In a strange attempt to prove that Hell has indeed froze over, TNA put together their second consecutive week of competent story telling. It’s shocking, I realize that, but us scorned Knockout fans are going to have to try very hard to wrap our heads around this rare, but exciting encounter. This week, the Beautiful People continue to have a go at one another, despite the fact they remain in control of the Knockouts division. And a brand new number one contender to the Knockouts Championship is determined in what turned out to be a pretty impressive match. What’s wrong with you TNA?! Don’t you know that you’re not supposed to make sense?
The Knockouts are first seen tonight courtesy of a backstage segment featuring the Beautiful People. Lacey Von Erich and Velvet Sky are discussing the recent happenings within the BP camp. Velvet is fussing with her make-up while she bitches about Madison; she’s still furious over everything. Lacey is trying to tell Velvet it’s in their best interest to stop while they’re ahead and just make up with one another. She wants to be best friends again. Velvet is not willing to do that. The conversation continues on and Knockouts Champion, Madison Rayne, enters into the picture. She walks in and stares Velvet down. Velvet demands to know what she wants and Madison says that she’s been thinking a lot about the situation between all of them and she thinks it would be stupid to break up the Beautiful People while they own every belt in the company. She continues on to say that they’ve been running the division since day one and that reign of dominance does not need to come to an end. Lacey is nodding along, agreeing with everything Madison is saying.
Velvet isn’t sold.
Velvet jumps to her feet and gets right up in Madison’s face. She tells her that the only reason the BP’s reign of terror is in jeopardy is because Madison is the one who clearly stated that she did not need the Beautiful People any longer. Velvet continues her rant by saying Madison is the one who took it upon herself to invite another member into their group without consulting herself and Lacey, and to top it all off, it was Madison who decided to team with Sarita last week. While Velvet is freaking out, Lacey is in the middle mumbling little things to Madison such as “we forgive you” ect. Velvet snaps at Lacey to shut up and Madison finally gets a chance to defend herself. Madison says that as far as her relationship with Sarita goes, Angelina and Sarita have a number one contender’s match for her Knockouts Championship tonight to which Velvet smirks “some friend.” Madison continues on by saying that when her back up did arrive last week, she extended the offer to both BP members to join them. Lacey happily chimes in that she took the invitation. Madison says that Velvet declined and now she doesn’t know what else Velvet could possibly want from her. Lacey adds that Velvet changed her mind. She didn’t.
Velvet said it’s to late for Madison to apologize. Madison shakes her head and says that she’s not going to beg Velvet for anything, but she does want things to go back to the way they were before. Lacey chirps that she doesn’t mind begging and she begins to do so. Madison then apologizes, quite a few times, and Lacey continues to plead with Velvet to forgive Madison. Velvet’s really annoyed over the situation but she does start to cave and very reluctantly agrees to a truce. The BPs hug it out and Lacey basically starts to cry because they’re all a family again.
The backstage segment fades into the ring area where Sarita is standing and playing to the crowd. She’s wearing a semi-hot new outfit and to cap things off, she does this ridiculous little shimmy thing as her music is replaced with Angelina Love‘s. Angelina is dressed crazy as usual and she molests the rope as she enters the ring. She’s given a few seconds to toy with the crowd but then it’s all business. The bell rings and the two polished competitors start going after one another. Sarita ends up thrown into the ropes and knocked down by Angelina, who follows that up with a cover. Sarita doesn’t give the referee a chance to get down and count, because she powers out and back up to her feet. Angelina knocks her back once again and tries for a quick pin, but Sarita’s not having it. The two women exchange these types of moves for the opening seconds of the match and finally they both back off and Sarita even kicks the rope in frustration. The crowd gives them a nice round of applause for their efforts and Sarita begins to smart off to Angelina.
Angelina doesn’t take the verbal abuse and she goes for Sarita, who pulls the ref in the middle of the two women. Angelina tries to fight around him, but Sarita soon throws him away. The fun distraction allows Sarita to take control but it doesn’t last long at all because Angelina brings her down from behind and rolls her up for a pin. Sarita is out of it fairly quickly and attempts to bolt from the ring, but Angelina’s not about to let that happen. Both women struggle for control and finally Sarita is able to knock Angelina down into the ropes. Sarita kicks the hell out of Angelina and sends her into the corner where she begins to kick and punch her. Sarita snapmares Angelina towards the center of the ring and pulls her back for a cover. She gets to the two count before Angelina gets her shoulder up but Sarita tries again and hooks the leg. She only gets to two.
Sarita backs off and bitches at the referee for being slow before she takes Angelina and whips her into the corner. She goes to charge Angelina but the blonde Canadian manages to get her feet up, slide down Sarita’s back, and roll her up. Unfortunately for Angelina, Sarita rolls right on through the pinning attempt and bounces back with a clothesline that would make JBL a whole lot stiffer. (Did I seriously just throw a sexual reference about JBL into my Write-Up? Smh.)
Anyway, the back of Angelina’s head slams off the mat and Sarita begins to stomp away on her opponent’s midsection. She drops a series of elbows to the same area before dropping down to verbally bully Angelina. She locks her in a sick modified camel clutch and places her forearm across Angelina’s neck. The referee forces her to break the hold and has a go at her for using the arm, meanwhile Angelina is withering around in pain on the mat. Sarita rolls her eyes at the referee and goes back to her opponent, but Angelina has seemingly found a second wind. She fights back with some forearm shots to Sarita’s stomach and face and frantically swings hoping to connect with a clothesline. Sarita ducks it and scoops up Angelina and basically throws her. Angelina ends up laid out flat on her stomach behind the talented brunette Knockout who celebrates her burst of offense with a pathetic excuse of a Samba routine. Sarita drops down for the cover and nearly picks up the win. Angelina manages to get the shoulder up at just the last second. Angelina rolls away but Sarita is on her like white on rice. She tries another pinning combination and this time, she throws in a handful of tights for good measure.
For some reason the referee has decided to acknowledge this cheating attempt and he stops his count and crawls more towards Sarita. He taps her hand and begins to fuss at her, but Sarita plays innocent. The referee isn’t fooled by Sarita’s pretty looks and general hotness and he warns her not to do it again. Sarita goes back to work and pulls Angelina up. She goes to flip her over again, but this time Angelina lands on her feet and begins to fire back with PUNCHES. She forces Sarita back into the corner and goes to whip her across, but Sarita reverses it. Angelina is able to catch herself before plunging into the ring post and she zooms towards Sarita, nearly breaking her in half with a spear that probably gave Edge all sorts of Rated R ideas. (Haha, I’m on a roll!)
Angelina begins beating the shit out of her opponent and lays Sarita out with a neat little elbow to the face. Sarita bounces back up but ends up eating a mouth full of foot thanks to Angelina’s jumping spin kick. That still doesn’t keep Sarita down so Angelina flings herself into the ropes and uses the momentum to fly at Sarita with a clothesline. Sarita is down and Angelina is ready to put her opponent away for good. Sarita groggily gets to her feet and Angelina lines her up. Right when Sarita collects her bearings, Angelina knocks her out with the Botox Injection. She goes for the cover and gets the three count, and thus becomes the new number one contender for the Knockouts Championship.
Again.
The Good: I can hardly complain about the match. It was brilliant. Sarita and Angelina are were so in sync and so together that it was just a joy to watch. Sometimes I have a tendency to blank out during technical matches but not tonight. This match captured my attention from move to move. I really got to appreciate Sarita as a worker tonight and not just as a pretty girl who wears ugly clothes. She impressed tonight, there’s no doubt about that. It was great to see Angelina taken to the limit for a change. Recently, she’s been put in position to dominate her opponents (Daffney, Madison) and tonight, she got a dose of her own medicine. Sarita got her licks in and Angelina’s selling was fabulous for a change. It makes a world of difference when two evenly matched wrestlers who enjoy their craft step into the ring together. Tonight we saw that.
The backstage segment was amazing as well. LVE continues to shine in her roll as the woman in the middle of two egotistical femme fatales. I don’t believe for one second that Madison wants this truce and it’s going be one wild ride when Velvet finally figures that out. When it comes to promos and just general speaking, Velvet is in a class all of her own. The girl is gold in this area of wrestling and she brings out the best in the people she works with. Madison certainly held her own tonight and was downright believable with her apology. She delivered her lines smoothly and with conviction. Getting the Knockouts Championship was pretty much the best thing to ever happen to Madison Rayne. She’s been shining brightly ever since.
Lacey continues to be the feel good story of the Knockouts. If she keeps learning and improving, she’s going be right up there with Velvet in terms of acting and promos. She was so, so good tonight. Her little comments were genius and kudos to TNA for taking their time with this Beautiful People break up. It’s playing out so well and they’ve given all three of these ladies great material to work with. I love Madison as the bitchy queen bee. I adore Velvet as the soon-to-be-scorned face. And my heart continues to go out to Lacey, who is the pretty, but dumb, girl stuck in the middle of this budding rivalry. Love it!
The Bad: I’m so hesitant to complain because I’m worried that if I do, then TNA will forget how to book Knockouts again. But I can’t help but feel slightly irritated that Angelina is getting yet another title shot. I know that we all freaked when we felt like Eve was getting another title chance on Raw, and this situation is no different. We’ve already seen Angelina fight Madison for the title once. I don’t understand why we have to see it again. Does TNA feel like Angelina is the only one who can handle title shots? It’s so weird to me. I don’t think it would have hurt to see Sarita get the title opportunity, but what can you do? At least Angelina won an amazing match to earn her shot, and didn’t have it handed to her by some stupid technicality.
The Ugly: Sarita’s little dances before and during the match was absolutely horrendous. When Taz called her spicy, I wanted to vomit. Sarita is actually one of the few women I turn a blind eye to when it comes to fashion and I actually take her seriously. TNA is threatening to screw with that if they continue to let her dance in the ring. I have no idea who told Sarita it was a good idea to do that, but they should be fired. And if Sarita actually came up with that mess on her own, then she doesn’t deserve to have a championship match… ever!
Overall, tonight was a good night for the Knockouts. Every girl that was showcased received vital screen time and storylines were continued in a most impressive way. The Beautiful People continue to dig their own graves and I’m wondering if Angelina’s newest title shot is going to lead to Velvet costing Madison the title and a reunion of the original BPs? At one point I would have been excited to see that but knowing that it will be Angelina’s fifth championship reign, I’m iffy about it. Trish Stratus won her seven Women Championships in the span of seven years. Angelina’s been with TNA what, about three? I don’t want to make comparisons but it seems like TNA is going that route with Angelina, no?
