It’s funny how things can change so much in just seven days, yet still remain very much the same. Since last Thursday, it’s been one bombshell after another. In the last seven days, both WWE and TNA have made, I’m sure what they consider to be ‘wise business decisions’, in releasing Mickie James and allowing Tara to slip through their fingers. It is odd to watch this as a fan, as we effectively need to readjust the way we watch women’s wrestling on national television and prepare ourselves to no longer see two women, who combined, have probably entertained us for some 12-13 years. When it rains, it pours, right?
I say that things still remain the same because though these two extremely popular women have moved on or are going to move on, the status quo remains unchanged and that status quo is that the women aren’t considered as valuable as the men. Who’d have thought that Mickie James, the heir apparent to Trish Stratus’ throne, would leave under any circumstance other than her own? James seemingly had a meal ticket for as long as she wanted and seemingly had a send-off somewhere between Trish’s and the then-Victoria’s whenever she did hang up her boots. Where did it all go wrong? I’m sure you’re reading much speculation on the Internet, but it baffles me that WWE would dismiss the fact that Mickie was the most popular Diva in the WWE with audience reaction far more than that of some of the men they seem intent on pushing to the moon. Perhaps Mickie’s release should have been foreshadowed when WWE pulled a similar stunt in February, releasing Maria Kanellis, also extremely popular as proven by the fact that she won a worldwide fan vote for ‘Diva of the Year’ in December. Are the women that expendable? Are they that interchangeable?
Former TNA Knockouts Champion, Tara has CONFIRMED that is leaving TNA next month on her MySpace page. The blog comes after a report in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter revealing that Tara — real name Lisa Marie Varon — may be leaving at the end of her contract, which expires on May 21st. The Observer went … Read more
Two former TNA Knockouts Champions’ futures look uncertain going into next month. Three time Knockouts Champion, Tara tweeted that her contract with the company is set to expire next month amidst rumours that she may be leaving the company. The Wrestling Observer newsletter says: “Her contract expires at the end of next month and she … Read more
This Impact Write-Up is bittersweet for me. As great of a night as this was for the Knockouts, I think of the repercussions it had. We learned last week that at this particular taping not one, but two Knockouts were ultimately injured and it’s unclear when they will return. One of the stars of tonight’s Impact, Angelina Love, suffered a few injuries thanks to the segment we will get to see. I’m not sure how bad her injuries were or if she will miss any time, so maybe someone in comments can clear it up for me. I want to dedicate this Write-Up to Angelina and our Zombie Hot goddess, Daffney. Get well soon and get back ASAP. TNA needs you both and so do all of the fans!
Now with the sap out of the way, lets get down to business. A lot of us were annoyed last week with the lack of Tara and Angelina in our lives and thankfully, TNA made up for it this week. Angelina and Tara squared off in one amazing post match fight that gave Knockout fans from around the world ample opportunity to get to their feet and cheer their faces off. But prior to that, there was a match featuring brand new Knockouts Champion, Madison Rayne, defending against the two former champions; Tara and Angelina.
Skip ahead to 3:45 unless you want AJ Styles hotness!
Before the match starts, we’re treated to a backstage segment featuring the Beautiful People and to say they’re unhappy about Madison’s title defense would be an understatement. The BP are downright furious that Madison has to step into the ring against two former champions. As Madison rants, she points out that doesn’t even need to be pinned in order to lose her Knockouts Title and Velvet makes a highly disgusted sound. They talk about how it’s total BPD and after a minute, Lacey is like “oooh. Boston Police Department.” An awkward silence ensues for a half second before Lacey starts getting stroked and informed that BPD stands for “Beautiful People Discrimination.” Velvet claims that the minute the Beautiful People get things under control, TNA management literally starts falling over themselves to try and find ways to screw over the group. Lacey declares that no one can screw them and Velvet very gently reminds her that they can’t screw the Beautiful People “over.” Lacey agrees to that as well as Madison stands in the background shaking her head. Velvet’s getting super upset so Madison intervenes and says that as the new Knockouts Champion she is going to take care of both Angelina and Tara tonight. With the way the two of them have been barking over the title as of late, Madison will easily be able to cleanse TNA of not one, but two ugly people tonight.
A video package is played highlighting all the events that have led up to Angelina and Tara feuding and finally it’s time for the match. Angelina is the first woman to make her way to the ring and the crowd gives her a great pop. We’re reminded that she lost her title at Lockdown without getting pinned or submitting, and Tara comes out next. Tara has her mascot in hand and the cameras cut to a view of the ring where the referee is having to restrain Angelina from running down the ramp and attacking Tara before the match even begins! Tara reminds stoney-faced and taunts her rival, while the music of the Beautiful People begins to play. As usual, they make their way to the ring as the solid, cohesive unit they are and I must say, I want Velvet Sky’s shoes added to my closet right freakin’ now. Can someone please find out where she got them? Anyway, they do their usual thing but in a fun twist of events, the referee ejects them which leaves Madison on her own for this match.
It’s definitely a beautiful world these days when it comes to TNA. Last night on Lockdown, quintessential Beautiful People jobber, Madison Rayne, shocked the wrestling world as we know it and became the new TNA Knockouts Champion. The surprising win came just weeks after the title had changed hands in the controversial Lockbox segment. With the way TNA works these days, nothing should come as a surprise, but putting the title on Madison Rayne definitely made for great television last night in St. Louis. Lets take a look back at Madison’s historic win, as well as the long anticipated heel turn of Tara.
The Knockout portion of Lockdown begins with a video package highlighting the hot mess that has been the intertwining storyline these five women have found themselves in over the past couple of months. A rundown of the rules also takes place and the Beautiful People are the first team out. These three women look absolutely stunning. The best part of pay-per-views is the new ring attire that always debuts, and TBP did not disappoint. Between their amazing fashion and lesbian-like entrance, fashion gurus and pervs alike were satisfied. Not surprisingly, Tara and Angelina were given separate entrances. Tara was out before the Knockouts Champion and she took the time to pose with a guy who was holding a sign that read “Tara’s Future X-Husband.” Amazing. Tara was sporting a St. Louis Cardinals’ baseball cap (gag) and she had her precious baby with her as well. Tara gives a disgusted So Cal Val the spider, tosses the baseball cap to the crowd, and makes her way into the ring where TBP are just chillaxing. Angelina Love is out last and Velvet Sky starts to mock her ex-BFF by running around the ring with her hands behind her back mimicking being handcuffed.
Angelina pays no attention and starts pose, basking in her championship glory. She holds the belt up, showing it off, and finally gets into the ring in her own beautiful person style. She hands the title off to the referee, who shows off all three belts. Angelina and Tara don’t really seem to agree on who will start the match off, but Angelina eventually does and she takes Velvet down with a nice, girly spear. Velvet ends up getting beat on for a few seconds before she escapes, but since she’s not Houdini, she can’t make herself disappear. Angelina easily catches her and connects with an elbow, taking Velvet to the mat. Velvet is clearly flustered and scrambles to her corner while begging the referee for a time out. There’s no time outs in wrestling so Velvet smartly makes the tag and we get out first look at Madison.
Tonight, the TNA Knockouts Championship and Knockouts Tag Team Championships are on the line in a ‘Winner Take All’ tag team match set in a steel cage. Who will hold all the gold — The Beautiful People’s Madison Rayne & Velvet Sky or Angelina Love & Tara? The Diva Dirt writers weigh in: Cryssi: I … Read more
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.
Both the Knockouts Championship and the Knockouts Tag Team Championships will be on the line at TNA’s annual LockDown pay per view this Sunday, it has been announced. At this pay per view, where all matches take place inside a cage, The Beautiful People’s Madison Rayne and Velvet Sky will take on Angelina Love and … Read more
How’s that for a fast turnaround? TNA has uploaded a brand new Knockouts webmatch between Madison Rayne and Tara which was only taped on Tuesday night. Watch below:
Madison is first out to the ring with Lacey Von Erich in toe. Tara walks down to the ring a little bare, now that she is without her Knockouts Championship thanks to Lock Box-gate, the name of which is ridiculed by Taz. Our sentiments exactly, Taz.
As Tara poses in the ring with her pet tarantula, Poison, Madison flees the ring for her life seeking solace in Lacey VE. Madison eventually gets back in the ring and tries to act sexy and it comes off super unnatural. I have never bought Madison as ‘the sexy bitchy girl’ and I still don’t. Not to say she hasn’t worked hard in trying to develop into the role, but I still see the girl next door trying to act all sexy~ and it’s all awkward looking. Imagine Taylor Swift gyrating. Yeah… not pretty.
With Tara ‘mesmerized’ by her Kelly Kelly-like dancing, Madison goes for a kick but Tara grabs her leg and slams her down on the mat before mounting Rayne and hitting her with several haymakers. I’d like to think that Tara is unloading her tension over the night before here. Tara hits a scoop slam, takes off her top [as you do] and hits a beautiful standing moonsault into a cover but no dice.
Wow, I don’t even know how to start off this Write-Up. First, I guess, we all got a surprise last night when the 8-Knockout Tag Team match that was announced was mysteriously changed into this hot mess of a match with rules that were more confusing than a episode of Lost. If you want an in-depth explanation of what went down, please go and listen to the Post Raw and Impact Show or just watch this video of Christy explaining what’s going to happen with the Knockouts tonight.
So there you have it. The Beautiful People kick off the live Impact after Christy explains the rules and what’s at stake. Velvet Sky and Madison Rayne are looking adorable with their pink outfits and tag titles, but Lacey is missing in action interestingly enough. Velvet starts off by saying that the Knockouts continue to revolutionize this business and tonight the Beautiful People will own three of the four lock boxes. She claims they’re going to get the spider and squash it like they should have done ages ago. Then she says they’re going to get the open contract so they can dominate whoever they want, and last but not least, they’ll get the TNA Knockout Championship, which is apparently the highest honor for women in wrestling today. Madison takes her turn speaking next. She agrees with “Vel Vel” and says tonight the Beautiful People will get it all; everything they deserve and everything they are owed. While she’s talking, Lacey von Erich walks out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a smile and a fuzzy white towel. She takes front and center and says no one will ever forget the night they saw Lacey von Erich strutting around in her bra and panties.
LVE: “Tonight, everybody wins.”
Oh boy.
With the Knockouts basically spread through out the entire show, it’s awhile before we get another segment, but when we do, it’s Christy Hemme standing with Team Tara. Team Tara is comprised of soon-to-be former champ, Tara, Angelina Love, ODB, and Hamada.
After a crappy weekend and night for Diva action, fans turned to TNA in hopes that the Knockouts could shine a positive light on the face of womens wrestling. Impact featured a First Blood Match between TNA Knockout Champion, Tara, and her fiercest rival to date, Zombie Hot Daffney. But not only did we get that match, we got a new Knockout debut and a Knockout promo. Lots of lady action so lets get on with it.
The first thing we got to see tonight is the debut of a brand new Knockout and low and behold she is a somewhat familar face if you watched ECW a few years ago. Former ECW diva and Extreme Expose member, Brooke Adams, showed up on Impact in the role of Eric Bischoff’s personal assistant.
skip to 7:37
The segment opened up with Bischoff on the telephone with someone and the old man lover in me enjoyed watching this. I’ve always found Bischoff hot and I still do. But anyway, once Bischoff is done with his phone call, he hangs up and calls for Miss Something or the Other. The ex-diva formerly known as Brooke Adams comes shuffling into his office in a too short business suit, high heels, and *gasp* glasses. Bischoff tells her that there is going to be someone coming into his office later on and it’s up to her to stop that person, no matter what it takes. She agrees but before she can do anything, Jay Lethal walks into the picture, his stupid Macho Man Randy Savage gimmick apparently still going strong, and starts talking in jibberish which I can not decipher not even for the good of this Write-Up. Bischoff doesn’t really seem impressed and Brooke stands there like a pretty prop with no expression on her face. Lethal says something about the Megapowers and I start rolling my eyes and wish I hadn’t bothered with Brooke’s TNA debut.
Anywho, Lethal goes on and on, says something to Brooke, who finally blinks and moves a bit, and finally Bischoff has decided he’s had enough. He tells Lethal to go put together a main event or something, sends him on his way, and then looks up at Brooke. He tells her to go find Beer Money Inc. and of course she obeys, and hurries off. Well that wasn’t exactly “Serena Debut Awesome” now was it?
Twenty-four hours after Daffney and Tara wowed us with their impressive match at Destination X, the Knockouts were back in action live on Impact with an 8-Knockout Tag Team match that had a scary Diva feel to it in a sense that they were trying to cram as many Knockouts into one segment as possible. The team of Knockout Champion, Tara, Angelina Love, Sarita, and Taylor Wilde took on Team Beautiful People (Lacey von Erich, Velvet Sky, and Madison Rayne) and Daffney.
The Knockouts had the privilege of being the opening match this week and the Beautiful People were the first ones out. Madison and Velvet had matching outfits on again while Lacey stuck out like a sore thumb as usual. That said, the von Erich spawn looked gorgeous. Madison and Velvet had their tag team titles strapped around their waists and on a personal note, I love seeing these girls with titles. Their tag team partner, from Sybil, Texas, Daffney came out next in the same outfit from Destination X. She’s proudly carrying Tara’s kidnapped pet and the Beautiful, who have high tailed it to the outside of the ring, are freaking out over the gross little critter. Daffney is showing off the tarantula when Tara comes storming down to the ring. She gets inside before Daffney sits the spider cage thing down and threatens to stomp on it. Tara begs her not to do it, and that gives those sneaky Beautiful People a chance to sleek into the ring and start stomping and beating on Tara. For the second week in a row, Daffney and TBP work together and Tara is the victim of a four-on-one beatdown until Saritaylor come running to the ring to make the save in their horrendous, circus freak matching outfits. Angelina isn’t far behind them. Shit hits the proverbial fan and we have an eight woman brawl which has really gotten the crowd going.
The Knockouts Champion, Tara will face Daffney in a first blood match on next week’s episode of Impact. The show will be taped tomorrow night, so check back for spoilers.
After getting snubbed last month, the TNA Knockouts were finally allowed back on pay-per-view in the form of Tara and Daffney, and the match was for the Knockouts Championship. Over the past month or so, we’ve all sat and watched the evolution of Daffney. She’s gone from having a supporting role in matches to starring in her own and it’s been refreshing and rewarding for everyone involved and for everyone who has watched. A lot of people have been waiting for Daffney to finally get her chance at some Knockout gold. Just how successful was Daffney in her quest to rectify the fact she’s the only Knockout on the roster to never hold gold?
The Knockouts match is the first TNA title match of the night and probably the best one, and before the two heated rivals make their way to the ring we’re given the briefest of recaps about their history with one another. Mike Tenay and Taz run down a few things and they speculate that this could be the night of the zombie …hot. (Thanks for the title, TNA!)
Daffney makes her way to the ring first in a nice red outfit and tiny little hat. She has an extremely sexy entrance and once she rolls to the middle of the ring she lets out an ear piercing shriek that gets the fans popping. Tara’s music hits and the fans go crazy for her as well. She looks so pumped and focused for this match and she strides to the ring with a purpose. Once Tara gets into the ring she sits Poison and the title in her corner and goes right for Daffney. The women begin exchanging blows and after going back and forth, Tara finally gets the upperhand by knocking Daffney to the mat and then following it up suplex. Tara rips her T-shirt off, much to the delight of the fans, and hits her trademark standing moonsault. She goes for a quick pin but Daffney kicks out. This match is far from over! Daffney gets to the corner and lures Tara into her clutches. Tara’s face connects with the middle turnbuckle pad and Daffney begins jumping off the ropes and onto Tara’s back, painfully almost compressing the champ’s spine. It just looks terrible to take that abuse and for the opening minutes of the match it’s pretty insane to see. To add insult to injury, Daffney lifts Tara up by the legs and kicks her in the vajayjay. Here’s hoping Tara didn’t want to start a family anytime soon.
The TNA Knockouts Championship is on the line tonight when Tara defends against Daffney. Who will walk out as the champion? We weigh in: Cryssi: No one should win this match if TNA wants to continue this feud. It’s incredibly hot and everyone seems to love both women involved in it. I would enjoy seeing … Read more
TNA has removed the ‘First Blood Match’ stipulation to this Sunday’s Knockouts Championship match between Daffney and Tara. Earlier today, the company’s website uploaded a graphic which had the match labelled as such despite the stipulation not being mentioned on last night’s episode of Impact. It looks as though the stipulation has been dropped as … Read more
To follow the trend of recent weeks, TNA recycled their Knockouts’ storylines and twisted them into a pretzel to make both seem original. Was there progression? Did the it all make sense? Are we actually going to get a title match on pay-per-view this month? All these questions and more will be answered… after the break! Just kidding about the break! This isn’t American Idol and I am not Ryan Seacrest. If you do want answers, then you must continue reading.
The part of Impact worth watching begins with an amazing promo by Angelina Love. Christy asks Angelina how she feels seeing the group she founded walk away with the Knockouts Tag Team Championships. Angelina gets a great look on her face that’s a mix of disgust and annoyance that her ex-best friends are actually champions and she starts to vent about it. Angelina flat out admits that it sucks to see the group with the titles and that it made her mad. She claims she is going to do something about it and issues an open challenge to any member of the Beautiful People to meet her in the ring tonight. She says she doesn’t care which member it is because all of them have been ducking her for weeks and as far as she is concerned, they’re all trying to be like her. Angelina is an original, and she adds that she is going to start cleansing TNA one Beautiful person at a time.
After a promo featuring time wasters and a tag team match, the Beautiful People are seen backstage with their newly won titles discussing their options. They make plans as the show fades to commercial and after one more segment, we finally get our Knockout match of the night. Angelina comes to the ring first and her hair looks absolutely fabulous. Her ring entrance is short lived because as soon as Angelina gets into the ring, the Beautiful People’s theme song hits. Velvet Sky and Madison Rayne are carrying the titles on their shoulders while Lacey von Erich remains the sole possessor of the ugly stick. The three BP members are carrying themselves with a renewed sense of confidence this week and their smiles are so blinding white the Impact Zone doesn’t really need all those harsh lights while they’re around. Velvet has a microphone and she looks down to the ring with a sneer across her lovely face.
In something of a dream match for Knockouts fans, Tara will defend the Knockouts Championship against Daffney this Sunday at the Destination X pay per view. At least one promotion gets the March pay per view right this year… EDIT: This match is now a ‘First Blood Match’.
Tonight was a historic night for wrestling as round two of the Monday Night Wars kicked off and in grand fashion for both the Divas and Knockouts in my opinion. Both shows featured tag team action but on Impact we got a treat. With Awesome Kong basically done in TNA, the question has remained: “What’s going to happen with the Knockouts Tag Team Championships?” We got our answer and in spectacular fashion. Missing in action Knockouts Taylor Wilde and Sarita returned to television to take on The Beautiful People (Madison Rayne and Velvet Sky) and the team of Angelina Love and Tara in a triple threat tag team match.
Before the match gets underway, we’re told that due to the champions not defending the titles, Hamada and Awesome Kong have been stripped of them. That’s unfortunate for Hamada because she’s an innocent victim in all of this but life goes on and Tenay tells us new champions will be crowned tonight in a triple-threat match. Taylor Wilde and Sarita sort of get an entrance in the fact it’s nearly half over when the camera cuts to the ring area. They’re in terrible matching outfits but the fact they bother to coordinate their outfits give you a sense that they’re a real team. As the inaugural Knockout Tag Champs, it’s been far to long since they’ve actually gotten to perform on a televised show. The audience loves them and they receive a nice reaction as they play to the crowd and pose in the ring. Their posing is short lived because the theme music of the Beautiful People started to play and those three devilish Knockouts walked onto the ramp. They do their usual posing and flirting with each other, before finally getting in the ring and settling down for business. They know what a huge opportunity this is and how winning tonight could solidify this version of the Beautiful People as the real deal. Team number three consists of our Knockouts Champion, Tara, and ex-TBP member Angelina Love. Angelina is basically foaming at the mouth at the chance to get in the ring against her haters and Tara just looks fierce like usual.
Upon entering the ring, Angelina makes a beeline right for her former friends. Velvet and Madison are quick to get the heck out of dodge but a sluggish Lacey von Erich nearly gets caught in the clutches of a furious blonde Canadian. TBP start screeching at Angelina and Tara, causing an annoying distraction, and that allows Saritaylor to quickly go for a roll-up pin on both. The bell rings but before a count can be made, Angelina and Tara both kick-out. Nice explosive start to the match. Thankfully it doesn’t take long for the chaos to get sorted out and each team of ladies take a corner. Taylor and Tara are the two who officially kick us off. Taylor hits a nice kick to bring Tara down to the mat and she immediately goes for a quick cover. Tara kicks out after a one count but that doesn’t stop Taylor’s effort. She uses the ropes for momentum and goes to leap over Tara, but Tara catches her, holds her for a second, then just brutally drops Taylor down to the mat on her chest. In obvious pain, Taylor makes the tag to her partner. Sarita comes in, ducks a clothesline attempt, and delivers a nice modified neckbreaker to Tara, sending the Champ staggering. Sarita goes flying to the ropes to get momentum for a crossbody and Velvet smartly tags herself in. Sarita is unable to go for the pin on Tara and Velvet takes over.
On last week’s Impact we got the start of a potential feud between the crazy, off-the-wall Daffney, and TNA Knockouts Champion, Tara. This week, that upcoming feud was acknowledged and Daffney was in action yet again as she took on former Knockouts Champion, ODB. With two unique and alternative wrestling personalities clashing in the ring, memorable moments were sure to be made. Did these two ladies deliver? Well keep reading to find out!
ODB is out first wearing a small pink dress and clashing red underwear. Her hair is a very vibrant blonde and she just totally kills me. I don’t even know if it’s in a good way anymore. “Zombie Hot” is out next and I approve of her sexy ring entrance. These two women don’t really screw around and that’s super great. Daffney tries to drive ODB back into the ring post but ODB gets the heck out of dodge and Daffney ends up driving her own shoulder into the post instead. ODB with her flask still in her hand, smacks Daffney on the bum and then turns her around and lays a vicious chop to the goth queen’s chest. She throws Daff across the ring and smacks her in the chest again. Pretty nice start for ODB and she capitalizes by slinging Daffney head first into a turnbuckle.
Now things are about to get confusing and I’m bothered. TNA decides to split the screen while simultaneously having Tara cut a promo. What this does is completely take away from the action in the ring. I’m all about giving Knockouts mic time, but was it really necessary to have this going on while the match was? Couldn’t Tara cut her promo before or after the match? Why couldn’t she just get involved? Why were we forced to pick between the match on the left side of the screen or the promo on the right side of the screen? I know I shouldn’t be bothered by little things like a split screen of a match and a promo but good grief. Would it have killed TNA to cut the time of one of their other 9572035879203987420948 segments in order to give the Knockouts separate segments? It probably would have to be fair because this is the company who doesn’t believe in elevating young talent and has turned itself into a retirement home, while giving the WWE free publicity all at the same time with their squabbles over Hogan’s Hall of Fame ring.
It’s no secret that the majority of us have a love/hate relationship with TNA and all things about it. It’s easy to bash the company and it’s management, and to be honest, it’s one of my hobbies these days it seems. It’s not that I do it intentionally, because I don’t. I really want to like TNA and I want to seem them push the envelope and elevate their product towards the top so they can compete with the WWE and force the ‘E to raise its quality. Sometimes I think it’s wishful thinking, but nonetheless here I am with another Impact Write-Up and this week it’s going to be a pretty happy one. The TNA love came into play tonight when the company finally gave us some diversity and featured *gasp* Daffney. With the whole Beautiful People/Angelina Love soap opera we’ve watched play out over the past few weeks, Daffney was seemingly one of the forgotten Knockouts who got stuck playing second fiddle to the pretty people of the company. On this week’s Impact, she took on Knockouts Champion, Tara!
Daffney is the first competitor to make her way to the ring for this non-title match up. Taz makes a comment about how nice it is to see zombie-hot Daffney and I totally agree with him. Daffney has one of the better female characters in all of wrestling right now and she has years and years of experience behind her as well. With the exception of the hat she’s wearing, her outfit is totally fabulous. I absolutely love it. She looks amazing. Tara is out next and she looks cute tonight as well. Her body is completely ripped and she can pull off the beanie, T-shirt, and little shorts look so well. Tara has certainly started looking better as she’s gotten older which is a true testament to her amazing workout routine and the fact TNA has seemingly given her a new lease on life.
The match begins with both women jockeying for position. Daffney forces Tara back against the ropes and takes a wild swing at her, but the crafty champion ducks and just totally floors Daffney with a huge right hand. Daffney hits the mat but she gets up, so Tara hits her again, and then a third time! Daffney doesn’t let this stop her, and she gets up once again. This time Tara slams her foot into Daffney’s gut, doubling over the gothic beauty. She shows off her strength and hoists Daffney onto her shoulders, then hits a nice looking slam. Tara goes for the cover and gets a two count. Tara’s not really happy about that and she lifts Daffney up and goes to work on the other woman’s arm. Daffney defends against this and hits Tara with a knee to the stomach, then a huge uppercut. Tara staggers back against the ropes, get chest chopped, and when Daffney goes for the whip, Tara is able to reverse it and send Daffney across the ring. Daffney bounces off the ropes, ducks a clothesline, and comes flying back at Tara. Tara is ready for this and lifts Daffney up, back body dropping her with ease.
Daffney grips her lower back in pain and Tara starts to rally the crowd behind her. How does she do this? By being a diva of course and ripping her shirt off! At least there’s another top under her wrestling shirt this week, so we’re not subjected to any wardrobe malfunctions. Daffney has been recovering in a corner throughout all this and when Tara goes after her, Daffney unleashes a spinning heel kick that no doubt catches the Californian off guard. Tara goes down like a ton of bricks but Daffney is to hurt to go at her right away. Tara manages to slowly get to her feet and Daffney has enough instincts to go after her and make her stay down. This seems to give Daffney a bit of a second wind and she suddenly starts to remember why she’s such a sadistic you know what! She repeatedly snapmares Tara to the mat using only the woman’s hair (… and for you tender headed people out there that’s pretty cringe worthy). To make matters worse, Daffney has began taunting Tara and the referee for that matter, and she kicks Tara right in the chest. Daffney continues kicking the crap out of her opponent and finally just pushes her right out of the ring.
What would Valentine’s Day be without our Divas and Knockouts stripping down to their lingerie? This year, WWE, who usually love any opportunity to dish out a gimmick photoshoot, have actually gasp recycled last year’s V-Day photoshoot with a few pictures thrown in for girls that weren’t with the company this time last year [Gail … Read more
(** author’s note: To all the readers, I apologize profusely for this going up so late! My work schedule was nothing but mornings this week and it completely threw me through a loop! Hopefully the read is well worth the wait =D)
For the past few weeks, Impact has turned into the Beautiful People show and this week was no exception. As usual, Lacey Von Erich, Madison Rayne, Velvet Sky, and ex-member Angelina Love took center stage. Joining them this week was special guest star, Knockout’s Champion Tara. What did the fabulous fivesome have up their sleeves for us this week? Click the video below to watch or just continue reading if you can’t be bothered.
Before the match begins, we’re treated to an interview with Angelina and Tara. Right off the bat, Christy brings up the past history between the two former rivals and Angelina is quick with a rebuttal. She flat out admits that she didn’t care for Tara when she (Tara) first arrived in TNA. Tara takes it in stride and Angelina continues on by saying the past is the past. She brings up last week and the amazing match the two women had, then gets disgusted because of how the Beautiful People interfered. Tara mumbles “welcome to my world” but Angelina brushes it off. She says that last week she and Tara had each others’ backs and that this week it would be no different.
Christy, who’s been nodding along all this time, turns her attention to Tara and asks her if there’s a special plan to take care of the Beautiful People tonight. Tara says something along the lines of “…the plan for tonight is quite simple. It’s going to get Ugly.” A confident Angelina takes the microphone, puts on her serious face, and adds “…real ugly.” Great promo by both.
After the interview, the terrible ring entrance by the Beautiful People takes place. I’m all about flashy entrances, but they completely kill me (and not in a good way). Madison and Velvet having matching outfits is completely adorable and I really like Lacey’s boots. Angelina walks out to the ring next wearing something slightly trashy but what else is new? The girl does the trash look well and manages to make it not look disgusting like it would on most people. Finally, Tara comes to the ring. All I can do is pray for no wardrobe malfunction this week. It takes a little longer than necessary to get everyone settled but when they finally do, Velvet bravely offers to being the match against Tara. It takes all of two seconds for Tara to tag in Angelina and once that happens, Velvet is off and running. She wants absolutely nothing to do with Angelina and I don’t blame her. Angelina is one fierce mamacita and Velvet stands no chance against her!
Velvet seems to be heading towards the ramp and Angelina continues to stalk her. When Velvet sees she has nowhere to go reality sinks in. She’s totally stuck. Angelina is almost to her when Lacey comes up from behind. This doesn’t faze Angelina because she slaps the stew out of her replacement. Angelina climbs back on the apron where Madison is waiting to confront her. Needless to say Angelina doesn’t care what Madison has to say because Madison Rayne gets a boot to the gut for her efforts. While all that goes on, Velvet gets back in the ring and she starts attacking Angelina. She gets her former bestie down on the mat and begins to work her over, gaining the clear upperhand. A small “You Can’t Wrestle” chant breaks out while Velvet is offense but if she actually cares, she doesn’t show it. She happily chokes Angelina Love with the woman’s own hair. When Velvet tires of the choking, she gets Angelina in a position to whip her into the ropes. I kid you not, someone from the crowd screams “TAG IN LACEY” but that doesn’t happen… yet. (Dun, dun, duuuunnnn!) Velvet whips Angelina across the ring, but it does her no good. Angelina knows what’s coming and attempts to go on offense. Velvet anticipates this, falls flat on her backside, and rolls out of the ring.
Velvet wants none of what Angelina’s got, and that’s fine with the Canadian. She turns her attention to Madison and starts picking on her. The pastel blue attired member of TBP is pulled into the ring by her blonde and pink locks, and is forced to eat a face full of turnbuckle as a punishment. Angelina tags in Tara and the Knockout’s Champion gets her first taste of action in the match! Tara sunset flips in, goes for the cover on Madison, but only gets a two count. Madison gets up but is taken down twice with arm drags. She’s taken down again with a suplex and Tara rolls her over into a guillotine-like move. Tara does a great job of bullying Madison around the ring with various little moves and eventually Madison has to get out of the ring. Velvet and Lacey jump down from the apron and start to comfort their fellow BP member. The Beautiful People receive no sympathy for Tara and Angelina. Angelina gets into the ring with Tara and the two women bounce off the ropes and come flying at the backs of the BP with dropkicks. All three members go flying into the guardrail and I’ll let you guess which one took that bump awkwardly. Tara and Angelina celebrate their dominance as the match fades to a commercial break.
This week for the Impact Write-Up, I’m going to try something different. Instead of the usual match review with my comments thrown in there, I’m going to do just a plain review of the actual match itself and what led up to it, then at the end I’m going to list the things I enjoyed about Impact, and the things I didn’t. I hope this column turns out a lot neater and more informative than my two previous ones.
The Knockout portion of Impact started with an interview from both champion and later on, the challenger. Both put over the match and touched on issues that were impacting them at the moment, no pun intended. Angelina Love had a great line during hers; it was something along the lines of “I taught the Beautiful People everything they know, but I didn’t teach them everything I know.” Perhaps that foreshadows something to come?
After patiently waiting all night for the match, it finally rolls around as the main event of the evening. A video package starts us off highlighting Angelina’s ongoing feud with the Beautiful People. That leads into Angelina’s ring entrance and she’s looking pretty amazing tonight, in my opinion. She plays to the crowd, who clearly love her, and gets in the ring looking confident and relaxed about this match-up. Tara comes out second, with her championship strapped around her waist and her spider with her, of course! The match gets underway after the referee lets us know this match is indeed a championship bout. The two old rivals and new frenemies lock up and start jostling back and forth for position. Tara gets Angelina in a headlock and takes her down to the mat. She doesn’t let up on this but Angelina uses her strength to muscle Tara into a pinning position, but she barely gets a two count. The two women start moving around on the mat and Angelina gets Tara in a headscissors. What follows is a nice little series of wrestling between these two talented women. Tara rolls out of the headscissors and flips over Angelina, going for the pin. She gets a two count before Angelina bridges up. A few reversals happen and then Angelina executes a backslide and gets a two count before Tara wiggles out of it. The two women continue to actually wrestle before we’re interrupted by a far too long commercial break.
The match returns and we’re treated to even more chain wrestling from Angelina and Tara. Angelina takes the advantage for the most part of this, but Tara does a cutesy cartwheel thing and gets her upperhand back. It doesn’t last long before Angelina gets Tara into a pinning position and gets another two count. After Tara kicks out, Angelina gets her up and forces the Californian to eat a face full of turnbuckle. The blonde Canadian attempts to make Tara eat the opposite one, but the crafty Tara reverses it and Angelina finds herself in a world of hurt. Tara whips Angelina into the corner and charges, but Angelina lifts up and then rolls down Tara! She rolls her up for a pin but only gets yet another two count. Tara quickly gets up and gets Angelina in position for a nice sidewalk slam. She now tries to get a pin but Angelina powers out after a two count. Angelina is slow to get up and she’s gripping her lower back, but when she does make it to her feet she throws a few shots at Tara’s face then sends her into the ropes. She misses a kick and Tara catches her. She sets Angelina up for the Widow’s Peak but the crafty Angelina slides down and gets Tara in a pinning position. Tara rolls out of it and gets her entire body weight on top of Angelina, pinning her flat to the mat. Tara finally… FINALLY gets the W in a most amazing match-up.
Check out this bonus match between Daffney and Tara that was filmed in early January [before Tara won the Knockouts Title]. It has finally leaked to YouTube. Watch below:
All I have to say is thank God for the fast forward button. I thought I could be strong and sit through an entire episode of Impact tonight but man, was I ever wrong! It’s truly an excruciating show to watch and I literally watched the whole thing on fast forward until it came back from commercial break and we were treated to a shot of the Beautiful People backstage getting ready for their six woman tag team match. The brief segment (and when I say brief, it seemed less than thirty seconds!) was nothing more than two of the Beautiful People stretching each other out and the third standing in the middle looking like a little lost puppy. It doesn’t take rocket science to figure out who is who. Mike Tenay mentions that the Beautiful People will be in action later on tonight against the Knockouts Champion and Tag Team Champions, so of course I’m forced to sit here and fast forward through more garbage; aka old men desperately clinging to one last shot at glory they do not deserve. Blah.
I’m not one who reads spoilers so I was surprised to see that the Beautiful People actually got an interview. Christy Hemme made mention of the match but instead of asking them about their opponents, she asked them about Angelina Love. Velvet Sky spoke first and said that Angelina makes her sick and she’s just so tired of hearing about her. Velvet basically ripped on her former BFF and claimed that Angelina just wasn’t cut out to be a BP so that’s why she got to steppin’. Unfortunately Madison Rayne decided to talk next and she made me LOL IRL. Apparently Angelina Love is so 2009 and the Beautiful People have moved on to bigger and better things. Kudos to Madison and Velvet for keeping straight faces through that preposterous comment. Madison talked about how the Beautiful People were aiming for gold and rubbed her waist to signal that’s where it would it up going. I absolutely refuse to repeat the rest of the segment because I firmly believe everytime Lacey Von Erich speaks God kills a kitten and I just don’t agree with animal abuse.
We finally get to the match and the Beautiful People are out to the ring first with a horrible choreographed ring entrance. As cute as their pink outfits are, their antics just aren’t this week. I hated von Erich’s awkward flip over the top rope and I when I went to pause the match to dissect the ring entrances, I paused on a shot of Velvet’s bottom which does absolutely nothing for me. Madison’s hair looks absolutely terrible and in my opinion, Velvet just doesn’t seem to have as much fun anymore. Awesome Kong and Hamada make their way out next and if this is truly Awesome Kong’s last match in TNA, I’m sure going to miss her. She’s got the best entrance music ever and it just scares me to see her stalking down towards the ring because I sure wouldn’t wanna face her! Tara gets a nice reaction from the crowd and I chuckled at seeing TBP freak out over the spider.
The match gets started pretty quickly with Hamada and Madison Rayne. There’s not a whole lot of messing around at the start of this like there was in last week’s match and that’s always good to see. Hamada takes Madison to the mat with a wicked kick and doesn’t let up on her offense by chopping the pink and blonde headed beautiful person. This continued for a few moments before Hamada decided to unleash her inner Undertaker and do his “Old School” type of move by walking on the top rope while hanging onto Madison’s arm. Hamada put her own twist on the move by flipping down and executing a weird looking arm drag to which Madison bounced back up from. Madison is able to make the tag to Velvet, who stayed in the match for approximately two point two seconds before tagging out to LVE.
