Hola Knockout fans and welcome to this week’s edition of Impact Write-Up. 0n this week’s show, former best friends Marti Bell and Jade take their rivalry to the next level by competing in a street fight. Elsewhere on this week’s program, The BroMans expose Rosemary’s hidden secret and Madam Dixie Carter returns to foil the Bennetts’ plans.
Ahead of his backyard wrestling style #FinalDeletion match against “Brother Nero” Jeff Hardy, “Broken” Matt Hardy celebrates his son’s Maxel’s first birthday with wife Reby Sky. Reby’s father Señor Benjamin has presented the youngest Hardy with a birthday bash and a xylophone of a gift. Hmm, not exactly the biggest turnout for a child’s first birthday party but either way, happy belated little Hardy!
With Destination X just around the corner, X-Division champion Mike Bennett has gloated on the scheme he has managed to pull off so far- using the X-Division title as a gateway to the TNA World Heavyweight title by cashing in Option C. The only standing in Mike’s way is a returning Dixie Carter, who is back after taking a week off after her scuffle with Maria Kanellis.
Dixie reminds Mike that despite his buddy friendship with executive TNA Billy Corgan, she is still the woman in charge. With that said, she stacks the deck against Mike and books him in an Ultimate X match against the entire X-Division. Mike would lose his title, and opportunity to catch in Option C, when Eddie Edwards recaptured the X-Division title.
From one stipulation match to another, the time has come for our Knockouts street fight of the night:
Dressing up for the occasion, both women make their entrance in casual street attire and duke it from the outside of the six-sided ring. After a few throw around to the ring poles, Marti throws Jade to the ring, along with a rain of street weapons.
Marti makes use of the no DQ stipulation with a baking sheet, striking Jade in the back with it and follows up by stompping her to a mud hole from a corner. Marti fetches for more weapons and comes across a trash can lid, which she tosses to Jade’s direction to take her down with a big boot.
When Marti pulls out a kendo stick from her arsenal, Jade is ready to take all forms of punishment. She eats Marti’s kendo strikes and even asks for some more shots to the back! After taking all of Marti’s blows, Jade captures the kendo stick from Marti’s possession and inflicts her own damage to her former DDF.
Jade goes for the first cover of the match after placing a trash can over Marti and taking her down with a running dropkick. When Marti manages to kick out at two, Jade tries to end the match by setting up Marti for the packaged piledriver but Marti counters this by sending Jade over her shoulders and through a trash can.
After Marti catches her breath, she pulls out her baton weapon of choice and begins to toy with Jade for a bit… that is until Jade draws out her secret nunchucks to counter out Marti’s attack. A running dropkick later, Jade is back to setting up Marti for a packaged piledriver. Jade successfully hits her finisher, this time over a steel chair to pick the win and some unsettled redemption.
Seeing as how he is no longer a part of next week’s semi-live episode Destination X, Mike Bennett comes out for a second time to unleash out some anger on Dixie Carter. Wife Maria, of course, is by his side being more cautious in the same ring with Dixie this time around. Lucky for Dixie, Billy Corgan backs her up as they call the Bennetts’ bluff of quitting TNA. Mike leaves peacefully but not quietly, as he promises to ruin Destination X.
With Big Brother season officially upon, Jessie Godderz pulls out a classic page from the reality show handbook to expose a secret Rosemary has kept fellow Decay members Crazzy Steve and Abyss.
Despite some early animosity between the two, Rosemary is seen backstage in a big making out session with Bram!
The secret seemed to have gotten the best of the TNA Tag Teams, as The BroMans and Raquel picked up a clean over The Decay.
Thoughts: I always give TNA props for allowing their women compete in stipulated style matches. These kind of matches tend to happen every so often that is actually feels like the “norm” when we see them take place rather than a special treat.
That being said, I can’t say I was too crazy about this street match between Jade and Marti. It was all right for what it was and absolutely served its purpose in giving Jade a chance at payback for Marti without another DQ and/or dirty tactic finish. Both women made most of the time they were given but, as with their last match two weeks ago, it felt slow paced. There were times where I could sort of predict what spots were coming up next. There also seemed to be a lack of aggression (and the lack of enthusiasm from the Impact Zone did no favors) which is something that probably could’ve felt more present had TNA built this match up a bit more. The match just felt so thrown together and maybe some sort of set up last week, be that of a backstage segment or brawl of some sort, would have been a sufficient enough reason to get more behind this match. From the sounds of the commentators, it would appear that this feud is fizzling out.
Despite the Knockouts only being minimally involved in the six person tag match, I did enjoy it. Raquel played that equalizer for the BroMans against Rosemary and this may the best way to get Raquel’s feet wet when it comes to her getting physical. She is still learning the ropes but at least this feud between The Decay and BroMans gives Raquel a chance to get involved. There is room for improvement!
Speaking of Rosemary, I have to say I am curious to see where this angle between her and Bram is going. It certainly seemed to upset Abyss and Crazzy Steve that Rosemary found comfort in Bram and it sheds some new light to Rosemary’s character. She never acknowledges to be romantically involved with Crazzy Steve, so perhaps there is a bigger end game to this.
The Dixie versus Bennetts saga rages on! While I’m not a fan of Billy Corgan at all, I will say that him talking and standing by Dixie this time around helped Dixie’s promo look and feel more polished than normal. It was also nice to see Billy actually side with Dixie against the Bennetts’, unlike before. Could all this still lead to another power struggle for Madam Carter? Is it going to be Maria or Dixie? What do the Bennetts’ mean when they threaten to “ruin” Destination X?
Tune in next week during TNA’s semi-live episode of Impact! Fingers crossed that there are no weather conditions or bad luck causing hours of delay this time!
