Bonjour all, and welcome to this week’s fun-filled extravaganza of Knockout action that we call an Impact Write-Up. Last week was Velvet Sky‘s big opportunity against reigning and defending champ, Tara, to take the prized title and plaster it around her pigeon filled waist. Unfortunately for her, the constant interference of Jesse proved to be too much, as it was Tara who walked out still champion. This week though, it’s Open Fight Night. And while I always get this confused with Championship Thursday, I’ve researched to discover that this is the event where anyone gets to call out someone else and make their voices heard with a straight up fight. This, in turn, leaves us with many questions that I want answered:
Could Velvet Sky be on the hunt for revenge and call out Tara?
Will Brooke Hogan challenge one of the Aces & Eights to a Bra & Panties match due to their history?
How about having Gail Kim state my — I mean her — problems with the officiating of Taryn Terrell?
Or… something I’ve allegedly been told that Taz himself has pitched to the TNA writers: Christy Hemme challenges all the Knockouts to a slow-mo camera pan-up competition where the camera slides up each Knockout slowly and the winner is crowned by audience applause, or Taz himself. From what I’ve (allegedly) heard, they would even put the title on the line and it will end with Lacey Von Erich returning to strip down and dance for us. (Does anyone have the sudden urge to watch the Lockbox Showdown again?)
Of course, after tonight, all of these questions will likely find answers. But let’s just hope it’s the answers we all want. And on that note, we shall delve right into the action because the more I stall, the more I am tempted to start discussing my love of the gone but never forgotten Claire Lynch, and I know that none of you want that to happen.
We open the scene with Velvet Sky making her grand entrance for us all. Continuing to switch it up, she’s now got big furry boots on which I like because they add extra damage to her kicks in that the fur could end up choking her opponent out via smothering like a pillow. Velvet has the microphone and wants to get something off her chest. Since I still don’t grasp what exactly the pigeons are, I’m guessing they have something to do with it… but alas, I am wrong. She wants to call out the two gals that are responsible for her being title-less at the moment, Tara and Jesse. Impact clearly loves me tonight because we get no shots at all of the horrible, basic font on their titantron, and instead it’s all focused on Hollywood’s Greatest Couple.
HGC step inside the ring ready to compete, looking to start a 2-on-1 handicap match, unless all three of them have plans to face Taryn Terrell in a 3-on-1 to punish the bad officiating right out of her! (Side note: Please know that my problems with Taryn’s officiating are just that, and I mean no harm with my comments as I’m a fan of her in general.) Velvet reveals that she’s got a little surprise for them, in that of a tag team partner. Suddenly, James Storm’s theme (which just received a nomination for greatest male theme song in the first annual Bobby awards) hits, and out he comes to stand by Velvet. Taryn signals for the bell, and the males start things out.
I feel like I know more about something called Bellator fighting than I do the entire Knockouts Division since it’s all I ever pick up from the commentary table during their matches, but besides that we have Jesse backing Storm into the corner. James fights back and scores with a shoulder tackle, following it up with a hip toss. Jesse kind of leaps up and lands on James’ shoulder, then getting taken out with a fist to the face. Tara tries to trip James up, which allows Jesse to get the upper hand with some kicks. An arm lock sends James Storm into the corner, as Jesse hits a snapmare and a legdrop for a set of near falls. Storm hits a huge backstabber, as both men make the tag out!
Sky runs in with a clothesline or two, then nailing a nice spinning headscissors. Velvet hits a russian leg sweep for a near fall, as Tara now gets in control and tries to drag Sky into her corner. Velvet ends up shoving Tara forward and delivering a roll up, but Tara manages to kick out. This doesn’t stop the plucky underdog, who drills our champ with a facebuster. Suddenly, Jesse runs in to go after Velvet, but James “master of the double knee moves” Storm takes him out with a codebreaker. Tara now starts screaming at Storm, which distracts her long enough for Velvet to hit the double underhook facebuster for the one… two… three! The team with last names pertaining to weather is victorious, as Hollywood’s Greatest Couple must prep for tomorrow.
Thoughts: Tonight, kind of like last week, were basically what I expected to happen in the matches. Tonight’s wasn’t really anyones fault though because 95% of mixed tag matches kind of resemble the same thing. One gender works majority of the middle, and then the other gets the hot tag. A fight ensues between the non-legal gender, leading towards the legal one to get the pin. It works though, so I’m not saying that’s a problem. I love that Velvet got mic time before the match to vent her frustrations because it shows us that she’s not just going to take what happened last week lying down. Overall, it wasn’t anything mind-blowing, but what we got made sense and was enjoyable. And I’d rather take that opposed to something that might look good on paper, but transition badly on TV.
