This past Thursday, TNA lead us into a featured Knockouts competition with a quick promo to hype the debut of Sarita – definitely something to look forward to in upcoming weeks.
Next is the contest of The Beautiful People, Angelina Love and Velvet Sky vs. the team of Awesome Kong and Victoria. I’ve never quite understood the appeal of wrestling in mini skirts, but nonetheless The Beautiful People make their way to the ring looking as tawdry as ever with a prop-donning Madison Rayne as their escort. Awesome Kong then enters, still accompanied by Raisha Saeed. As Victoria’s presence is felt, we see the notorious black box attached to her hip, which is only a haunting sign of things to come.
In the mist of jam-packed Knockout action, TNA features ODB and Madison Rayne in a webmatch. As Madison Rayne begins to approach the ring, the first thing that strikes me is her unrecognizable entrance theme. In the very few times that Velvet Sky has wrestled alone, we’ve seen her enter with the Beautiful People’s music. … Read more
For all intents and purposes, the Knockouts Title match between Angelina Love and Victoria (Tara) failed to properly live up to the hype and positive development surrounding Tara’s highly anticipated debut. It wasn’t, however, a wasted effort (imagine your mother’s matronly voice telling you that she’s not mad, just ‘disappointed’). While the aspiration seemed to be there, last night’s match just did not live up to the quality of work I’d expect from either competitor.
While we here at Diva Dirt were correct in predicting the outcome of the match, ayone who has ever prayed for brighter days in the women’s division would have hoped for a better showing of Tara’s experience and Angelina’s abilities. Now, we were not a complete loss as this was not a bad display by either lady. However, just as Tara begins to build momentum at the very start of the match, an interference from the Beautiful People occurs, which is to be expected in a match of this caliber. Velvet Sky and Madison Rayne make due of their purpose to keep the competition in Angelina’s favour with the help of good timing and negligent officiating. Though, not before Tara hits a snapshot-worthy spinning backbreaker on the Champion. Tara neglects a pin attempt for a piece of the Bratz dolls. Before long, many calculated attacks are exchanged between Tara and Angelina’s lackeys, which consequently takes away from the entire feeling and purpose of the match. At some point, it seems as though Tara makes a costly decision to eliminate outside interference by taking out Velvet and Madison, but wastes precious time in which she could have become champion. In the end, the heelish advances pay off when Tara receives a mouthful of proverbial hair spray and a devastating kick in the face for her troubles … and for the finish. Angelina lives another day, another accolade, as your reigning TNA Knockouts Champion. You like her, you really like her?
With Angelina retaining the Knockouts title and Awesome Kong slowly being pushed back into the title picture, the possibilities regarding the division have rendered themselves endless. Though, I wouldn’t count Tara out yet. This match just screams ‘stepping stone,’ and an apparent ‘holding back’ for greater things to come. Whether or not she will eventually earn the belt still seems to be without question. I’m not sure what kind of game TNA is playing here, but seems to revolve around specific timing and circumstance.
Watch the match below:
Thoughts on the Monster’s Ball & video after the cut:
The Beautiful People have made history as the first Knockouts to take the promotional campaign for a TNA pay per view. Knockouts Champion Angelina Love, Velvet Sky (“Vel-Vel” ugh!) and Madison Rayne are the poster girls for the company’s July PPV, busting out their patriotic best for the poster – despite the Knockout front and … Read more
Two thirds of The Beautiful People were interviewed by Phil Strum of the Poughkeepsie Journal, who maintains his own blog called Under the Ring. The original two thirds, Angelina Love and Velvet Sky talk about the addition of Madison Rayne and more. On Rayne, Sky dishes: Madison’s really come into her own. At first, we … Read more
Welcome to Diva Dirt’s new feature – The Weekly Roundup, a look at the week in television! From Raw, SmackDown, ECW and TNA too, we look back at the week’s highs and lows as well as giving you the opportunity to catch up on what you’ve missed!
MAY 30th – JUNE 5th, 2009
This week has seen some solid TV efforts from WWE, an okay week for TNA and the emergence of women’s wrestling on ROH. This week saw the first time in history that Diva Dirt has covered ROH on HDNet & we’re very happy that we did…
Best Bet: My highlight of the week came from ROH, as it incorporated sister promotion, SHIMMER into it’s broadcast. I have to be honest and say I haven’t really seen much of SHIMMER or any of these girls before but I was thoroughly impressed by the triple threat match on HDNet last Saturday. If you haven’t yet seen it, check it out after the cut – it’s well worth it. I hope ROH does more “SHIMMER Lite” segments in future. (PS: I’m already preferring ROH’s production style to TNA’s rollercoaster sickness style on Impact).
Honourable Mention: Like last week, SmackDown gives us our honourable mention of the week with an outstanding six Divas tag team match.
Low Point: I felt this week’s Impact didn’t see a strong enough followup to last week’s fantastic debut of the former Victoria. Not only has she been renamed ‘Tara’, but she’s also stuck in a one minute segment from a two hour broadcast. Not a good followup at all.
Check out all of this week’s videos after the cut:
For all the SHIMMER fans out there who are waiting on pins and needles for the next set of DVDs to hit the market, I got some big news out of the last SHIMMER tapings. – Roxxi (using her SHIMMER name, Nikki Roxx) returned to the company, picking up singles wins over Cat Power and … Read more
With the recent release of TNA Knockout Roxxi, more reports of Rhaka Khan‘s poor backstage etiquette are flowing in . Turns out Roxxi isn’t the only Knockout Rhaka had beef with. First on the Rhaka’s hit list is rookie Knockout, Madison Rayne. Upset that she was late for a spot during a match, Rhaka delivered an … Read more
Welcome to Diva Dirt’s new feature – The Weekly Roundup, a look at the week in television! From Raw, SmackDown, ECW and TNA too, we look back at the week’s highs and lows as well as giving you the opportunity to catch up on what you’ve missed!
APRIL 19TH – APRIL 25TH, 2009
This week has been huge for the Divas and Knockouts, possibly the most action packed week of wrestling so far in 2009! Over the past week, we have seen all three of the major women’s titles on the line; the Women’s Championship, the Divas Championship and the Knockout Championship were all defended.
Best Bet: My standout of the week was the Women’s Championship match from Raw, as Melina successfully defended the title against rival, Beth Phoenix before moving over to SmackDown.
Close Call:Angelina Love‘s Knockout Championship victory at Lockdown was definitely a highlight of the week, as she finally captured the belt, but I personally preferred the Raw match.
Low Point: This week’s low comes from ECW’s booking of their new Diva, Natalya, as she jobs not once but twice to Hornswoggle in the same week. Pitiful.
Check out all of this week’s videos after the cut:
It’s finally here! Videos from Lockdown have finally surfaced and here we go… First up, I’m going to dive right into the match we all want to see. Angelina Love defeating Awesome Kong and Taylor Wilde to become the new Knockout Champion:
LOCKDOWN: TRIPLE THREAT KNOCKOUT CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH
A very good match, as always from the Knockouts. Tying Kong’s braids to the cage was inspired lol… whoever thought of that, great stuff. It kept her distracted for Angelina to pick up the win. It’s a shame the match had to end the way it did, after Angelina got knocked silly from that crossbody by Taylor. I would have liked a more definitive finish i.e. Angelina hitting her finisher on Taylor for the three count, but I understand they had to rush to the finish because Ang was out of it thus the quick pin after Kong hit the big boot on Taylor. You could tell that she was still out of it in her post-match celebration. It’s a shame, but hey she is Knockout Champion now so all is well.
April is shaping up to be the biggest month on the calendar for both the Divas and the Knockouts. After this Sunday’s huge WrestleMania event, wrestling fans can look forward to TNA’s annual Lockdown pay per view. That event will see all of the matches contested inside a steel cage. TNA has revealed the following … Read more
Impact Watch Welcome to the Impact Redux! This Week’s Impact pitted the newest beautiful person, Madison Rayne against the talented yet boring Taylor Wilde. To add fuel to the fire The Beautiful People and Cute Kip were at ringside as well as Roxxi and The Governor and Traci Brooks as guest ref: Taylor Wilde vs. … Read more
More TNA News! YAY! Also coming out of this week’s Impact Tapings, Madison Rayne seems to have made a heel turn. In a tag match against The Beautiful People, Madison slapped her partner Taylor Wilde and left her at the mercy of Angelina and Velvet. Does this mean the rumors are true and Madison will … Read more
Recognize this face? It’s Ashley Lane, half of the SHIMMER Tag Team Champions. It looks like she may have one more credential to add to her resume: TNA Knockout. According to TNA’s Website Ashley will be competing in her second TNA match under her new ring name, Madison Rayne.  There will be a Knockouts Gauntlet Match on “iMPACT!” … Read more
As a frequent visitor of this site I noticed something that I found strange. A lot of you guys are not familiar with SHIMMER. For shame people. SHIMMER is the cream of the crop of women’s wrestling. Anyhoo, now that I’m an intern here at Diva Dirt, I have the chance to help you see the error of your ways(Lol, just kidding). Without further ado, I present you with what I hope to be a new staple of this site, SHIMMER Spotlight.Â
 Name: Ashley Lane Age: 22 Aliases: Lexi Lane, Madison Rayne, ‘Sexi Lexi’ Entrance Theme:“Curse of Curves” by Cute Is What We Aim For / “Misery Business” by Paramore Finisher: Dys-Lexi-a (Reverse STO) / Curse of Curves (with Nevaeh) (STO by Nevaeh & Yakusa Kick by Ashley) Accomplishments: 2 time Ohio Championship Wrestling Women’s Champion ; 1 time Shimmer Tag Team Champion (with Nevaeh) – first
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At first glance Ashley Lanemay look like just another Diva Search Reject, but think again. This pint-sized dynamo is half of the SHIMMER tag champs and one of the best female wrestlers on the indy circuit today.Â
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Ashley has spent the last few years honing her craft on the circuit against accomplished wrestlers such as ODB. All her hard work paid off, as she managed to score a spot in SHIMMER, and eventually earn the tag team titles with her partner Nevaeh.Â
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If Ashley looks familiar to you its probably because she recently had her first televised match.
