Greetings everyone! We’ve arrived to the third and final week of auditions of TNA’s British Boot Camp taking place in London, England. As we make this last stop, we await to see if there will be any other female talent from the UK to join semifinalists Nikki Storm and Kay Lee Ray, all with the hopes of being part of the TNA roster and their Knockouts division.
Talents gather at the York Hall, where they hope to give our panel of judges that include TNA Knockout Gail Kim, TNA Superstar Samoa Joe and talent agent Al Snow a worthy first impression in order to advance through the round one of the personality trial. From there they will move on to round two to showcase their in ring ability before making into to the semifinals
Our first female talent finding comes in form of a set that seems to be accustom to the British Boot Camp series; identical twins Kasey and Leah Owens have arrived! The Northern Ireland natives recall when how they fell into the wrestling business at the age of eighteen with backyard wrestling and becoming obsessed with the profession ever since.
Though identical twins, the sisters differ in a yin-yang nature; Leah referring herself as the “party animal” of the duo while Kasey is the “straight edge” of the two. Having tuned in last season, the Owen twins watched the journey of fellow identical twins Hannah and Holly Blossom. However, unlike the Blossoms, the Owens are “anti-Blossom” (their words, not mines) meaning they’re edgier, they’d rather get tattoos of cupcakes instead of making them, they’re fans of heavy metal and they love to party! After traveling through places like Spain, France and Japan, the Owens look to hit the United States through British Boot Camp.
Once in front of the judges, the Owens continue pitching their “anti-Blossoms” routine with edge and attitude leaving them fascinated. Concern soon arrives as Gail Kim reveals that Blossoms ended up getting contracts with the company only to leave abruptly; right before making their television debut. Would the Owens follow that same pattern?
The sisters assure the judges that they wouldn’t do that as they’re passion for the business is mighty. Al Snow takes this in but informs that he had already turned away The Unnatural Disaster tag team and that he would only pass one of the two. Leah immediately says she’d easily give up her spot for her sister as she loves her sister too much to let such an opportunity pass by. (Aww…) She fights back tears as she and Kasey plead their cases to have both of them advance through. Seeing how noble and unique the Leah and Kasey were, the judges agreed to pass the twins through onto the next round!
Like any good talent searching reality show, we have our hits… and we have out misses at auditions. In traditional format, we swiftly pass by those misses at auditions who weren’t quite ready which included beauty pageant/early wrestler Miss Louis-Jane who usually has a drink before unrobing and Skarlett who had a screeching presence at her audition.
Moving on to reality show fixations, the Grado storyline continues as he yet again arrives to another audition to prove himself (I’m placing my bet now on him winning it all) driving a full ten hours for a second chance at the competition. Gail Kim plays the guardian angel here, sympathizing with Grado as she’s only heard good things about him. She convinces Al Snow to give Grado a second and with that, Grado finally gets a spot at round two to display his ring skills.
At round two, the Owens square off against each other trying to perfect a sequence of commands from the judges that start at a headlock and follow through with chain of tackle, drop down and hip toss. After a few missteps, the judges guide the twins through their course, as icing them to communicate with each other to finish their routine until they have gotten it down.
After all the participants have taken part of round two of the London auditions, the moment of truth comes and we will find out who will be moving on to the final show in London. Hand in hand, Leah and Kasey await their fate and are told that BOTH will indeed be moving on to which the sisters hug and embrace each other, their hearts filled with emotions for that “good feel” moment of the show, for me anyway. So a big congratulations to the Owen twins along with our other finalists: Joel Redman, Martin Stone, Richard Parliament, RJ Singh, Sha Samuels and of course Grado.
Watch Christy Hemme break down the episode with Rebel below:
Next week, with the auditions now complete, we head to our live show where our four female finalist will be competing in an elimination Fatal Four-Way. Who will win between Nikki Storm, Kay Lee Ray, Kasey Owen or Leah Owen and move onto the finals in the United States! As Dixie Carter would say, “Stay tuned!”
