Hola Knockout fans and welcome to this week’s Impact Write-Up. We are two weeks into TNA’s UK tour and the never ending war between The Dollhouse and The Beautiful People continues as Jade and Marti Bell team up to take on Madison Rayne and the TNA Knockouts Champion Gail Kim. We might as well go for the Best of Seven Series folks!
In a slightly more interesting angle, Rosemary gets a blast from the past during her stay in Manchester. Who is the mystery man seeking Rosemary and what is his connection with the Decay‘s manager?
Ahead of next week’s special Lockdown edition of Impact, Dixie Carter meets up with her dashing nephew Ethan Carter III to grant him a rematch against Matt Hardy for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship:
Get back what is rightfully yours Ethan!
Maria Kanellis continues her managing duties. She introduces her husband as a future world champion and stands at ringside with hubby Mike Bennett when he takes on British Boot Camp winner Mandrews:
Even after picking up an easy win, Miracle Mike kept the attacks coming to Mandrews until Drew Galloway runs in to make the save, chasing away the Bennetts.
We head backstage next, as The Decay begins to prepare themselves for their Monster’s Ball tag team titles match against the current tag team champions The Wolves:
Inside a caged setting, Rosemary clutches on to the tag team titles she stole from The Wolves a few weeks ago and begins to paint a picture of the champions swimming in their own blood. Abyss chimes in and says that Rosemary will be the most beautiful woman at the ball.
Suddenly, a mystery man (known as UK’s own Jimmy Havoc) appears on the other side of the fence. He signals out Rosemary and says he hasn’t forgotten about her. He has no interest in getting involved with Abyss or Crazzy Steve as this is between himself and Rosemary. Jimmy blows a kiss in Rosemary’s direction before leaving the scene.
It would appear that the emergence of the mystery Jimmy Havoc brought some bad luck to The Decay, as the group were unsuccessful in capturing the tag team gold:
Rosemary did make the most of no DQ stipulation, blinding Davey Richards at one point with a Kiss of Death mist that would make Sonya Blade proud.
Davey Richards returns the favor towards the end of the match, puckering it up with Rosemary to steal the mist pill she had hidden in her mouth. With Rosemary taken out, The Wolves were about to freely hit their finisher onto Crazzy Steve and get the three count.
Our Knockouts match of the evening is up next!
In the ring, Jade and Marti are accompanied by Rebel as they await the arrival of their opponents. Just like old times, Madison Rayne and Gail Kim make their entrances together but before they can complete their entrances, they are attacked from behind by the dolls.
Marti turns her focus to Gail while Jade takes care of Madison by tossing her to the outside. Jade follows up by running the ropes to hit an outside dive that takes Madison down. Back inside the ring, Marti and Gail carry on their exchange of offenses. With a little help from Rebel, Marti manages to land a Samoan Drop to the Knockouts champion. Marti goes for the cover after hitting a swinging neck breaker but Gail kicks out before the three count.
The Dollhouse make the tag and Jade hits a series of rapid kicks to Gail upon entering the ring, going for a cover when Gail lands on the mat but still falls short on the three count. Jade whips Gail to a turnbuckle but it backfires when Gail lands an elbow shot to a looming Jade. Gail tries to wear Jade down by applying a Flying Dragon hold but Jade counters with a double knee shot to the midsection.
The Dollhouse make their second tag in this match and send Gail back to the turnbuckle. Marti lands a running forearm while Jade goes for a running big boot. The Dollhouse make another quick tag and to assure that Gail isn’t able to make a tag to her partner, Jade hits a running big boot to Madison that nearly knocks her off the ring apron.
Just as Jade looks to put Gail away with a packaged piledriver, the Knockouts Champion finds the strength to reverse Jade’s finisher and hits Jade with a powerful clothesline that Jade sells beautifully.
Both legal competitors begin to race to their respective partners and once the hot tags are made, Madison begins lands a series of forearms and chops to Marti. An enziguri later, Madison hits the Rayne Check to Marti, going for the pin but as luck would have it, Jade breaks up the pin cover before the three count.
For the second time in this match, Rebel begins to attack Gail Kim from outside the six sided ring. She holds Gail down as Jade goes for a suicide dive but Gail fights off Rebel and hits Jade with a forearm before Jade can take off.
The legal women inside the ring continue to square off, as Madison begins to set Marti for the Rayne Drop but Marti reverses this to a roll though pin. The Queen Bee surprises Marti with a reversal pin of her own that earns her the three count and win.
As the victorious team celebrates their win, the Dollhouse begin a three on two attack until Velvet Sky’s music hits. The second Beautiful People member makes her return after being away for a few weeks and clears the ring of The Dollhouse by hitting a stunner to Rebel and a dual bulldog/stunner maneuver to Jade and Marti.
To end the segment, Velvet grabs a mic and issues a challenge to The Dollhouse to compete against The Beautiful People and Gail Kim in the first ever Knockouts Lethal Lockdown match! And so continues the saga of The Beautiful People and The Dollhouse.
Thoughts: The Dollhouse and The Beautiful People feud has a plateau at this point for me. We’ve seen match after match after match between these two factions with no real story progression other than one team wanting to upstage the other. Yes, part of this may come The Dollhouse losing their leaders unexpectedly but I just wish that TNA would fill in some backstage segments or somehow appoint a new leader for the group so that things wouldn’t feel so stale.
The match was all right for what it was, allowing the Beautiful People and Gail, to get some payback from last week but I just wish there was more to latch onto. I also wish these tag matches weren’t as short as they are but maybe it’s the most TNA can do with there not really being a whole of progression going on. The team combinations somewhat help refresh things and I am glad that next week’s rematch is happening under a Lethal Lockdown stipulation as it can help things feel somewhat different.
I did also want to briefly touch on Rosemary’s encounter with Jimmy Havoc. Although I would have preferred TNA to make the most of this UK tour by featuring the female talent overseas, I am glad to see that they are still introducing new faces to the roster. I’m not all too familiar with Jimmy Havoc but I did find his interaction with Rosemary interesting as it opens a window to help build more of Rosemary’s character other than being a manager to The Decay. Again I ask, what is the connection between Rosemary and Jimmy Havoc and where did it all exactly begin?
Here’s hoping we get those answers during our next stop, London!
