Salutations everyone, and welcome to this week’s recap extravaganza for Impact Wrestling. Last week was a fun experience as Brooke Hogan attempted to tie the knot, but ultimately realized that the only thing she should’ve been tying was her dress a little tighter as the Aces & Eights crashed the ceremony, essentially ruined her big day, and nearly caused her a wardrobe malfunction on live TV. Added on to the insanity, we also had Velvet Sky best Gail Kim to cement her status as the number one contender and attain a shot at Tara tonight! Yes, that’s correct. Tara will be defending her coveted championship against the underdog challenger, Velvet Sky this evening. I could speak on nonstop to hype this match up, but I feel you’d all just rather get to the video anyways and are probably not even reading this, in which case, I don’t blame you!
The Aces & Eights stand inside the ring as I sit here hoping my idea proposed of a Knockouts Tag Team Title falling from the rafters and knocking someone over the head actually happens to them for ruining my big wrestling wedding — er, I mean Brooke’s and Bully Ray’s. But suddenly, we head backstage to see Hollywood’s Greatest Couple warming up, and now Jesse is pulling out a Velvet Sky action figure which is now double outdated as she’s moved on from chaps to skirts to bodysuits. Get with the times TNA action figure makers! Tara reacts the same way as I do, and I choose to believe that like me, she knows his crazy Big Brother past and is concerned as to what he’s going to do to the figure that someone is probably searching every local Wal-Mart, Walgreens, and Target to find.
Jesse downplays the weirdness idea (for the moment), by stating this is simply to motivate our champ. He attempts to hype Tara up by calling her a Knockout Superstar, hot and a winner while referring to Velvet’s action figure as small, tiny, plastic, and infatuated with “dead pigeons or something.” (…I laughed) In between this, he also compliments himself a little, before turning it into praise for the both of them as Impact’s dominant power couple, which I think is more of a default accusation as their only competition is a ODB and Eric Young who have only been seen together about once in the past billion months. Jesse’s words of encouragement have worked! Tara is now ready to take the bodysuit clad Velvet Sky down to Chinatown (I’ll never say that again) as their match is next!
I’m going to choose to believe we got our Christy Hemme pan up shot considering this video begins in the midst of Velvet Sky’s entrance, and if not, then I’m sure it happened somewhere else in the show. Ah come on Velvet, way to completely ruin my comment earlier about the TNA action figure company being out of date by wearing chaps again. Sky poses with a fan who has a huge poster of her, before officially letting the pigeons loose! While I’m still confused with what exactly said pigeons are, I can at least believe the chaps give them room to fly away… and depending on what exactly the pigeons are, that could reeeally come off dirty so if they turn out to not be something friendly you can just pretend this last sentence was never typed.
That horrible basic titantron nameplate of Hollywood’s Greatest Couple overcomes the screen and fills my eyes with such hatred… such rage that I need a second to calm down before continuing. Once that’s out of the way, I reach a happier place as both Tara and Jesse walk out. Unfortunately, I’ve found myself liking Jesse which pains me to say as he and Natalie were the ultimate villains for me in Big Brother 11 and I never thought the day would come where I felt any differently. (Curse you backstage comedy segments) The two walk down the ramp hand in hand, as Jesse proceeds to hold the ring ropes open for her like a gentlemen. As Tara steps inside, she rubs noses with the Hollywood Megastar as Taryn Terrell stands looking unamused with this behavior.
Taz is on commentary again for some reason, which means we’ll probably get 80% talk of Aces and Eights during this match… just as a forewarning to you all. Taryn raises the title up like she’s just taken the belt hostage and won it herself, as the bell sounds and we kick things off. Tara is seen posing to Jesse, sparking Sky to attain a quick roll up for a two count. Velvet with some power up moves to try and score the early win, but it’s Tara who takes her down with a shoulder tackle. Some much needed posing occurs, as a captivating picture of my fearless leader and queen of the ring, Dixie Carter pops up onto the screen and Velvet hits a flipping armdrag.
A flying clothesline or two follows it up, and then a Russian leg sweep to boot which sends the champ flying into the arms of her loving superstar. Commentary continues to disappoint, with Velvet now flipping Tara in the ring and nailing a front dropkick. She kicks Tara back outside, which now sends her right to where she just was and we head to a commercial break. Once the show returns, Velvet is punching up Tara and now hits a kick to the head. She climbs up to the top rope and flies off with a crossbody for a near fall. The crowd chants for the challenger, with her now going to town on Tara in the corner. Velvet with a monkey flip… attempt, but Tara holds onto the ropes and sends her crashing down.
After a two count, Tara hits a nice snap suplex for a two count. The shimmy-sault connects, but the fighting challenger continues to stop the match from ending. Fans continue to get behind Velvet as Tara locks in a chokehold, but as she tries to fight out, Tara sends her back down to the ring canvas. Our prestigious champion now sets Velvet in position and heads to the top, but she takes too long and Velvet is able to slam her off! Both women struggle to get to their feet first, and it’s Velvet who blocks some shots by Tara to hit a few of her own. Sky mounts the comeback with some clotheslines and a headscissors!
Velvet hits that awesome new facebuster move, but… oh God don’t even start with me this week Taryn. Jesse hops onto the ring apron and Taryn takes her eyes off the action to miss what would be a winning pin attempt. I don’t know why she isn’t sending Jesse to the back, as for some reason I don’t feel like a petite blond woman is going to make a 200 or so pound guy back down by pointing her finger in his face and simply telling him what to do. Especially when it’s Jesse who has much more experience in confrontations than Taryn. Oh no… Taryn’s tactics have now rubbed off on Velvet who takes her own eyes off Tara and falls into the same scenario by wagging her finger in his face. This is why peer pressure is a bad thing Taryn, and you can not lead by example when it comes to these things.
Phew, Velvet has outsmarted us all! She was simply parodying Taryn long enough in order for Tara to come running up behind so she could move out of the way and send the champ colliding face first with her man. Or… maybe Velvet and Taryn were in cahoots with this the entire time and it’s all a set up in which case I would personally bow to them both. Velvet gets a roll up out of nowhere, but Tara just kicks out! She goes for a suplex, but suddenly collapses as I fear the need for Life Alert may be in order until I see that it was due to Jesse tripping her up. He holds the foot down as Taryn… misses it and counts the victory for Tara and she retains the title.
Thoughts: Kicking off with the backstage segment, I thought it was pretty darn funny. Jesse has grown on me a lot since being paired with Tara, and I’ve said it before so I won’t spend forever talking about it, but I still find myself laughing at their shenanigans together. The comments made about the Velvet figure were priceless, and I always love when we get props involved. A little bummed that there was nothing with Gail Kim considering she had such a presence last week, but I think she’s on the UK tour so hopefully we get some more from her in the upcoming weeks.
The match was solid. It kind of fell into that category for me where I didn’t dislike it or anything, but nothing really happened that made me overly love it. It was kind of what I thought a match between them would be like, especially with Jesse at ringside etc. I will add though that I love the flip over facebuster Velvet does, possibly even more than the double underhook but I’m not quite sure yet. (Of course, I’ll let you all know when I decide since I’m sure it’s burning on your minds nonstop along with how awesome Adele will be at the Oscars when she performs Skyfall.) Apologies for the thoughts portion being so short, but I’ve got to head out pretty much right this minute, so until next week… Peace!
