It’s another Friday, which means another thrilling edition of the Impact Write-Up comes your way. This week brought forth our monthly Open Fight Night, where anyone can call out anyone, and Gut Check challenges galore take place. This week, Brooke Tessmacher, our reigning and defending Knockouts Champion, calls out her mentor, Tara, in what is something I’ve been dying to see ever since Brooke became Knockouts Champion (the first time). Let’s find out who emerges with a victory!
The upbeat rock anthem of Brooke Tessmacher hits and out comes our Knockouts Champion. After a replay of last week, we hit the ring with Tessmacher, who thanks Brooke Hogan for righting the wrong that was Madison’s four day title reign. She claims tonight is personal though, not about titles. Every day, she asks herself if she can beat the one person that has been her teacher and best friend through everything in her wrestling career at TNA… Tara! Out comes the Widows Peak Freak looking great, as Brooke embraces her with applause. Once Tara enters the ring, out walks our special referee for the female matches, Taryn Terrell from the back!
Taryn steps inside the squared circle, as the bell sounds and we get underway. Tara and Brooke lock up, as Brooke scores with an armdrag early on. Another lock up, but this time it’s Tara who connects with the armdrags. Brooke goes for one of her own, but there’s a little miscommunication and they recover so well by taking a moment to gather themselves. Tara with a headlock, as Tessmacher fights out. The veteran hits a shoulder tackle and runs off the ropes. Brooke with a leapfrog and a hip toss, as Tara trips her up and hits a hip toss or two of her own! She rounds it off with a huge front powerslam for a two count, before backing Brooke into the corner. Taryn Terrell breaks it up, as Brooke scores with a few shots! Tara ultimately overpowers her and gives us a fun psycho facial expression!
Tessmacher mounts a comeback with a few clotheslines and a dropkick. She attempts to strike Tara, but holds off, remembering who this is. (Love it). Brooke with a few head shots to the abdomen and then the facebuster! She heads up to the top rope, as Tara sneaks a peak while Brooke’s back is turned… uh oh. Once Brooke hits the top rope, Tara sprouts up and heads up with her! She connects with a huge superplex and rolls over into the cover for the victory! After the showing, Tara and Tessmacher embrace in a hug, but will this be the final time we see them against each other? I certainly hope not.
Thoughts: I thought the match between Brooke and Tara was really enjoyable, especially with the facial expressions and little things added in like Brooke stopping herself from going crazy on Tara in the corner and Tara not breaking by the count of five. It was weird seeing Tara not win using one of her signature moves, but I kind of like it because it keeps some of the freshness alive for a possible rematch down the road. For weeks I’ve been saying how I want to see Brooke and Tara feud, and it looks like that might be happening! I’ve also begged to see Brooke be given time on the mic, which did happen! I don’t need 5 segments of Knockouts to make for a good night, and this one match did everything I had been wanting to see so I can’t fault anything. I love that a potential feud between TNT is being built up and not just determined by a contenders match, and it makes perfect sense because the Open Fight Night concept has to do with people being able to call out anyone from the back. Brooke’s reasoning behind choosing Tara was clear and easy to follow, mixed in with commentary plugging how Tara should’ve actually been the one challenging Brooke at Hardcore Justice in the first place, and overall I have no faults about this segment. It captured everything I’ve been clamoring for over the past few weeks and did so in a stellar way!
The only thing I’ll say that I didn’t like about tonight is not to do with anything in the match, but rather lack of continuity with Madison Rayne. I don’t mind her being given a week off, and it’s easy to just have her come back next week and say that she needed to regroup after losing the title to gather her thoughts, but I do hope to see her back next week in a backstage segment or something explaining the absence. I still think she and Gail should go for the Tag Titles, but then you have to look at it as “who is there to challenge them if they win?” Sarita‘s gone for two months, so unless TNA wants to pair up Mickie James and Taeler Hendrix I can’t think of any other Knockouts that are even employed besides Rosita, but she’s heel so it wouldn’t really work unless they turned her. But to sum this up, enjoyable night from Impact Wrestling, with a lot of possibilities for the future which is nothing but exciting to me! Still hope to see Taeler, Rosita, and Mickie back soon but I’m definitely liking the potential feud brewing between teacher and student. Keep this going!
