Hola Knockout fans and welcome to this week’s Turning Point edition of Impact Write-Up! TNA sure has become generous when it comes to these fake “television PPVs” as this is the second event we are treated to in the same month! That or perhaps they’re starting to come short on special themed titles for their show.
Last week, Taryn Terrell put out an order for her Dolls, Marti Bell and Jade, to bring Gail Kim down to assure she would never be able to lay a finger on her again. This week, Taryn’s hench women have a chance to comply to Taryn’s bidding when they take on Gail in a handicap match inside a steel cage. So, technically, we are getting a rematch from two weeks ago, only this time it will be happening inside a steel cage. How will this new dangerous setting change the pace of this handicap rematch? Let’s find out!
Before we get to our Knockouts match, our show opens with GFW founders Jeff Jarrett and Karen Jarrett who continue their weekly plugin of their GFW promotion as well as taking charge of Impact Wrestling for a second week in a row.
Jeff starts by stating that last week’s TNA vs. GFW stirred quite the buzz and that he wants to keep the ball rolling with a big World Heavyweight title match this week. He decides to book TNA World Champion Ethan Carter III in a match against the newly crowned King of the Mountain champion PJ Black.
When the announcement is made, Ethan decides to unapologetically interrupt the Jarretts in protest of this title match. The TNA World Champion reminds Jeff that he is in TNA territory, or Carter Country as I like to call it, and that he should worry more about problems happening over at GFW. (Perhaps securing an actual TV deal for example)
When Ethan says he’ll boycott Jeff’s booked match, Karen decides to take the mic to have a talk with this little spoiled brat. She begins to question Ethan’s anger and wonders if it stems from the fact that his aunt Dixie Carter decided to put Jeff in charge of TNA over her own nephew. After all, Jeff was the founder of the TNA company and still has ownership stake in it.
Karen continues and suggests the idea that it was Ethan behind the attacks of Bully Ray and Drew Galloway in an attempt to hold on to his world championship. The accusations only anger Ethan even more to the point that he has decided to pack up and call it a night. Before Ethan can make a run for it, Jeff threatens to speak to Aunt D to force Ethan to defend his title or be stripped of it. More on CSI: Impact Wrestling later!
Onto our Knockouts Steel Cage match, where the Dollhouse make their entrance first, during which we get a brief recap of how the Dollhouse were able to break Gail’s finger from a few weeks ago. When Gail makes her entrance to the six sides of steel next, a second helping of recap is shown of the last time Gail took on the Dollhouse stable; notably highlighting Taryn fleeing the match towards the end.
At the sound of the ring bell, the Dollhouse collectively go for an attack but Gail’s quickness allows for some easy dodging. Gail gets the early advantage after taking down both Jade and Marti with a double clothesline. She then turns focuses her attention on Marti, when she takes her to a corner and pummels her with stomps to Marti’s midsection.
Gail’s ongoing kicks to Marti come to stop when Jade attacks from behind. After a short chokehold from Jade, the Dollhouse pair bring Gail to her feet and send her to the ropes for a double team kick when she comes back to their direction. Marti goes for a pin afterwards but is only able to get a two count.
The Dollhouse whip Gail once again and this time send her to a corner, where running knee shots from Marti and a running cannonball from Jade would connect. Gail is able to toughen out from the Dollhouse’s back to back moves as she kicks out of Jade’s pin cover. The match continues as we head to a commercial break.
When we return, we spy Gail regaining control of the match with an arm bar to Marti but the submission hold is broken when Jade kicks Gail from behind. Afterwards, the Dollhouse would begin to use the steel cage to their advantage, each taking turns to toss Gail to the walls of the closed contraption.
When Jade’s second pin cover fails to reach three, Marti places Gail in a camel clutch hold while Jade runs the ropes to hit a running big boot to the trapped Gail Kim. Another unsuccessful pin attempt causes the Dollhouse to change their strategy of trying to win this match via pin fall. They decide to climb the cage and win the match with an escape!
Gail manages to quickly catch up with Jade and Marti as they try to escape and halts them from a victory by knocking off Marti after tossing her head to the cage wall and landing a sick hurricanrana to Jade from the top rope!
Back on the ground, Gail tries to finish off Marti but Marti counters Gail’s grapple. The opening gives Jade a chance to grab a hold of Gail and carry her to the top rope of a turnbuckle. From there, Jade and Marti climb the cage to meet with Gail and land kicks to her head.
After taking several shots, Gail finds a way to fight back by grabbing her opponents legs and shoving them back to the mat. Gail climbs up the cage some more and just before making it to the top, she launches off into a crossbody taking out both Marti and Jade!
Despite any recoil damage, Gail is the first woman to get up and she stacks up the Dollhouse to a corner and strikes them with a running clothesline! Things build up for Gail as she manages to single handily take down both Dollhouse members with a bulldog/head scissors combo maneuver!
After a neck breaker to Jade, Gail goes for the pin but Marti close enough to break the pin to keep the match going. In attempt to regain control of the match, the Dollhouse set Gail for a double suplex but Gail counters this to a double DDT instead. It is now Gail who makes the most of the steel cage stipulation, as she tosses Jade and Marti to separate walls of the cage, trapping them between the ropes and hitting each with a running clothesline!
Through a team effort, Jade and Marti manage to knock Gail off the top turnbuckle with intentions of then landing high flying moves. However, the risk comes with no rewards as Jade misses her missile dropkick and Marti accidentally hits her partner when Gail gets out the way. With Jade out of the picture, Gail focuses in on Marti, hits her Eat Defeat finisher for the three count and yet again beating the odds. It’s bad enough for the Dollhouse to lose to Gail once but now they’re down another loss? This is hard to digest and that’s coming from a Gail Kim fan.
A man of his word, Jeff Jarrett is next seen backstage with Aunt D to convince her to force her nephew to defend his title against his GFW protégée. He says that he talking as a TNA share holder and not of a GFW promoter, just like old times! When Ethan catches up, he plays up on the family card but Aunt D sides with her former business partner, informing her nephew that he must defend his title or be stripped of it. Is it a bad thing that I beginning to miss Heel Dixie?
Gail isn’t done on her quest to taking out ALL of the Dollhouse as she is seen backstage on the hunt for Taryn. Run Taryn, run!
Sadly for Taryn, she isn’t able to make a full escape as she runs into Velvet Sky (of all people!) backstage who lets her know Gail is looking for her. If I’m not mistaken, this is actually the FIRST time we’ve heard Velvet actually speak since she’s returned! Velvet mocks Taryn and tells her she’s done.
Velvet tells Taryn’s days of treating people wrong are over and soon Gail has Taryn right where she wants her. Gail takes Taryn’s left hand and handcuffs it to a pole! She says it time to finish what they started and proceeds to grab a chair that is close by. We aren’t able to witness any potential damage Gail may have caused to Taryn as Velvet shoos the camera away simply stating that payback is a bitch! There is a lot of irony coming from this last segment.
Our TNA president Dixie Carter, closes this week’s show along with Jeff Jarrett. After sitting down and watching Ethan defend his title as he said he would, Jeff proposes that he take charge of Impact on a regular basis. They’ve already has two successful weeks so why not keep the ball rolling, just like old times? Dixie thinks it would be a good idea but needs a week to speak to other people and to think it over.
Thoughts: I really enjoyed this week’s match more than the first handicap match between Gail and the Dollhouse. It was such a relief to see the Knockouts have more than five minutes for a change since short matches almost seemed like a trend for the Knockouts as of late.
While Gail proves to be a chameleon in whatever is thrown at her and she really kicked ass this week, my feelings about the booking for this match, as with the last one, is still pretty negative. I just hated seeing Gail kill off whatever little fire the Dollhouse had, assuming they even had any after their first lost!
The stable just come off as glorified jobbers and I really wish that TNA would do a better job when it comes to setting up these feuds with new and established Knockouts. The Dollhouse/Gail feud just feels so one sided, as was with last year’s Brittany/Madison Rayne and Havok/Awesome Kong from earlier this year, where the established Knockouts got over the newer names.
Although it was a nice surprise to see some backstage segments with Taryn and Gail, I do find it very random that Velvet is getting involved in all of this. It just feels random and I think a better choice would’ve been Brooke to run into Taryn backstage. She has history with Taryn and is the Knockouts champion after all despite being off air for weeks! Another thing that sort of rubbed me the wrong way was how heelish Gail came across when handcuffing Taryn but I guess it’s one way for a badass babyface to get payback?
Speaking of Brooke, she is set to defend her title next week against Velvet for some unexplained reason. Hopefully, some backstage segments can fill in the blanks or maybe we’ll hear something from the new man Dixie has seemingly appointed as the new GM of TNA Jeff Jarrett.
That’s it for this week Knockouts fans, hasta luego!
