Hola Knockout fans and welcome to another weekly edition of Impact Write-Up. Sadly, we go this week without any sort of Knockouts match but to make up for this we are treated to a parade of Knockouts all spread out throughout the night.
On top the confrontation between Brandi Rhodes and Rosemary, there’s also some blackmailing, a misinterpreted engagement, guest appearance by Alexxis Neveah and the return of six-time Knockouts Champion Angelina Love. Lots to get to so let’s dive in!
Our first stop of the night is with Brandi backstage, who lays out her plan on how to deal with the Knockouts Champion. She says that she despite still being a new name to the Knockouts division, she would like to be an example of what a Knockout should be and how a Knockout should act. Hmm… and what does that exactly mean Brandi? Still wanting to be the best Knockout she possibly can be, Brandi names drop Rosemary once more to prep the champ for a ‘reality check’.
After a quick break, we find Brandi make her way to the six sided ring. She says that as great as her time in Impact has been so far, thanks in big part to the welcoming fans, there have been some wild bumps. With that being said, Brandi sticks to her guns and invited Rosemary so that they can settle their issues woman to woman. By settling, Brandi means to throw hands and leaving behind the mind games! MEOW!
Rosemary accepts Brandi’s invitation to the ring, accompanied by Crazzy Steve and Abyss. She reiterates her previous statements in seeing so much lost and limitless potential within Brandi. Even though Brandi rejected Rosemary’s offer before, Rosemary reminds Brandi that Decay comes from everyone, whether by choice or force.
Abyss and Crazzy Steve slowly enter the ring as Rosemary grabs Brandi, trapping her in a choke hold. Fear not Brandi, as Moose‘s (catchy) theme song plays and in runs the former Grand Champion to make the save by clearing the ring of the whole Decay stable. After the save, we catch up with Moose backstage who explains to the Decay that should they mess with Brandi, they’ll also be messing with him. A bold Brandi then throws out a challenge to Rosemary for next week; a mixed tag team match between Decay against Big Moose/Mini Moose.
After two weeks of being off screen, vegan athlete Allie is back! She has a very brief run-in with former wrestling coach turned crush Braxton Sutter. Sadly, the two spend less than a minute together thanks to an intruding Maria Kanellis. Maria orders her assistant to get her some ‘coffee coffee‘ (not ‘whiskey coffee‘) and to leave Laurel‘s boyfriend alone!
With Allie sent away, Maria pushes her previous agenda of having Braxton propose to Laurel… sometime in the next hour or so. Remember Braxton, that’s a four carat princess cut diamond ring for Laurel. Braxton finds Laurel later in the evening, with no intentions of actually going through Maria’s scheme, but his butter fingers dropped a water bottle he was juggling. When he bent down to pick it up, Laurel took this as an official proposal, which she naturally accepts!
Mark your calendar Knockout fans, the wedding between Laurel and Braxton takes place on February 23rd:
https://twitter.com/ImpactLVN/status/830092344846274560
And finally, we enter the main event scene where Eddie Edwards gets his final chance to win back the TNA World Heavyweight title from ‘Triple B’ Lashley. For this big title rematch, he has wife and best pals Davey Richards and Angelina Love all with front row seats.
Just when it appeared that Eddie had the match won, Davey Richards betrays his tag team partner when he pulled the referee out, causing a stir of confusion. Davey then signals to his wife to sucker punch Alexxis and the chaotic scene allows for Lashley to take Eddie out with a spear for the win.
Things didn’t end during this title match, as Mr. and Mrs. Richards then proceeded to torment Eddie by dragging Alexxis to the ring so she can forcefully see Davey beat down Eddie! The night ends with Angelina and Davey sharing a kiss after the couple basically choked out their former pals. #ItsInTheBlood
Thoughts: My whole take from the Brandi/Rosemary interaction was TNA’s way of needing to give Brandi something to do while Cody is away. Brandi isn’t ready for that big title push but I think having these little mixed tag segments with Moose gives her something to do while still hiding her novice in-ring status. This was the strongest I’ve seen Brandi on the mic and I like that she stood up for herself against someone like Rosemary; who pretty much owns her character no matter who may be across with! I’m predicting most of the heavy work for next week’s mixed tag match to be conducted by the men involved.
The bight side of this week’s interaction in the Braxton/Laurel/Maria saga was having Allie back on our screen. She is still the unsung hero of this whole never-ending storyline and it’ll interesting to see how she’ll react to the news of Braxton and Laurel’s wedding. With a wedding date already set, that reaction should happen sooner than later. I just hope that when that day comes, we can truly move on from Allie being attached to Maria.
And finally, there’s Angelina’s return and my goodness, how great does she look! Though it never crossed my mind that she would return back to TNA after giving birth, Angelina is a synonym name when it comes to the Knockouts division, so any chance of her coming back is a treat. My only real gripe was hoping to see Angelina return as a badass babyface but hey, this ‘beautiful wolf’ vibe with Davey is something we haven’t exactly seen from Angelina yet (and sure beats the hell out of a Beautiful People reunion for the 50th time). It’s a new style and gives us another feud to be invested in with Eddie bringing in Alexxa to the mix. Whether that is for the long run or just for a few weeks is yet to be determined but for now, I’ll take it! Welcome back Ms. Angelina Love!
What did you think of this week’s episode of Impact? Are you excited for Angelina’s return? Looking forward to the wedding of Braxton Sutter and Laurel Van Ness? Let us know in the comments below!
