Last week, The Dollhouse stable gained a massive new leader when Awesome Kong took on the role as headmistress of the group. This week, our new fierce leader takes on her first challenge of leading her dolls to a win over The Beautiful People members Velvet Sky and Madison Rayne in a Street Fight. These repetitive Dollhouse vs. Beautiful People tag matches are beginning to get really old really quick.
On a slightly more interesting angle, TNA has released a new vignette for an upcoming Knockout by the name of Raquel, not to be confused with former NXT talent Raquel Diaz. We also get a brief appearance from wrestling wives Maria Kanellis and Reby Sky, as both of their leading men have sight on TNA’s World Heavyweight title.
In our first Knockouts sighting, we meet up with the Jeremy Borash backstage along with the entire Dollhouse clan. JB is a man on a mission, looking to get answers as to why Kong has suddenly teamed up with her former tormentors:
Esperarte un momento JB, it isn’t that easy to be able to have the privilege of speaking to Kong. As per an unwritten memo, he has to first go through Marti Bell. Speaking on behalf of the group, Marti explains that while there were many concerns about The Dollhouse’s walls crumbling down (translation: where would The Dolllhouse go with Taryn Terell departing from TNA) the group is actually stronger than ever. This all thanks to the addition of Awesome Kong.
Kong signals for JB to come closer and blankly asks her interviewer if he hates her. She repeats the question only this time directs to the viewing audience at home, do we hate Kong? Not sure if hate is the right word but I will say that I’m absolutely thrilled for this vocal side of Kong!
Kong continues by calling out Knockouts Champion Gail Kim, whom she has a future title shot against, but gets interrupted when Velvet and Madison enter the picture looking for a fight.
The Beautiful People tell “The Doghouse”, as Velvet likes to call them, that instead of worrying about Gail Kim they should worry about them instead.
Velvet lashes out at Kong, admitting that though they have never been friends, she plans on kicking her ass! Madison interject next and adds that unlike their heel rivals, they don’t need to jump anyone from behind. Instead, they’ll do it right in their face and with that Madison attacks bystanders Jade and Rebel while Velvet goes after Kong and Marti. In the midst of this classic backstage brawl scenario, we go to a quick break.
When we return from our break, the Knockouts backstage brawl would find its way to the ring. A listen over to Josh Matthews over at the commentary table would reveal that this is now a street fight tag match between The Beautiful People and Kong and Jade of The Dollhouse.
All the action begins on the outside ring as Jade takes it upon herself to deal with Velvet while Kong targets Madison. Making the most of the outside environment, Kong tosses Madison face first to a steel post while Jade takes Velvet to the entrance ramp to land a pile driver.
Velvet safely counters Jade offense with a suplex, causing some serious back damage to Jade as well as herself. When Velvet recollects herself, she tries to exploit more outside damage to Jade by whipping her to the steel steps. Alas, the attempt is backfired when Jade reverses Velvet’s whip, sending The Beautiful People member’s back to the steel steps.
Inside the ring, Kong has complete control over Madison, choking her with the use of the second rope. All while this is happening, Jade is scouting for weapons from under the ring and tossing them to the inside. It rains kendo sticks, trash can and a steel chair. The audience begin a “We want tables!” chant but no table make it in this time around.
Jade makes the most of the chair she brought in to the ring and carefully places it in a corner. She then hauls Madison to the same corner and looks to hit a chair styled rolling thunder. Madison rolls out the way just in time causing Jade to hit the chair instead.
However, Madison doesn’t get very far with Kong still lurking in the ring. The Dollhouse leader grabs Madison and lifts her in the air to allow Jade to get some payback using a trash can lid to attack the back of Madison Rayne.
A stunned Madison drops to the mat and Jade tries to follow up with an out of reach lionsault but misses. Kong tries to play off the numbers advantage again but this time Velvet returns to the ring with a chair in hand.
Using the steel chair, Velvet strikes Kong in the back and then face first, bringing Kong to a halt. She doesn’t stop there as Velvet then begins to make work of Jade. She hits a three kick combo to Jade to follow up with a bulldog onto her steel chair weapon of choice that has been carefully placed in the middle of the ring.
With both Dollhouse members taken out, outside dolls Marti and Rebel take it upon themselves to now get involve in this match. It’s all legal under these street fight rules after all. Little did they know that upon entering the ring, Madison would have two kendo sticks that had Marti and Rebel’s name written on it.
Madison tosses one of the kendo sticks to Velvet and the two beat down the interfering dolls before they can make an escape. With the outside interference taken care of, The Beautiful People turn back their attention to Awesome Kong and take a full swing at her with the very same kendo sticks. They beat Kong down until she is flat on the ground.
Madison climbs the second rope to hit a flying missile dropkick to a recovering Kong and goes for the cover. The effort only earns Madison a two count on Kong. Meanwhile, Velvet gets taken out of the picture thanks to a running big boot from Jade.
Left to fend for herself, Madison falls victim to a packaged piledriver from Jade. The deadly maneuver is enough to keep Madison down for the three count, giving this week’s win over to The Dollhouse.
Shortly after our Knockouts match of the night, we get our tease of a vignette. In a short video clip, we hear the voice of a woman by the name of Raquel:
She believes that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. She will bring pain and she will bring pleasure. For one member of the TNA roster, payback is coming as Raquel is a woman of action, not words. Hmm, a very interesting character is brewing.
Maria and hubby “Miracle” Mike Bennett are next in our Impact Wrestling tour this week:
Mr. and Mrs. Bennett are seen backstage in search of the one and only Ethan Carter III. Mike echoes to the TNA Heavyweight Champion of his promise last week of being a miracle to TNA by getting rid of the all of the current dinosaurs. Looking at you Tyrus!
Mike continues by congratulating Ethan on his win over Matt Hardy for the gold and to keep a close eye for him in his debut match next week. An unimpressed Ethan casually carries on, stating that Mike can claim to be some kind of miracle but he isn’t a world champion…. for now according to Mike.
Speaking of Matt Hardy and the TNA World Heavyweight Title, he and his wife wrap things up this week with the help of Mr. Kennedy:
In his first talk show gig, titled “Huh!!??” (you read that correctly), Mr. Kennedy invites the entire Hardy family, including baby Maxwell, as his first guests.
In the sit down interview, Kennedy talks about Matt’s journey up this point, including some things that perhaps the wife would rather not hear. Much like the dull name of this segment, Reby and Baby Maxwell are completely unamused and decide to end things by getting up an walking out. Better luck (and please find a better show name) next time Kennedy.
When we see Matt again, he is backstage with his brother Jeff Hardy in the hopes that Ethan will give him a rematch after hearing his offer of putting his career on the line. A concerned Reby pulls Matt to the side to have a private conversation:
Thoughts: A mixed bag of feelings on this week’s show.
The biggest thing that I had hope to have seen from Kong stepping in as the leader of The Dollhouse was the chance for her to grow as a character by speaking. This week we saw that and I think Kong nailed her pre-match promo! Whilst Marti can be seen as the mic piece of the group, we know that Kong can talk as well and her small prom was a nice segway to the street fight. We want to see more of that side of Kong!
As far as the street fight goes, it was all right. Not the most impressive of street fight but it was decent enough to feel as though this wasn’t the third time these two factions have had a match against each other. TNA’s current problem with the Knockouts is that these tag matches become pointless when they’re done in a repetitive style like we’re seeing with no real end game aside from being the ‘better’ team.
One suggestion to sort of help spark things up would be to begin to build some friction within the Dollhouse group, who already out number The Beautiful People by two members. The only problem is that it would feel as though a group is breaking up too soon but I say it’ll be fine, more so if it turns out with Jade being the one venturing as a solo performer.
I’m not too sure how I feel about Raquel just yet. The introduction was interesting for a Knockout and this at least gets the attention of fans early on but the character just seems cliché. Perhaps when an actual debut happens and we learn more about Raquel along with her motives, I can get a better grip of how I actually feel about her.
Though Maria and Reby are both playing the role of wrestling wives, I think it was interesting to see different views from each of them. Maria is more supportive as she and Mike are the newest addition to the TNA roster where as Reby is being seen more ruffled by her already established husband’s desire to be World Champion again. Going as far as raising the stakes by risking his career for a title match. It’ll be interesting to see if any of this will change how the women manage their husbands in their matches but it’s always grest to see women being used throughout the show.
That’s it for this week Knockout fans, hasta luego!
