Hola Knockout fans and welcome to this week’s Write-Up, the “fake PPV” No Surrender edition. You would think TNA would drop these “special” titled episodes of Impact by now unless they were actually three hours long. Whether you refer to this week’s TNA show as No Surrender or Impact Wrestling, the Knockouts action remains the same!
After weeks of disappearing and reappearing acts through her new inner-ninja persona, Gail Kim returns to the ring this week in a match against not one, not two but all three members of the Dollhouse! How will Gail handle being in the same against Marti Bell, Jade and Taryn Terrell? Let’s find out!
After the Dollhouse make their group entrance, Gail Kim (who I must say looks absolutely flawless in her new gear) joins them in the ring with a face that reads pure courage, determined to take any or all members of the Dollhouse group.
Abiding by the non-tornado handicap rules, the Dollhouse agree to have Marti square off with Gail first. After dodging two of Marti’s clotheslines, Gail steals the first strike with flashy kicks to Marti’s lower body. Gail proceeds by sending Marti to a corner but Marti reverses Gail’s Irish whip, which only backfire when Gail sidesteps to the outside ring apron before Marti can connect a running attack.
A thrust to Marti’s midsection catches Marti off guard, allowing Gail to flip over the ropes and sneak behind Marti to a roll-up pin. When Marti manages to kick out, Jade tries to ambush Gail from behind but Gail’s senses tingle and she avoids Jade’s assault, sending her to collide to Marti instead. Taryn takes a cautious chance to try a sneak attack of her own but once again, Gail’s senses alert her of the Dollhouse’s attacks.
Distracted by Taryn, an attack from behind by a returning Marti finally brings Gail to the ground. Marti is determined to keep things this way, hitting Gail with a beautiful running swinging neck breaker! Instead of going for a cover, Marti tags in head mistress Taryn in, who demands for Marti to tag her in so that she may be the privileged one to get the three count over Gail.
When Gail kicks out at two, Taryn runs to Jade to tag her, avoiding Gail before she can get back up. Jade is trapped into a headlock submission upon being tagged in but finds an escape when she throws Gail down the mat.
As Gail continues to get the better of Jade, Taryn can’t help but interfere when Gail reaches to the Dollhouse’s side of the ring, pulling Gail by the hair. The mini distraction gives Jade a much needed a break as she catches Gail with a powerful German Suplex into a pin fall.
Jade throws a brief tantrum when Gail kicks out before the three count but keeps the attack coming. Jade kicks Gail to a corner and hits a running cannonball prompting Taryn’s desire for another tag. As with before, Taryn goes for a pin to Gail over anything else but only gets a two count.
Frustrated, Taryn begins to stomp Gail and tags Marti for a chance at a double team attack. The double team plan fails as Gail slips away from Marti’s grip, resulting in Taryn to accidentally strike her DFF teammate. A fired up Gail Kim throws Marti to a corner turnbuckle post and obliterates an incoming Jade with a dynamic tornado DDT! Is there anything this woman can’t do!?
With both of her DDFs now out the picture, Gail has her eyes on Taryn next but never gets a chance to truly get her hands on Taryn as the Dollhouse leader flees from the match, jumping over the barricade and running through the Impact Zone audience to head backstage in a safer environment.
Even when Taryn’s sudden departure from the match turns this three on one handicap match in to a two on one handicap match, Gail remains in full control of the match. Gail casually goes back and forth with the remaining Dollhouse and even outsmarting them when they try a double team suplex.
The roaring conclusion comes when Gail runs the ropes to take out both Jade and Marti with a double dropkick, resulting in Jade being taken out to the outside of the ring and Marti to become a victim of Eat Defeat from Gail, who in the end, over comes the odds and gets her payback against the Dollhouse.
Making a surprise cameo appearance later in the show, we spy TNA President Dixie Carter backstage where she is on the phone in discussion of newly appointed GM Bully Ray and his whereabouts after being “taken out”. It would appear that Bully is out (for an unknown amount of time) and suddenly there’s no captain for next week’s show! How will we go on? Lucky for Madam Carter, a spirited angel in the form of the 2015 TNA HOF inductee Jeff Jarrett appears with a proposition.
Wearing his GFW T-shirt, Jarrett offers to book matches for next week’s show along with calling up some of his GFW for a show he promises “will be an Impact to remember”. With nothing to lose, Dixie agrees and says they’ll be in talks. I still say TNA was doing fine without an authority figure but I reckon I’ll take Jeff Jarrett over likes of Bully Ray or Dixie for that matter.
Thoughts: Some mixed emotions from this fan’s point of view.
While I enjoyed the Knockouts match and was thrilled to see more interaction between Jade and Gail Kim, I wasn’t exactly a fan of how this match was booked.
It feels like the Dollhouse have lost a lot of steam since Slammiversary, so to see Gail manage to defeat all THREE members in this handicap match cleanly only burns out the fire even more for the stable that had quite the memorable debut, taking out the likes of Awesome Kong.
I also wasn’t a fan of seeing Taryn cowardly fleeing the scene of the match when things turned against her team’s favor. This wasn’t a singles match where only one of the members of the Dollhouse were legal, all three women were legal. Taryn was very well protected even if she wasn’t was trying to avoid taking the pin from Gail; even though constantly relying on these new talents to take the fall is no better either.
The end game of this Gail vs Dollhouse feud should be a big showdown between Gail and Taryn but unless things change for the Dollhouse’s momentum, my interest is steadily dropping to see it. There’s history between these two and both have these new roles where they can really make their feud matter, I just don’t want the questionable booking to hurt its potential.
As already announced, Jarrett looks to take charge of next week’s show so expect seeing some GFW talents make their way to TNA in this crossover event. A bit too soon for this to be happening in my opinion but at this point, TNA doesn’t really have much to do anyway so why not try and give it a shake up!
That’s it for this week Knockout fans, hasta luego!
