Hola Knockout fans and welcome to this week’s Impact Write-Up. After her sit-down interview last week, the returning Brooke Adams is ready to lace up her boots this week for her in-ring return! Of course, as seen during a mini-hype clip, Maria Kanellis isn’t looking forward to seeing old names make their way back to Impact. So how did Brooke’s return play out? Let’s find out!
We first find Maria backstage on the phone leaving a fierce voicemail to Braxton Sutter. Hmm, perhaps this call is in part of the plot Maria has cooking for Allie? In walks Brooke, wearing some Mighty Morphin Pink Power Ranger inspired gear, meeting the First Lady of Professional of Wrestling for the first time. While Maria may not be familiar with Brooke, Brooke knows all about Maria and the trash talking game she plays. The three time Knockouts Champion advises Maria to stay out Brooke’s way unless she is ready to actually compete in the ring. With that said, Brooke heads out for her match.
Brooke return opponent turns out to be Deonna Purrazzo; hey, it’s a Knockouts Knockdown rematch! The ring bell sounds off and is followed up with “Welcome back!” chants from the Impact Zone for Brooke. The match starts off with a tie-up, Deonna winning the bout with a headlock. She brings Brooke down with a takedown and locks in a second headlock. Brooke fights through the submission, getting back to her feet and taking down Deonna with a clothesline.
Deonna retreats to the outside by sliding under the bottom ring rope but Brooke goes after her with a dropkick. She throws Deonna to the barricade and thrashes her head to the ring apron before taking the action back inside the six sided ring. “I thought you said I couldn’t wrestle!” yells out Brooke to Deonna, as she takes her on a trip throughout different turnbuckles around the ring and brings down Deonna with a neckbreaker.
Brooke lands a kick to midsection, trying to scoop Deonna up but Deonna counters with an elbow shot to Brooke’s head and a running knee shot. Still, Brooke manages to regain control with a series of clotheslines, a flashjack and the Tess-Shocker for a returning victory! As Brooke takes in the glory, out comes Sienna, who lays out Brooke with the Silencer and delivers a “Welcome back” message on behalf of Maria.
Speaking of Maria, she is back on our screens to follow up on that voicemail she had left with Braxton. Braxton explains that he was in the ring training with Allie and didn’t think checking Maria’s message was all a big deal.
Maria reminds Braxton that Allie works for her as a not-so great assistant and demands that these training sessions come to a complete stop. When Braxton refuses to comply to Maria’s orders, Maria whispers something to Braxton’s ear that somehow causes him to agree to Maria’s terms about Allie. Maria leaves Braxton with the suggestion of finding Laurel Van Ness, who is a “real sweet girl”.
After that little blackmail segment, Braxton finds Allie backstage practicing on some of her wrestling moves. Putting on a brave face, Braxton tells Allie it is best that they no longer see each other. A sadden Allie blames her awkwardness but pleads for Braxton to reconsider. Instead, Braxton walks away, shoving away the camera and leaving poor Allie heartbroken.
As per Maria, Braxton does find Laurel and walks his date to his car. An unenthusiastic expression is written all over Braxton’s face as he opens the car door for Laurel and drives off with her.
And finally, we have a Monster’s Ball between Jade and Knockouts Champion Rosemary to look forward to next week as part of Impact’s special ‘Genesis’ television PPV event.
Thoughts: As I said last week, I’m ecstatic to see Brooke back on television again! I think she still has much to offer as a performer and I’m looking forward to seeing her mixing it up with some of the new Knockouts that have joined Impact since her departure.
Knowing that this was Brooke’s return match, I fully expected for Brooke to win in dominating fashion; more so when it was against a woman who isn’t officially a part of the Knockouts division. Looking back at the original match between these two, its pretty great to see how far both of them have come in the last years. Although back then, the roles of face/heel were reversed, there was a fun opening promo from Brooke and some trash talk in between, a four sided ring instead of the six sided ring and Deonna was just in beginning stage of her career.
Brooke evidently still has some ring rust but the match was short and sweet return nevertheless. I do like that Brooke brought back the Tess-Shocker, which I liked more than the Butterface Makeover finisher. The post Sienna attack basically ties in to the backstage run-in Brooke had with Maria. It’s a simple formula to just have Sienna enter this feud against Brooke on behalf of Maria, since she still seems to be an inactive in the ring, but I do hope that we see more backstage segments as opposed to back and forth matches.
Maria continuing to plot against Allie feels prolonged but at least this latest method of torture is a change up to the name calling and bossing around we’ve seen so far. Still, this adds to multiple Knockouts feuds we are seeing play out so far.
I appreciated that there was a hype for the Rosemary/Jade Monster’s Ball match. These women are running with the ball given to them and I can’t wait to see how this stipulation match will play out on TV. For the first time in awhile, there is some excitement happening in the Knockouts division!
What did you think of this week’s episode of Impact? Which Knockouts feud are you most excited about? What do you think will happen on next week’s Genesis episode of Impact? Let us know in the comments below!
