth from a reality TV styled movie to the actual LFC matches. The reality segments are staged like a documentary, but it's obviously a scripted movie based on the cast's campy interactions with each other and the staging of the sequences. Director Shaun Donnelly has a background in directing TV shows with a porn theme (Tight, The Boy Nexxt Door, Make Me a Porn Star), and that explains a lot about the way this movie is shot and its production values. The lack of IMDB credits for the cast of this movie prevents from investigating further, but I'm certain that most of the people who appear in this are actors, and probably also have a background in porn.

You're probably wondering if any of this is for real. The answer to that really depends on what your definition of “real” is. The LFC matches don't take place in front of a live audience. They're filmed on an obvious sound stage with the octagon cage and audience badly green-screened into the background. I'm serious. WWF No Mercy on the Nintendo 64 had a more realistic crowd. Lingerie Fighting Championships has apparently been ongoing for 18 events, but as far as I can tell, LFC 18: Lace VS Leather is the first actual pay-per-view event (with another on the way). Since the matches are obviously filmed on a sound stage, I question where the first 17 matches happened. Unfortunately, the LFC website doesn't offer many details regarding the league's history).

As for the fighting, well, the girls don't actually fight each other. The combatants get dressed up in awkward looking corsets and tutus and g-strings and throw shadow punches and fake kicks at each other. Eventually they get into the “ground game,” which involves a lot of rolling around on top of each other on the ground and fake choke holds, armlocks, leglocks, etc. The women go through the motions of having a real bout, but I've seen more realistic fighting go down during KY wrestling matches between drunk college girls.

One of the Championship fighters, Tara “The Guillotine' Gaddy, gives the most telling response when asked why she became a lingerie fighter. She said, “I have no idea what to say. I don't know why anyone would want to do this.” You and me both, Guillotine. Or better yet, who would want to watch this? People without access to pornography? Is there a niche group of MMA fetishists out there that only get off watching fully-clothed women pretend to fight each other? It's not sexy or titillating, it's just weird and boring. I feel more like a pervert watching this than Ultimate Surrender. At least the latter has realistic wrestling and hardcore girl-girl fucking.

Audio/Video/Extras

Lingerie Fighting Championships: Lace VS Leather looks about as bad you'd expect it to on DVD in 1.78:1 with an MPEG-2 encoded transfer. Calling the production values “porn quality” is a disservice to the many modern porn films that are shot in HD and 1080p. LFC: Lace VS Leather looks more like it was shot on consumer grade digital cameras. It has a borderline shot-on-video quality. The colors are washed out. The encode has an obviously low bit-rate, and even when the image is in focus, it lacks detail. As for the sound quality: the Dolby Digital 2-Channel Stereo track is serviceable. The dialogue is clear and easy to hear, but there's no dynamic range whatsoever. The fights sound as flat and uninteresting as they are to watch.

Extras on this disc include an audio interview with LFC fighter Jody Connacher and the hosts of Anarchy Radio, a music video for some obnoxious buttrock song called “Had Enough” that plays during the menus (the name of the band is never mentioned), a “Training Montage” of the women working out, commercials for LFC: Lace VS Leather, and trailers for other Wild Eye releases, including Tight, Disco Exorcist, Final Entries, Showgirls 2 and Murder University.

The Final Word

Lingerie Fighting Championships: Lace VS Leather makes Linnea Quigley's Horror Workout look like Citizen Kane. There isn't enough beer in the world to make this movie entertaining, and there are so many alternatives out there that I can't recommend anyone watch it. If this DVD sounds even remotely appealing to you, I suggest you watch WWE Divas or old episodes of Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling instead.