Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months, it’s plain as day to see that the Knockouts division is slowly going down hill. The girls are being turned into pretty face divas instead of being allowed to get down and dirty, and be the Knockouts we all know they can be. This week’s Impact was another sign that the times are changing with the little Florida based company that desperately wants to compete with the billion-dollar empire that calls Connecticut home. Last week’s lock box disaster included contract winner, Velvet Sky, announcing that she would be facing Angelina Love in a Leather and Lace match. We got that match this week (sort of) and a lot more.
Angelina is the first competitor to make her way to the ring. I’m not seeing much lace on her outfit, but whatever. She’s got the TNA Knockout Championship strapped around her waist so I guess she can do and wear whatever she wants. That’s fair. She looks gorgeous, either way, and right at home with that title. The crowd gives her a nice reaction and it’s cool to see Angelina as champion again even if she won it in a cheap way. Velvet comes out second and she’s got her title and a microphone. She stops at the ramp and announces that tonight’s match is not going to be leather and lace because none of the perverts deserve to see her goodies (nevermind that she was more covered up this week than usual). Angelina rolls her eyes, not surprised, because she knows better than anyone than Velvet is all about shenanigans. Velvet smiles so pretty and says that tonight she is going to face Angelina in a handcuff match and that she was gunna whip that booty. Angelina perks up and gets annoyed, especially when the referee starts to manhandle her. He slaps those cuffs on her pretty tightly and Velvet makes her way to the ring once Angelina is secured.
To Velvet’s surprise, Angelina is the first to mount some offense. She stiffly kicks Velvet as she’s slipping between the ropes. Velvet goes down and begins screeching her head off, while Angelina happily puts the boots to her ex-best friend forever. The referee eventually pulls Angelina off Velvet, which gives the devilish Miss Sky the chance to grab the Knockout Championship and hit Angelina with it. Angelina goes down like a ton of bricks and Velvet takes control. She motions for the microphone and tells everyone that she forgot something. The match is now under “I Quit” rules. Velvet starts to beat on Angelina and show her who the true beautiful person is. Angelina basically has no fight at this point because well she’s handcuffed and got smacked with a gold belt. The beat-down is pretty weak, but props to Velvet for protecting Angelina during it. Velvet continues her offense and in a really cool spot, she starts choking Angelina with her own hair. Once Velvet tires of that she gets up, grabs the microphone, and demands that Angelina say those two magic words. Of course Angelina refuses.
An annoyed Velvet goes back to work. She slams Angelina’s face into the mat over and over, then grabs her riding crop and makes good use of it. Angelina refuses to quit again, so Velvet picks her up and rams her head first into one of the turnbuckles. Angelina is dazed and woozy, and Velvet screams at Angelina that maybe she will quit if Velvet strips her naked. Why am I not surprised it’s going there? The crowd seems to enjoy that idea so Velvet rips off one of the Angelina’s five layers and demands that she quit. Angelina repeats herself. In fact she says, and I quote: “I said no, you bitch.” Velvet goes nuts and that’s the signal for Madison Rayne and Lacey von Erich to come bouncing out. Lacey’s smiling like always. Madison is all business. They start a 3-on-1 assault on the champion. It doesn’t take long for Tara to make her way out and make the save, clocking LVE in the process. The Beautiful People scatter and Lacey cries that Tara slapped her boob, lol. Did I really just write that?
Tara has the key to the handcuffs and finally frees Angelina. Angelina is a little shaken, but seems pretty grateful for the help. She extends her hand towards Tara as a peace offering of sorts, but Tara refuses and turns her back on her tag partner for this Sunday’s match. Angelina simply shakes her head and we find ourselves left with some more questions, but ones that have seemingly predictable answers.
The Good: The Knockouts will be featured on Lockdown this Sunday. In this Bischoff/Hogan Era, the Knockouts appearing on a pay-per-view isn’t always a done deal. I’m thrilled we get to see the girls in action on Sunday and I really hope they’re given a decent match. It’s unfortunate their match announcements are only coming a week before the PPV now, but in this instance I think that’s kind of okay given how long they’ve been building up this Beautiful People/Angelina and Tara feud. These girls have been mainstays on television for awhile and they’ve been given the matches, promos, and segments to make this a pretty memorable contest.
Angelina and Velvet work very well together. This segment was sloppy, yes, but both girls played their parts extremely well. I love the fact Angelina refused to give in. She was portrayed as a prideful, stubborn bitch which is everything a champion should be and more. A lot of us disagreed with the way she got this title, but since it’s done and over with, we all have to look at the bigger picture now. TNA has always loved Angelina as champion and I expect her to get a good few months in as the premiere Knockout, feuding with Tara along the way. I fully expect her to retain at Lockdown and become one half of the tag champions along with the aforementioned Californian, so we’re going to get set up for the classic “Can I Really Trust My Parter” storyline.
Not sure if this was a good moment or a bad one, but it was one of my favorites last night. When the Beautiful People started their 3-on-1 beatdown on Angelina, Tara came out to make the save. Madison and Velvet got the heck out of dodge and Lacey stayed in the ring. Tara clocked her pretty good and it was just funny to me because I even said to my TV, “get out of the ring, Lacey.” Maybe I’m the only one who picked up on that but it was great, haha.
The Bad: The segment as a whole seemed a little off to me. I’m not sure if it was because of the commentary or what. The beat-down was not as vicious as it could have been. Velvet should have beat the crap out of Angelina, but instead she just went through the motions. Sure, she did great doing just that, but Velvet is in the middle of a huge push and I just expected a little more. The handcuffs were great but beating Angelina with a riding crop? Those things just don’t hurt. Nevermind how I know that, but take my word for it. Why not let Velvet use the ugly stick to beat Angelina ? I believe that would have made the attack look more brutal and personal.
The fact Velvet didn’t make this match for the title was also bad. I know the Beautiful People basically play the ditzy blonde gimmick and whatnot, but she had the chance to have any match she wanted. Anything at all. Why wouldn’t she make it for the title? This could have been a great segment with a fantastic swerve if Velvet would have done her beat-down, made this for the title, and pinned Angelina to become the new champion. It just would have been unexpected and would have further this feud a little better. Lockdown could have been a bloodbath and Angelina could have gotten the belt back. TNA has already made a mockery of the Knockout Championship by allowing it to change hands via lock box, so why not whore it out for the purpose of making a hot storyline smoldering? I’m just sayin’…
The Ugly: Velvet got screwed character wise by TNA management on this one but what else is new? Tara got screwed last week. Sarita, Taylor Wilde, ODB, and Hamada get screwed every week. The Beautiful People are on the cusp of having the shortest tag title reign in Knockout history which is ridiculous because they’re the only legit tag team the company insists on using. TNA is poor when it comes to booking and using people correctly but since my expectations are so low at this point, I wasn’t too horribly bothered by what I saw tonight. I don’t really consider it to be that ugly. It was just a mediocre night for all of wrestling.
Lockdown is this Sunday and The Beautiful People will face off against frenemies Angelina and Tara. The winners will take everything in this match seeing as how all three titles will be on the line. I’ve already said that I think Angelina and Tara will pull this one off and be forced to co-exist as tag team champions. The next few weeks/months are going to tell us a lot about TNA. Are they going to start taking the Knockout division seriously again? Time will tell, but I won’t get my hopes up. I’ll take it one week at a time and focus on Lockdown. Who doesn’t want to see Lacey von Erich wrestling in a cage?! My bold prediction is that she will have a huge moment in the match. Her moment will be so big that she will leave us all with our mouths agape and shaking our heads going WTF DID THAT REALLY JUST HAPPEN?!?!?!?!111?!11?? Believe it, guys. Lacey is going to come into her own one day. Why not Lockdown Sunday?
And speaking of Lockdown, I’m out until then. Sound off in comments about Impact and vote in the poll below. What direction do you see the company going? Did you actually enjoy Impact?
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32 Comments
it was a lame night for the knockouts, velvet is great on the mic it’s one of her strong points
I’m still optimistic about Lockdown, I’m sure Lacey will be on the outside of the cage for the match, i think it’s the first time velvet has been inside the steel cage, who knows maybe it’ll make her step up her in ring skill
was velvet lisping a lot? or was it the mic
Not see your goodies? Girl, please – we see ‘em every week!
Dear TNA,
Please stop with the commercials during Knockouts matches.
Sincerely,
Lady Sheamus :P
Looks like Tara raids Angelina’s locker for attire every week now. : /
I wasn’t feeling this Knockout segment; I got distracted remembering when the “plots” were more interesting/coherent.
Cryssi-
Great write up. Lacey being too dumb to run was funny. I like your ppv prediction about her. Isn’t it time for Angelina re-heelize, her not wanting walk around like a “lady of the night” interview was, as she would say, whatever
i dunno why not just have them wrestle wherent the knockouts at one point the most watched on the show? dixie better step in i think & say hey the women here can go as good as the men lets do that since wwe wont they should…
Impact was…meh. The beatdown was weak and sloppy. That has to be the lamest I Quit match in history. BTW why did the ref feel the need to pull Angelina off Velvet in the corner, but its fine for Velvet to hit Angelina with the belt?
The segment was a mess. The beatdown was sloppy, the storyline is still a pointless “I hate you bitch” story, which is just boring as. They all looked horrible, especially Tara, she looked like a bat or something. I think the PPV will be interesting and probably much better than anything we’ve seen on Impact! over the last few weeks. There will be 3 compotent (spelling? lol) wrestlers in the ring, and there is a cage involved. The result is kind of predictable because of the ‘Winner Takes All’ stipulation, but the ring work should be loads better.
I also liked your prediction about Lacey Cryssi. You’ve always stood up for her and why couldn’t see moonsault off the top of the cage, she can do them lol. Well maybe that’s a bit too rash for Lacey, yet I think she could have a good spot.
“The handcuffs were great but beating Angelina with a riding crop? Those things just don’t hurt. Nevermind how I know that, but take my word for it.”
cryssi?
almost missed that one
word taken
tee hee
This was just stupid….I expect better TNA. It’s sad just to see the lack of effort. It wasn’t just the Knockouts thought, all of iMPACT! was pretty bad. “rumor has it” that people at TNA realize that the last set of impacts were horrible, and blame is being pointed at The Hulkster. So atleast they realize they were bad, and hopefully try and make the next set of iMPACT!s good. Too bad they screwed up Lockdown, one of TNA’s best PPVs.
Normal matches with a storyline base would draw the same rating, or even higher, then this stupid “Leather and Lace” match.
This Lockdown build up has been pretty bad. Which sucks, because last years was so good. Lockdown was epic last year.
I expected good things to come from Hogan coming to TNA, but it’s obvious he doesn’t know what he is doing and is living off his name. If I were TNA, I would keep Eric Bischoff, and get rid of Hogan. Only good thing they have done is brought in the four sided ring.
I agree, Cryssi, Lacey will come into her own one day. She will be a big time face sometime in the future. Hopefully not too soon though, I like her in TBP.
“was velvet lisping a lot? or was it the mic”
velvet’s always had a bit of a lisp. it was much more noticeable on her early tna promo work, but she still got it.
for me, velvet not putting the gold on the line wasn’t that big of a deal. the belt didn’t even factor into the equation until last week, it’s not so much a feud over the gold (that’s where tara comes in) but a feud over who’s better. besides the impact match ended without a winner lol.
minor note, lacey isn’t included in the match line-up, unless they change their mind. which is okay, i guess. i’m torn as to which way they’d go. the tara/love feuding partners role, or angelina rejoining the beautiful people. i do know which i’d prefer, though.
ooft iMPACT is going down the drain and Hogan and bischoff are completely to blame.
I am really not surpised anymore about what happens with the knockouts. I can see the knockouts becoming more like the diva’s everyday. I am just not sure who writes this garbage. This is just a complete opposite of what we saw last year at this time. But with that being said, I hope the knockouts can pull off a good match on Sunday. I am still not happy with the queen of the cage not being added to the lineup. But what can you do?
suebenden8 wrote: “I am just not sure who writes this garbage.”
When you see a gimmick match, a match with weird stipulations, run-ins, screwjobs, or matches that just dont make any sense, then it’s most likely Vince Russo. He has been doing it since the 90s. He doesnt like standard (simple) wrestling, he always likes to make things more complex than is nescessary. He had some very big successes with it in the past, but usually he goes overboard with it.
what do people think about this…..I Hope Tara and Angelina win because can you remember when shawn micheals and john cena had the tag titles they hated each other with shawn costing them the titles i have a feeling that this is going to happen…and then angelina will join the beautiful people or just velvet……but if velvet and madison won then as i said in a earlier post velvet stills has that championship match that she got from that key box match so as soon as the match finishes she can cash it in to be the first person to hold both titles at once….Just a Thought…
and out of the 4 knockouts one of them will make history of being first knockout to hold both titles at once!
” ITS GONNA BE YOU HANDCUFFED IN THAT RING WHILE I WHOOP DAT ASS ” lmfao when she said that i was cracking up and then when LACEY said something about her boob i was done. its really sad to say this but i think in 2 more months the KNOUCKOUTS division will be on the RAW divas level.
Impact this week was pathetic. Lol, I thought I was the only one who noticed the boob comment by Lacey! XD
Anyways, this could’ve gone over very, very well, but the execution was simply stupid. Wh did Velvet not make it a title match? Why did she state the pervs/oodie comment when her boobs were hanging out? Why was the ref so damn brutal? All questions that are so dumb they shouldn’t be asked.
*sigh* It’s days like these that I thank the Lord for Lacey Von Erich.
I wasn’t impressed with the knockouts tonight.
I loved it when Angelina said “I said no you BITCH!” lol loved it.
If nothing else, last night provided some great quotes by Velvet, Lacey and Angelina lol.
Lol, a night of fail, except for Lacey’s boob quote.
Looks like TARA borrowed MELINA’S pants from her last photoshoot and VELVET borrowed TRISH’S boots from her T&A (test and albert) days lol.
Ratings:
Quarter4: 0.85 was the highest of the show. During the knockout “match” it dropped to 0.78, but its only a minor drop and naturally RAW started on the other net, so you cant really draw any conclusions about the ratings this week.
ok so either way we’ll crown a new champ or champs i say angelina and tara better win because NONE Of TBP are ready FOR THE KNOCKOUTS TITLE
The TNA Knockout match was the epic fail of the week. Velet should have put more into her attacks like Cryssi said then the match with have been decent. More and more ever week, TNA is dropping the ball on the Knockouts and they’re the best part of the show in my own opinion. TNA a word of advice: STOP listening to Hogan on how the Knockouts should be used. I’m sure he, Bischoff and Kevin Nash have had put their input on the Knockout divison.
Love reading your stuff Cryssi! Always entertaining and I agree just about every time. I was disappointed as well, I actually didn’t watch it last night, just waited for the write up on here. I didn’t miss anything as I expected. And having all titles on the line at Lockdown in a tag match always seems really over the top and unnecessary. IMO it cheapens both the tag titles and the knockout championship by stating TNA doesn’t have the time or effort to put into an actual tag team to face TBP (I mean if they don’t want to use the great tag team they have in Saritaylor at least bring in another legit team like The Experience or the IHWC or someone!), or maybe a rematch between Tara and Angelina or a 3 way between Tara, Angelina and Daffney.
But I ask for too much from TNA nowadays methinks..
And this may be the only time I ever say this, but I’ma say it.
Velvet looked *smokin’* in that outfit! First time she’s ever wore anything that I really liked.
I thought Velvet looked smokin hot too!
Love reading all these comments, guys. Glad to know Impact being “meh” was the general consensus tonight. <3
Did anybody notice the fan altercation between the Beautiful People and those two girls in the front row? Velvet and one of them exchanged words, then Velvet pulled up her skirt and mooned her before walking away. She’s so classy lol. Then the iMPACT Zone chanted “You scared!” as they walked to the back.
No Chelsea this Impact?
Did anyone else notice Angelina is wearing a “beautiful People” T-shirt?
Expected Better from the Knockouts , this was not entertaininga at all
I don’t get it, it’s Velvet’s rules she could had an ‘Angelina strapped down on the mat’ match and got away with it, yet it wasn’t for the title? Maybe it shows TBP hatred for her is so strong the title doesn’t matter, but still, if I won a no limits booking right, I’d be making it as easy for myself as possibly.
I’m tired of this whole feud, it feels like Angelina winning the KO title was just to give this storyline the spotlight for fans who tune in for T&A. I mean that ‘Hell yeah’ after Velvet declared she was going to strip Angelina was far louder than Knockouts match as of late, the Knockouts can say they’re not about Diva looks all they want, but it shows they’re fans aren’t quite on the same level. Also Velvet calling Angelina a slut bitch before she spoke, its all just juvenile, like who can say the word ‘bitch, whore and slut’ the most, compared to the other, it’s the same old TBP drool we’ve had for years and they don’t show any signs of freshening up anytime soon. Also, how did Tara and Angelina get this match? It just screams a Tarangelina win because surely if Velvet hates Angelina that much you’d book it Velvet vs Angelina for the KO title and not put Velvet in the vulnerable situation and stick Tara in there because its the law for her to be in every match.
Nice write up, I don’t know if my view of TNA’s hypocracy is just overshadowing my capability to look at this match, or whether it is as actually as ill-thought out as I’m saying, but this feud never really got off the ground. Sure, it had more than Maryse vs Eve, but it’s just wound on and on and on. Angelina’s been back how long now? She’s still in the same feud as when she returned.