Hola Knockout fans and welcome to this week’s Impact Write-Up; the “free PPV” Lockdown edition. It’s our last night at the Manhattan Center in New York City and what better way to leave a final impression than by providing a night full of six sided steel cage matches. Granted, it is an hour shorter than your typical Lockdown PPV with more commercial breaks in between but we’ve grown accustom to these “free PPVs” by now haven’t we?
This year’s Lockdown Knockout match includes two Knockouts who have been brewing a quiet but intense rivalry since the start of this year. Awesome Kong and Havok would at last get a chance to battle it out with one another after weeks of displaying much disdain. We’ve also got Robbie E issuing a challenge to ex girlfriend Brooke and a backstage eye-opener to how Angelina Love really feels about Velvet Sky being fired following her Feast or Fired installment. Let’s get this show started!
The cage is set and well surrounded around the six sided ring as Havok is the first to make her way down the entrance ramp and step into the steel compartment for the first time. Making her way down a TNA entrance ramp for the first time in nearly five years, Awesome Kong only makes it only about halfway down before Havok (as she has done before) decides to charge right after her. The two titans exchange heavy blows with Kong getting the better of them and intending to bring this match into the ring. The two only make it to just outside the door when Havok fights of Kong’s grip and tosses her face to some steel steps to keep the outside melee going as the New York crowd chants “This is awesome!” in the background.
Though the brawl continues outside, the ring bell sounds off to officially declare the start the match as Havok brings Kong to the ground after tossing Kong’s head to the exterior cage and landing sturdy right forearms. With Kong groggy, Havok takes this opening to tear some of the foam mat on the floor with the scheme of landing a spine buster onto the floor opening. Unfortunately for Havok, Kong manages to break free of Havok’s grip and gets a big retaliation when she whips Havok to a double dose of steel from the cage door and steel steps.
After making a full circle around the ring, Kong at last manages to get Havok into the ring as the New York crowd roars their retuning “Better than the Divas” chants, hold the “We Want Puppies!” this time around. With the caged door closed and nowhere to run, a stare down commences until Kong lands a first strike. The two go back and forth until Havok gets the upper hand when she lands a running big boot, following up with a leg drop and first pin cover of the match but only gets a two count.
Heads collide again and this time chokeholds are being traded. The stalemate ends when Kong sets Havok for an Implant Buster but instead is thrashed to a corner. She lands a few kicks onto to Kong and then from afar, Havok storms towards Kong but only gets has her head bounced off the cage when Kong gets out the way. Despite the head bluster, Havok manages to recover such enough to hit Kong with a Harlot Slayer choke slam to Kong but it proves to be of no avail as Kong immediately bounces back up, delivering her own choke slam!
With Havok flat on the mat, Kong climbs a turnbuckle, looking to end the match with a high flying move. All of this is delayed when Havok uses the steel cage to climb the ropes and land high kicks to Kong. Almost absorbing all of this, Kong gets a hold of Havok’s leg, turning it into a power bomb and then climbs the turnbuckle once more to successfully hit a big splash from the top rope and getting the three count pin, rewarding Kong with a massive win in her first official match back with TNA!
From the hard hitting action in the ring to some hard breaking news backstage, we are taken backstage to see how Velvet Sky broke the news of being fired to fellow Beautiful People member Angelina Love from two weeks ago.
Eh… wouldn’t this have more sense to air last week? Anyway, Velvet interrupts a fun phone call Angelina had to let her know that she has been fired! She explains that because of her involvement in Feast or Fired with Robbie E, she would have to face whatever was in the case she retrieved and it just so happened that the one she got a hold of contained the pink slip.
Velvet begins to breakdown, feeling sorry that she let the team down. Angelina tries comforts her longtime friend, embracing her with a hug… all while smiling deviously? What a turn of events this is turning out to be! Angelina helps pack the last of Velvet’s items, hugging her one more time and walking her out their room. As Velvet walks away, Angelina’s final parting words are “Finally”; her tone having even more a Heel tone than normal. Well this wasn’t where I would have pictured The Beautiful People one year after reuniting.
Our last Knockout segment, which also happens to be the comic relief of the night, is provided by Brooke as she accepts Robbie E’s Amazing Race challenge.
Mercifully, TNA fast forwarded this entire road block of a segment into a minute long video rather than show its entirety. The race included spinning around a baseball bat three times, climbing over a cage, escaping it and passing the finish line. Just as Robbie was going to pass the finish line, he decides to take a selfie (with his trusty selfie stick of course) which proves to be the break Brooke needed to steal the win, getting the last laugh and last selfie this time around. Suddenly, the actual Amazing Race sounded more amusing this bit.
Thoughts: A few topics to discuss this week. I’ll start with The Beautiful People segment.
Last week, I wondered as to how Angelina would have reacted to Velvet’s departure and this week, I’m glad we did finally get an answer; even if it does feel like it should have been explained a week earlier. Close to this time last year, The Beautiful People reunited but weren’t really brining that fire that they did during their first run, in my opinion. With Velvet now gone, this now gives Angelina a chance to venture once again in her solo career (that is if she isn’t to stuck next to the BroMans) so it will be interesting where Angelina can go from here.
Speaking of the BroMans, I think it was an absolute great call for TNA to shortcut the little segment they were involved with Brooke. Having actually seen the whole thing, it was just something that I really don’t think would have fitted with the Lockdown show that TNA were trying to present. Maybe on a regular episode of Impact but even then the whole thing seemed like a cliché way of incorporating The Amazing Race with TNA.
Onto the actual match of the night, I really think the Kong/Havok match started out great but felt a bit underwhelming towards the end of it, mostly because of the shorten time it was given. This match and feud has potential to really deliver as a quality PPV match but again, perhaps the shorten time for this year’s Lockdown took some of that potential away. It’s also a bit of a catch 22 situation to put Kong’s returning match in TNA being a steel cage match against the new dominating force of Havok. You don’t want to have Awesome Kong lose her first match back but Havok losing also takes away some of the steam Havok brought when she first debuted, dominating the division and more so with Havok being away for some weeks as we enter TNA’s UK tour beginning next week. Still, I don’t think this will be the last we see of these two going at it but I do hope TNA can find a way to really invigorate Havok once she makes her return.
Based on some of what we’ve already heard about TNA’s UK tour (Dixie Carter does not mind spoiling details), this year’s tour looks to be a promising one for the Knockouts with the semi return of Mickie James, guest appearance by British Boot Camp 2 finalist Kay Lee Ray and ring announcing provided by SoCal Val.
Exciting shows are on the way and I look forward to how everything will be presented. Hasta luego Knockout fans!
