Oh hello there! Simply can’t resist my charm, can you? Haha. Welcome back to the weekly Diva Dirt Impact Write-Up. Last week, we determined new TNA Knockouts Tag Team Champions in Angelina Love and Winter. We also saw a brutal attack on Velvet Sky by Sarita which left us all pretty certain that both of them had used a strap before. It was a touching brawl. Honestly, I was choked up. This week, the beatdowns between Sarita and Velvet Sky continue and Madison Rayne gives us a glimpse into her glamorous side. Hold onto your rhinestones, people! This is going to blow your bedazzled socks off!
Back from a long commercial break, we see Sarita in the hallway talking trash against Velvet Sky. She says how dare Velvet challenge her to a match. She also says she’s got something for her. Sarita shows the gold strap again and snaps it tight. “I am gonna whoop that ass.” Go on wit ya bad self! *snaps*
And it is on to true Knockouts action! Out first, set to compete in a Knockouts Strap Match, is Velvet Sky and damn, she is well equipped. She comes out, mile long strap in hand and she is just punishing the ramp as she makes her way to the ring. Can you blame her? If some crazy bitch beat the hell out of me with a strap, I’d be furious too. Although, I do have to say, it looks like Vel Vel has used that strap before. *whistles* Her opponent, Sarita, comes out next, dressed in her true Mexican colors but it comes off looking more like a late Christmas outfit. Definitely not a fan of this one. Apparently, in this match, the women will be strapped together at the wrists with that long strap keeping them together. In order to win the match, either Sarita or Velvet must restrain their opponent long enough to touch all four top turnbuckles without interruption.
Despite practically begging to get out of the match, Sarita finally gives in and the bell rings. It is on like Donkey Kong! Both women circle one another around the ring, trying to gain leverage but in a blink, Sarita tries to take her end and go home. But Velvet isn’t going to take it. She follows and bunches up her end of the leather, ready to strike. Not one to truly back down, Sarita charges and slams Velvet back into the ring apron, quick to make valid use of that leather strap. Thank you, Ma’am! May I have another? Can I just insert my “Ouch!” here and be done with it? Because that honestly looked like it hurt.
Sarita muscles the blonde bombshell back into the ring and wraps the strap around Velvet’s hands, dragging her around like luggage. She taps the first two turnbuckles with ease but Velvet isn’t sticking around for the third. She fights back, restraining Sarita until she can manage to drop her to the mat with a cluster of takedowns. In a trick manuever, Vel Vel crawls under her opponent with the strap and yanks, flipping Sarita over and snapping it off her wrist in the process. This gives Velvet ample room to make nice with her second calling: a dominatrix. After a few strikes, the referee fastens the strap back to a reluctant Sarita’s wrist just so she can fall right back into an assault from Velvet.
The spicier half of The Beautiful People is relentless, slapping that leather strap down on Sarita like a taskmaster. She finally wraps the strap around Sarita’s throat and, back to back, leans forward to choke her. Good for Velvet in getting some revenge from last week. Toting Sarita around like Santa’s gift bag over her shoulder, Velvet slaps her hand down on her first turnbuckle and heads for the second. She reaches for it and again, slaps her hand down on the casing. Little does she know that as she goes for the third, Sarita has also been touching her hand to each turnbuckle on the trip around. As it comes to the fourth and final corner, Sarita finally starts to fight back and ends up flipping Velvet over to the mat.
With a hard slap to the final turnbuckle, Sarita wins it! Oh, but her fun is not over. She takes that strap straight to the backside of Velvet Sky, punishing her even further. Velvet cries out, holding her back and arm. Sarita looks to continue her assault from last week but the other half of The Beautiful People, Angelina Love comes running in for the save. Sarita hightails it out of the ring and heads for the back, leaving Velvet to scream at Angelina in the ring. “Just leave me alone!” Okay Princess, I know it stings but there is no need for a tantrum. Now, go to your room and count to nine hundred. Backwards.
During the commercial break, Velvet is screaming at Angelina who just wants to kiss and make-up. Velvet takes the strap with her, heading to the back. Someone is feisty. We flash to the back where Angelina is seen looking for Sarita and oh buddy, does she find her. Quick on the attack, Angelina goes after the Loco Latina with no restraint, once again getting payback for her BFF. But as it has come to be habit, just as Sarita gets the upperhand and looks to use that gold strap on Angelina, Winter appears and grabs Sarita by the back of the head. I’m still not sure what curse she muttered in her ear but I’m pretty sure the next time we see her, she’ll have a shrunken head. I have to say though, Winter is looking fierce as ever but that dead quail wreath around her neck has to go.
Later in the show, we see Madison Rayne walking backstage dressed to the nines in a black evening gown. Her hair is done like she’s going to the junior prom and that Knockouts Championship must be her date for the evening. What she’s got up her satin glove? I have no idea. I’m going to assume it has nothing to do with Tara being backstage at Eric Young’s New Year’s Eve party. She causes a riot with her cougar ways but it’s short lived.
Madison comes out to the ring, introduced and carried by four men, albeit not so attractive men. They are all dressed out as if it were a black tie affair. They carry her down the ramp and all four of them lift the ropes so she can enter the ring, waiting like the good little man servants they are. The Champion takes her time, walking around the ring, waving to her loyal subjects. She allows all four men to kiss her gloved hand before moves onto SoCal Val, screeching at her to hand deliver the microphone. “Drink it in, everyone. Drink it in. I HAVE SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO SAY! SHUT UP!” Oh Madison. Such class.
She tells everyone that when she put on the $79,000 dollar, one-of-a-kind Vera Wang gown, she was just as speechless as they were. She basks in her own glory, talking about how perfect she is and it flows into a rip on Mickie James. Madison goes as far as mocking a Southern accent, calling the number one contender a cornfed, flannel wearing slut. HARDCORE COUNTRY! To defend her honor, out steps Mickie James. Where she got that top, I’ll never know. She comes out and rips the microphone away from Madison. “I guess this where I say something like..” POP! Mickie slaps the self-satisfaction right out of Madison’s mouth. To top it all off, she even rips that so-called “one-of-a-kind” dress right off of the Knockouts Champion’s back, sending her to the back in her lacy underwear. So much for all that perfection, huh?
Thoughts: I was satisfied this week. The match between Sarita and Velvet was solid, considering it was a strap match. It is always exciting when you get to see female wrestlers use foreign objects, no matter the capacity. Once again, however, Velvet is left the loser in the feud with Sarita. The play on a future feud with Angelina tickles my fancy because there is a sick side of me that loves to see happy couples break up. Of course, adding Winter as the “other woman” just makes things so much more interesting. Speaking of which, I think I am finally convinced that she is a VooDoo Gyspy Queen. She put some kind of curse on Sarita with that mumbo jumbo. Haha. I definitely see this helping Sarita on her quest to become a top heel in TNA, as you all pointed out last week.
Can I just say that I absolutely laughed my ass off during the Madison Rayne promo? She may be cheesy and have a voice like nails on a chalkboard but she can work a microphone. She definitely kept the insult trail fresh and hammed it up with that fake accent. I hate to say it but I think that small segment knocked that strap match out of the park. I certainly enjoyed it more. Even Mickie James made me smile. Madison probably has to be one of my favorite heels and honestly, as stale as she has been as Knockouts Champion, I think this feud might refresh her run. At least, I hope it does. She gave me that hope tonight. Now if only I can find the thrift store where she picked up that Vera Wang…
It was an interesting week on Impact this week, ladies and gents. It marked my fourth installment of the Write-Up and I am happy to say that I love doing this. I sincerely hope that you all enjoyed your Chrismukwanzakuh(you get it) and may you all ring true into the New Year! 2011 is bringing great things for all of us here. I can feel it. I look forward to sharing the first Write-Up of the new year with you all next week. Until then, let me know how you felt about this week’s Impact and how I’m doing so far. The opinions of the readers means a lot to us here at Diva Dirt. You keep us afloat. May you all be blessed with cookies and creme kisses as you travel into 2011! So much love!
37 Comments
at 10:21 pm
Hope to see at Genesis a bra and panties match :D
at 10:46 pm
I think Winter said “I am warning you. I WILL RIP YOUR HEART OUT.” but i’m still not quite sure.
at 10:47 pm
I love Velvet Sky so much, I wish she stayed 100% heel. The anger that came off of her as a heel was amazing, she deffinatley showed that tonight. Velvet isn’t as strong in the ring as Sarita but she does really try hard, she improved so much this year. But there still is room for improvment, I hope Velvet does well in 2011! Her storyline at the moment is giving me chills, Sarita bullying Velvet is perfect. Angelina mini brawling was Sarita was cool too, i’d like to see these 2 feud in the future aswell.
+ Lol at Madison trying to be country!
at 11:03 pm
great way to end 2010 very solid day for both ko’s and divas.
as far as the strap match go i enjoy it velvet really need that rub to step out of angelina’s shadow. and hopefully we finally see a good pay off of velvet and sarita feud hopefully another match at genesis.i am a big big fan of bully sarita i hope once her feud with velvet is over she feud with mickie those two maybe bring a lot of rating to tna.
can’t wait also next week when sarita and madison team up to take on velvet sky and mickie[weird tag though] hope turn into good mach.
as far as the segment go nice little segment between madison and mickie was good madison was kinda a goof when she trying to have a southern accent.i enjoy it a lot can’t wait to see mickie with the belt .and madison and tara should go after angelina and winter tag title belt and i really start to like winter i never knew she had it in her i know she is a great wrestler put if she keep it up that way i am sure she might outshine the psychos of the women wrestling like mickie and victoria/tara.
at 11:53 pm
I liked this segment, even though it was short.
I couldn’t help to laugh when Mickie was walking down to the ring & Madison was screaming “Come on down here Hardcore. She just finished her plate of corn bread.” Lol, the way Madison said it was to funny.
It was a solid way to end the year I would say. Storyline development going toward the PPV next month.
at 12:02 am
@TaraFan19
I though she said I will Crop your Head off….
at 1:24 am
I had to…
“You’re bound for Failure!”
“No, you look like Pocahontas!”
“Come’ on down hardcore”
“Just finished her plate of corn bread”
“SHE SHUR DID” – My favourite xD.
“Come’ on down here cowgirl”
“Just step your way on in this ring”
Just a few more reasons to love Madison :’)
at 1:51 am
“carried by four men, albeit not so attractive men”
Hmmm…nice lady you are. Those in glass houses…
at 1:53 am
“carried by four men, albeit not so attractive men”
Hmmm…nice lady you are.
at 2:22 am
I must have completely missed Angelina’s encounter with Sarita backstage?
I only complaint is with every impact, is it tends to over-look the previous week’s events. We have new tag champs in the form of Winter and Angelina, but they really didn’t capitalize on it, rather we have Velvet trying to extract revenge on the basis she’s fed up with Sarita, and she’s not a champion with her BFF, something only mentioned by the commentators, and not Velvet herself.
It would have been nice to have a short segment with Velvet/Angelina/Winter prior, possibly building on how the addition of Winter into the mix will effect things, as the possibilities are endless, ie jealousy, trust issues, and other insecurities, etc….maybe it’s just me thinking this anyway.
at 4:12 am
@swader Well last week’s Reaction addressed these aspects to an extent (very interesting to see Winter interviewed). TNA tends to develop some of their feuds quite slowly. I’m sure they’ll deal properly with the Velvet/Angelina/Winter feud eventually. Not to mention that it was good that Velvet was ungrateful about being saved by Angelina again, since technically that does incorporate the Beautiful People feud with the Velvet/Sarita one.
at 4:17 am
By the way nice Write-Up April. It covers everything that was important in the matches. I personally like reading more thoughts/analysis though.
at 5:41 am
I realize that logic does not exist in TNA’s booking procedures, and this Strap Match between Velvet Sky and Sarita continues that trend. One wins a strap match by touching all four corners consecutively. The word “consecutive” means “in succession without interruption”. If Velvet touches a corner, and Sarita touches that same corner immediately after, that is not consecutive.
Despite the non-consecutive touching of the first three corners by both women, awarding the match to Sarita for touching the final corner even though she came loose from the strap brings me back to the first sentence of this posting.
at 6:49 am
@deron2002 Back in the day, when strap matches were 20+ min main events to settle months long feuds, those were the ‘rules’. In TNA in 2010, when you have 6 min of tv time, the 1st person to touch all 4 corners wins.
It was okay for what it was, a different match where they could advance the feud without exposing the vast difference between Sarita’s and Velvet’s skill levels.
Madison, as always, was a hoot on the mic. (79k$ for a dress? They could get 5 pseudo-celebrities no-one cares about @ 15k each and still have 4k left to pay all the knockouts for the week.)
at 8:12 am
I’m not a fan of strap matches in general, but this wasn’t bad for what it was. Loving Sarita’s win streak. I wasn’t digging Velvet overacting after the match though. I get that she’s supposed to be pissed off, but her reaction seemed so over the top. I think because it’s Velvet it comes off less like real anger and more like a hissy fit. I’m sorry, but I can’t take Velvet seriously at all when she acts like this. When she’s being serious and trying to act all tough and badass, I just want to laugh, and her ridiculous ring gear isn’t helping her case. Velvet’s a good performer and all, but that’s something she just can’t sell. No one buys into Velvet Sky as a badass.
at 8:35 am
Trish and Ivory played the “OMG IM NOT WEARING ANYTHING OTHER THAN MY BRA AND PANTIES AND OMG IM SO FREAKIN EMBARASSED” act a lot better, imo anyway. Though, I loved it when Madison was poking fun at Mickie James and her country look. She delivered some funny lines as usual.
at 9:08 am
@ deron2002 – There have been lots of strap matches that have had that ending(not just TNA), hell…the JTG/Shad strap match from Extreme Rules had the exact same finish(even with Shad carrying JTG around while they touched the corners), so it’s not just a TNA thing, it’s something alot of companies have done.
at 11:32 am
Amazing write-up April!! TNA was different, but it was ok I guess, anything that doesn’t suck is ok coming from TNA. <3
at 12:40 pm
Evening gown match at Genesis for the knockouts title.
at 1:03 pm
madison is quite hilarious! and about the other girl…. have rien to say!
at 2:06 pm
@UncleCuc
Whether the match lasted 6 minutes or 6 seconds, the proper logic should still be used. If they want to change how a strap match is won, then they shouldn’t mention that one person has to touch all four corners consecutively.
@MaxPower
Of course, a lot of companies do it. That’s the problem. The reason that I singled out TNA is that I give somewhat of a damn about seeing them become more competitive, and part of that involves sensible match logic. To comment on your other strap match reference, the WWE having logic is a topic about which someone else can care.
at 2:52 pm
A great way to end da year for TNA.
at 3:28 pm
It was exactly like the Strap Match from WWF Luna VS Sable, but overall, I won’t complIain.
at 3:59 pm
@deron2002
I think you’re being a little too pedantic with the stipulation rulings. For a start, I don’t believe they actually mentioned the word ‘consecutively’ and instead ‘concession’, which Tazz surely meant to have said ‘succession’, which really just means in this case, to touch one corner after another.
TNA doesn’t have match rules on their website, but according to Wikipedia:
A Strap match, known by many names and done with many slight variations, is any match where the competitors are placed on the opposite ends of a restraint to keep them in close physical proximity. (…) The most common rule for victory is for one wrestler to have to go around the ring, touching all four corners in order and without stopping, although they can also end in pinfalls.
So it really depends on what constitutes a ‘stop’, and obviously TNA should have their own definition. If you listen to the commentary at 3:30 in the video above, when Velvet manages to stop Sarita from reaching the corner, Tazz says what sounds like: “Once it gets broken up, you start from scratch. She’ll have to start over at this point.” In concurrence to this, the referee makes an action with his arms right after Sarita stops trying to reach the corner and attacks Velvet, indicating that his ‘counting’ of the corners has ended. When Velvet starts touching the corners and Sarita does too, the referee counts the corners of both of them.
I think this is logical enough, and makes perfect sense. Clearly the rulings in TNA must allow both wrestlers to be able to ‘race’ to get all 4 corners, and that one wrestler reaching a corner doesn’t cancel out the corners of the other wrestler (which makes sense anyway otherwise you would need to completely disable your opponent long enough to get to all 4 corners without them being to touch any of them).
I agree that Sarita coming off the strap at the end was a bit dodgy. It’s hard to tell if it was intended or not, because the commentators didn’t mention it. But Velvet clearly complains to the referee about it, and Sarita seems to have sneakily attached herself back to the strap without the referee noticing. Anyone who watches TNA regularly will know that the referee is ‘rookie ref Jackson James’ who is prone to making mistakes regularly (such as his notorious miscount of Matt Morgan’s pin on Jeff Hardy at Turning Point, and also being distracted in the Mickie vs Tara Falls Count Anywhere match and not seeing Madison Rayne’s interference). The commentators should have commented about it, but if it was actually a botch, then both Velvet and Sarita did a decent cover up by making it seem like a plausible heel tactic of Sarita’s. And if it was a botch, you certainly can’t blame the booking.
Anyway, I don’t really think a minor issue like this is going to make TNA any more or less successful. TNA of course is trying to get viewers from WWE, and the majority of mainstream WWE fans aren’t going to notice, or even care about such minor things if they were watching TNA. I agree that there have been matches in the other divisions of TNA recently that have been quite illogical, but I don’t see this Strap match as being one of them.
at 5:39 pm
I know that Madison Rayne vs Mickie James would be a great match but it really dosent have prestige they are just putting 2 girls in the ring that can wrestle and expect them to put on a great match (witch they will). But the”so called” build up for this sucked. Hopefully they make this match mean something next week because I am not going to watch the match if there is really no meaning to the match! Like common! Hopefully next week they have a copple segments between Madison and Mickie next weer and also a segment for the KO’s at REACTION.