Before I even get started, I want to give a big, Southern Belle thanks to Jennifer who graciously stepped in for me last week and forced herself to write about Impact. I know that at times it can be depressing and rather unfortunate, but Jennifer was able to preserver and shed a beautiful, shining light on something I found repetitive and downright excruciating. She has inspired me to look at TNA this week with an open mind and a glass half-full approach, so Jennifer thank you for that. I will definitely be thinking of sunshine, rainbows, naughty time with my husband, Justin, and lots of ice cream.
Wow, did I really just use “Justin” and “rainbow” in the same sentence? Damn you all.
Ahem! Moving on to more important things tonight’s action. TNA Knockouts Champion, Madison Rayne, took on former champion and TNA Tag Team Champion, Taylor Wilde. Number one contender, Angelina Love, made her presence felt and in addition to the match, we got a fun backstage brawl involving Sarita, and a Chelsea appearance. Lots to talk about for a change.
Taylor Wilde is the first competitor in the ring. They make sure we know she’s a former Knockouts Champion and her outfit just leaves me scratching my head. Taylor, between you and I, that is not a flattering look for you! The champ, Miss Madison, is out next and she’s looking mighty lovely. Yeah, who am I kidding? Madison looks downright awful with her new hairdo. That’s a crying shame because she was so pretty before. Blah. Her outfit is great though. As Madison’s entrance takes place, the commentators run down Angelina’s dominance over Lacey and Velvet the previous two weeks, and finally it’s time for the match to get started. The girls lock up and Taylor takes Madison down early. She rolls over her, attempts a headlock, but Madison wiggles free and brings both back to their feet. She jerks Taylor’s head back by the hair and starts screaming in her face and waving her finger. Sheesh Madison. The referee slaps Madison on the arm to get her to stop and that understandably pisses off Madison because you’re not supposed to hit a woman. Madison whirls around to question his actions which allows Taylor to get back in the swing of things. She turns Madison around and slams her in the jaw with a convincing punch. Madison staggers but regains her balance and goes for a spear. Taylor ends up down on the mat and that gives Madison a chance to mount her and start punishing her.
The feisty little Knockout begins to slam Taylor’s head into the mat over and over, until the referee starts to bitch again. Madison unleashes her verbal fury on him but nonetheless, she gets up and drags Taylor over to the ropes. Taylor finds herself in a world of hurt as Madison starts choking her and pulling on her face. Madison backs off and sends Taylor to the opposite side of the ring. The blonde Canadian ends up using her momentum to reverse Madison’s offense and bring her down with a lazy looking hurricanrana. She attempts another fancy move, but Madison somersaults out of it. In the end, Taylor maintains her control and Madison ends up on the receiving end of another shot to the face. Taylor motions for Madison to get up and when she does, she pushes her against the ropes and chops her across the chest. Taylor goes to throw Madison across the ring, but the savvy BP member hangs tough and jerks Taylor down by the hair. Madison turns her back and Taylor takes the opportunity to run towards the top rope and spring onto it.
Hilariously she messes this up but ends up landing on the outside of the ring as if she meant to do that all along. You crafty little thing! Everyone stands there for a few seconds because their choreography has been thrown off. Thankfully Madison has the presence of mind to finally run at Taylor and swing at her. It’s pretty wild and Taylor ends up ducking, but Madison comes right back with a clothesline. It appears that Taylor had the same idea in mind so they both end up down and temporarily out. It doesn’t matter anyway because at this point, TNA rudely cuts away from the match because the ECW Originals have made their way into the Impact Zone via the crowd. We have Tommy Dreamer, Rhyno, Stevie Richards, and Raven. And of course the crowd starts to chant E-C-Dub, E-C-Dub while Madison and Taylor are forced to wither around on the mat so these ex-stars can have yet another moment. Awful.
Taylor is the first woman back up and she’s now full of fight. She rams Madison’s head against the turnbuckle and successfully scales to the top. She flies off, but Madison throws herself to the crowd so Taylor misses badly. Madison runs at Taylor and stomps the other woman’s head almost into the ground. She jumps on Taylor’s back and locks her in a modified version of the camel clutch which seems to be almost illegal. It is, because she breaks the hold pretty quickly but it has done what it needed to do and Taylor is on her last legs in this match. Madison picks her up, executes a cute little finisher, and Taylor is done. The champion picks up a much needed win. Madison celebrates her win but is quickly interrupted by her opponent for Victory Road, Angelina Love. Angelina takes a chair to the midsection of the champ and then she lays the chair out. Madison is pulled towards Angelina but thankfully she is able to escape a DDT to the chair! Angelina doesn’t seem to terribly bothered, but Madison looks terrified. She knows that she narrowly escaped with her TNA life!
And get this, guys. There’s more!
TNA goes to commercial but when it returns, all of us are treated to a little backstage drama. Taylor and Sarita are locked up and screaming at each other. Sarita gains the upper-hand and tosses Taylor roughly into a chair. She starts calling her former tag team partner a stupid piece of shit and slamming her into some various backstage equipment. She picks up a parking cone, mocks Taylor, and throws it at her. Then she grabs a heavy trunk on wheels and attempts to squash Taylor with it. Taylor moves out of the way and scrambles back to her feet and starts to fight back. And trust me when I say, there’s nothing lazy about these shots. They’re stiff and convincing, and Sarita ends up going ape shit. She starts yelling that Taylor doesn’t give a crap about her and she throws her object of her fury head first into some steel fencing. Security finally arrives on the scene and they pull Taylor away from Sarita. Taylor is fighting like a hellcat to get away and Sarita is telling the guy who grabbed her that she’s okay. Eventually Sarita sprints away and absolutely nails Taylor with a shot that’s pretty much echoed around the entire Impact Zone. Wow. I can’t believe I have to follow up something so awesome with the WCW!
It pains me to admit it, but the Weekly Chelsea Watch is getting a little dull. TNA had a golden opportunity to make this a really fabulous storyline, but like usual, they dropped the ball. It was another boring appearance for Chelsea. She was forced to walk to the ring with Desmond again, and she clearly didn’t want to be there. He made her hold his sunglasses and whatnot, blah blah. Chelsea stood there pissed off for most of the match until she finally grew a pair and stalked off. Same thing as last time I saw her, basically.
The Good: The backstage fight between Taylor and Sarita was pretty darn good, in my humble opinion. Some of the shots were weak, but Sarita was finally given a chance to show some aggression and personality. That’s all we could ever ask for, right? I’m definitely not a Taylor fan, but it was nice to see TNA doing something with her character other than just using her as a filler. She’s certainly had a huge fall from grace in recent months and no one can really dispute that. She went from champion to jobber to rarely seen and maybe this heel turn for Sarita is the beginning of something fresh and new for the Knockouts. A lot us want an alternative to the Beautiful People/Angelina Love saga and maybe, just maybe we are finally going to get it. I’m not holding my breath by any means because like I always say, this is TNA!
The end of the match between Madison and Taylor was pretty good. As bored as I am with this back and forth between Angelina and TBP, I like how Madison managed to escape the fate that Lacey and Velvet fell to. The build of the feud continued on nicely and Angelina played her part so well tonight. She didn’t seem at all disappointed that Madison got away. It just seemed to me that it made Angelina want Madison more. You can tell that Angelina is looking forward to dismantling Madison come the pay-per-view and if this ends up being a true one-on-one match, then I look forward to seeing it. There’s a lot of hate in this feud and I expect Madison to finally get her comeuppance. Hopefully, all this BP/Angelina hatred will come full circle and we can finally close the chapter on all of this.
The Bad: The booking of Madison/Taylor was extremely bad. I’m not going to say it was because of the actual wrestling, because that would be unfair. Madison’s weave and Taylor’s BP skank outfit had me way to distracted to actually care about what they were doing in the ring. The only time I stopped thinking about the bad outfit and weave is when the ECW originals started making their way through the crowd. It infuriated me because their appearance distracted everyone from the Knockouts and it became the latest example of how little women’s wrestling respected. In their glory days, the Knockouts would have never, ever had their television time interrupted by old, unattractive people (sans Raven who I just find deliciously sexy) who were trying to scrape together rent money.
Why did TNA have to use the Knockout match to further a WWE rip-off angle? We all know that this whole ECW Original stable is a blatant shot at the ‘E and the failure of the ECW brand. It’s stupid and hurtful to women’s wrestling as a whole and I’m sick of seeing crap like this on television. Just last week, we had to watch a mouth-watering match between Natalya and Tamina get scrapped because the WWE saw fit to have the Nexus interfere and cut it short. I love the Nexus angle more than anyone, I’m sure, but why hurt Nattie and Tamina for it? I don’t get the chauvinistic treatment of women wrestlers. I really don’t and I don’t feel like I’m being overly sensitive either. Every person who cares about Knockouts, Divas, SHIMMER girls, and those women who bust their asses on the indy scene should be pissed off by this. Women’s wrestling is better than this and it needs to be taken seriously. These girls work so hard for the exposure and they take the same risk as every man does when they step in the ring. Reward them. Don’t spit on them. Don’t give fans a reason to take a piss break when they come on.
I know, I know. Y’all are all thinking “what happened to the sunshine and rainbows and Justin Gabriel thoughts”? Blame TNA. Blame the WWE. Blame Percy Watson and all the women wrestling haters.
I’m not done with the bad, either. This whole Chelsea angle should just have a fork stuck in it. It’s done. Over. Finished. ZzZzZzZZzZzZzz. As much as I love the girl (and I totally voted for her in Diva Dirt’s Sexiest Woman poll), I’m just so damn bored with this. It’s absolutely not Chelsea’s fault. She’s doing the best she can. It’s TNA’s fault. They had a good thing with Chelsea and Desmond, the hot heel couple. They ruined it by giving her to Abyss and making her fall for him. They continued to eff it up when they had Abyss reject jealous. And now the entire storyline is downright cringe worthy by having Chelsea continue to stay with Desmond despite the fact she apparently hates him. I feel like TNA is doing this to try and get Desmond over as an even bigger heel, but they’re failing because they’ve done a shitty job of making Chelsea a victim. It’s really frustrating because male and female angles in wrestling can be so dynamic. This one has just fallen flat and it breaks my heart.
The Ugly: When I think of TNA and ugly, I think of make-up, hair, and wardrobe. The TNA Knockouts continue to make the worst dressed list and this week was no exception. Why Taylor Wilde borrowed her outfit from Velvet Sky is beyond me. It was so out of character for Taylor and when Madison Rayne strutted out to the ring in pants and a cute top, I was truly confused as to which woman belonged in the Beautiful People. Other than getting their respect back, my other hope for the Knockouts is that someone who has been through cosmetology school and has two working hands gets hired and gives the girls some help.
That wraps up this week’s dissection of Impact and all things superficial. Leave me comments. Follow me on Twitter (_trophyWAG). And continue being awesome, wonderful, sexy people.
Cryssi… out!
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29 Comments
first thought was why is Taylor dressed like a member of the beautifl people lol, was a ok match, but the ecw originals stole the spotlight,
the brawl was so cool, cant wait to see saritaylor feud, that slap at the end by sarita was awesome
Taylors hair is fucked up.
Taylor’s attire and Madison’s hair really distracted me. The match seemed all over the place. Some spots were fine and some both wrestlers didn’t know what to do next. This whole ECW angle is old and pointless. Can’t ECW just die already? It’s been dead since 2001 but first wwe brought it back and now Tna. The whole backstage segment with Sarita and Taylor was well done. Cryssi, I’m so glad to hear your not a fan of Taylor. She is just to generic for me to care about. She would be perfect in the Wwe, I wonder why they didn’t want her? Besides Kelly and Tiffany, she is the most bland female wrestler on mainstream tv. I really hope this segment means Sarita, NOT Taylor, is getting a push. With nonstop TBP/Angelina screen time, it would be cool to see someone else in the spotlight. Especially someone who is NOT blonde lol.
lol Was I the only person who thought Madison’s hair made her look very hot? Besides that I really liked the brawl between Sarita and Taylor.
I actually kinda liked Taylor’s outfit. But when Madison came out I’m like “What the F**K has this girl done to her hair. I liked the match until the ending. I’m not gonna complain about the ECW people because they took attention away from any kind of matches the past few weeks.
The backstage Brawl was good but they could have made Sarita look more dominating.
The brawl was awesome and well done, but I have only one thing to complain about in regards to that. Remember when the Xplosion results were posted and I stressed how important it was that they had those segments on IMPACT instead? When the brawl was happening last night, people on my twitter feed were down right confused as to why it was happening. I had to explain to them what had happen with Sarita and Taylor on Xplosion. TNA ATLEAST could of shown a recap of what happened before the match between Madison and Taylor. Also, there wasn’t really much of a build up of Sarita turning heel. Quit been so damn lazy TNA.
Atleast Sarita got her screen time on IMPACT last night. I agree with OhioFan1. I hope that she’s getting the push. Taylor Wilde has been pushed down our throats before and it doesn’t need to happen again.
that slap by sarita well it was not just a slap but whatever IT FREAKED ME OUT !! i re-watched it like a thousand times!! this was awesome !
i love Taylor’s new attire ! she looks hellaHOOOOTT! and Madison’s hair makes her perfect as the new biggest member of the BP…
angelina SITTED ON THE CHAIR WAS LIKE THE SEXIEST MOMENT EVER ! that was nothing but AAAAAAAAAAAAH I WISH I WAS THAT CHAIR!
The madison vs taylor match was ok but what really bugged me was the ecw people or whatever got in there.It felt like the knockouts are just nothing.They distracted everyone and hopefully this doesnt happen again.Tna has to understand the men gets the most time and not the women the women has correct me if im wrong 5 or 10 minutes or 2 matches while the men has the rest.
The sarita and taylor thing started to quick
i don’t view wrestling as a fashion parade or droolfest, so it was a really good week for me. it’s nice that they’ve solidified sarita as the heel in the taylor and her feud, now i’m hoping love does take the belt at victory road (even though i’d like madison to keep it and feud with hamada or rosie) as we could get a series of angelina/sarita matches somewhere down the line..
loved the way angelina was pure cotching in the chair at the end, taunting rayne. they’re both favourites of mine, so i can’t wait until next weekend.
Cryssi, great write up. But TNA probably put the ECW angle during the Knockout’s match because they probably thought that match was going to be the most boring.
And the Sarita and Taylor Wilde feud, if you don’t watch Xplotion then no one would know why they are fighting, right. But the brawl was backstage was very good!
Perhaps TNA put the ECW guys on during the Knockouts match because of the KO’s history of garnering high segment ratings? Or, as could probably be expected, to take another snipe at the division they have managed poorly in recent times.
Maybe this was also seen as a sort of throw away week since Angelina got her revenge on two of the BP already and the setup for Victory Road isn’t coming until next week?
@Onetooth no your not i thought the same thing Madision looked HOT espically with the hair
People that get distracted over silly things like hair and outfits during wrestling matches must get distracted the same way cats do when seeing a flashlight beam moving around on a wall. Come to think of it Taylor’s outfit was pretty sparkly, so maybe that was the problem :)
Taylor looked hot!
As for the ECW ‘interfering’ they had to come in at that time because the KO match was just before the main event. They didn’t cause that much of a problem with the flow of the match.
Everyone should stop bitching about the ECW people because they have made apperances weeks before this but this is the first time they interupted a Knockouts Match. This will happen with any match.
TNA will milk the same tactics far after they’ve lost their effect. In fact, I’m surprised we’re not hearing “git-r-done” jokes from them.
I have to agree though…the ladies in this match looked…erm, not their best. It appears to me that Madisons new do looks like a permanent case of “sex hair.” I really hope Taylor isn’t going to be wearing that outfit anymore. It’s not as bad as Roxxi’s brown thing though. Seriously, TNA needs to do something about their wardrobe deparment lol.
The match itself was OK, but nothing special. It didn’t seem like these two ladies had a lot of chemistry going on. Even if it was good, TNA would still have the ECW guys come out. How embarrassing. You TNA has been choosing to do these appearances during Knockout matches because it’s least important in their eyes…despite their high ratings.
“And the Sarita and Taylor Wilde feud, if you don’t watch Xplotion then no one would know why they are fighting, right.”
to be fair, taz was talking about their friction and so on during the match.
Thanks TNA thanks for selling out the KO divsion with old broken down ECW guys and agree with OHIOfan1 ECW is DEAD and it needs to stay DEAD…and Taylor Wilde
i can think of two really BIG reasons she still has a job with TNA…just sayin’
I Agree that Taylor not very good on the mic but she is a damn good wrestler and I enjoy watching her wrestle she got that high flying style that I like. I’m also happy that they pushing Sarita cause I always felt she could be a big time star if they just use her cause I’ve seen Sarah wrestle in other promotions and she flat out bring it.
one little thing …Sarita is Canadian not Latina..heh
“Blame Percy Watson…”
How dare you.
Other than that injustice, I loved the write up this week. I agree that the Chelsea storyline has fallen, and it’s a shame because she’s actually kinda over with the impact zone, but alas TNA for you. I thought the match with Wilde/Rayne was decent but I hated that they didn’t even recap the Sarita/Taylor stuff because the whole 0.8 of their audience that doesn’t get XPlosion out of the 0.9 they fully have, won’t know why that just happened like Shanti said. But eh, Sarita is on screen so I guess I shouldn’t be complaining. I liked the build for the Love/Rayne feud here, but I’m hoping Madison retains the belt as she’s had probably the strongest reign with the Knockouts Title since I don’t know how long. Anyways, to conclude my rambling, Great job Cryssi =]
Great to have you back writing Impact Cryssi. Pretty much agree with all you’ve said, except I admit I’m a Taylor fan. I love her style of wrestling plus I think she’s pretty cute. But her outfit was not working for me this week. And Madison’s hair…ew.
They should’ve put the ECW people elsewhere, its not right the KO’s only get one match on Impact & it gets attention taken away from it. The ladies did as well as they could though, and the backstage fight was awesome. Stiff shots and that last slap from Sarita was harsh. I hope they keep this feud on Impact to give us an alternative from TBP/Angelina.
I was annoyed with the ECW senior citizens showing up as well, I mean, Dreamer is the only one who hasn’t been in the company for years already. The crowd is braindead to treat this as some new exciting hot thing. Where was all the cheering previously for these guys? Where were all the complaints about them being used as jobbers or kept off television entirely for long periods of time? What exactly is so great about this angle, a decade after the company folded, using guys who were never stars from a company that TNA itself has already eclipsed? Plus, WWE already did it while said company was still somewhat relevant.
At the same time, a commenter above gave some perspective on the situation in pointing out that the ECW angle has taken time out of a few matches in the last month, so I don’t think they’ve specifically targeted the Knockouts here.
In other news, it was insane seeing a Knockout segment, one of the rare backstage segments these days and unheard of to not involve the now-clawless comedy act Beautiful People doing something predictably lame. Someone must’ve worked a miracle to sneak that one past Bischoff.
And Sarita does still count as Latina, being of Hispanic descent and being from North America. It’s not a USA-specific term.
I think people should be happy TNA gave time to the Knockouts and is trying to get 2 angles going for them.
Give me a break about the whole ECW thing. It’s not they only came out during a knockouts match as was said earlier than come out at different times the last few weeks odds are we won’t see it again.
Is it that ADD these days? Bored with the TBP/Angelina saga? They barely even started it, ran through it super fast, and didn’t really build for much of a payoff. Let’s face it, with the slim roster they have, that particular orbit of talent is what they have established so it only makes sense to pay it off. They have obviously scaled down the time going to the actual Women’s wrestling division, though they hadn’t ramped it up for very long either before the Hoganoff reign started.
What I’m trying to say is, if the ‘net community is whining for something new every other month, because what was new is now old, like kids that need a new shiny toy to keep them occupied, then don’t be upset when what you get are makeshift, thrown-together, one-and-done PPV type angles that leave most fans with a hollow ring. Then we call them repetitive. They rarely bother to invest in a longer storyline (which they actually didn’t here with TBP, it’s slapped-together and rushed for all of the history there) because the audience doesn’t have the attention-span to not play the Bored Card within 3 weeks. I feel the absolute opposite… I wish they would tease a bit more, slow the storyline down, and if Angelina has to be face, make her go through more hardships to run that gauntlet, the fans will appreciate it more if it is made to be worth something. If they can mail out ritalin to the ‘net fans, that is.
“i don’t view wrestling as a fashion parade or droolfest, so it was a really good week for me.”
Agreed. If Angelina Love couldn’t work, or at least be pretty damn above-average for Big 2 standards, what would TBP have been? Exactly this. A parade of strippers coming out to grind the ropes and piss people off with shoddy moves. The point was, there is wrestling at the bottom. Or at the core. Like a tootsie roll pop. You start with someone that can work, add on biker, tack on some rocker, dress with Bad Girls Club or whatever, and surround with heat magnets to make it work. It’s a shame that the mystique they had, backed by proper dues and at least decent cred, has turned into them being “old news.” As much as they might have some of those other elements with different talent, it’s not exactly going to be easy to catch all of those elements like lightning in a bottle once again. Old news or not, you build around that. You make it new news, however you have to.
Wow, I have lots of random things to say:
1. I find it scary how Madison Rayne has Angelina Love’s hairstyle.
2. Hey Taylor Wilde, Alicia Fox called and she said she wants her outfit back.
3. Why did the ECW originals have to interrupt such a wonderful match? More proof that TNA doesn’t give a damn about the Knockouts anymore.
4. I hope that nothing but good things will happen once Sarita is officially heel.
Actually, Garouix, this is the 1st time the ECW guys have come out during a KO match, as others have said, they’ve come out during different matches for the past 3 weeks, not just during ladie’s matches & they’ll come out during another match,probably not during a knockout’s match, next week.