To follow the trend of recent weeks, TNA recycled their Knockouts’ storylines and twisted them into a pretzel to make both seem original. Was there progression? Did the it all make sense? Are we actually going to get a title match on pay-per-view this month? All these questions and more will be answered… after the break! Just kidding about the break! This isn’t American Idol and I am not Ryan Seacrest. If you do want answers, then you must continue reading.
The part of Impact worth watching begins with an amazing promo by Angelina Love. Christy asks Angelina how she feels seeing the group she founded walk away with the Knockouts Tag Team Championships. Angelina gets a great look on her face that’s a mix of disgust and annoyance that her ex-best friends are actually champions and she starts to vent about it. Angelina flat out admits that it sucks to see the group with the titles and that it made her mad. She claims she is going to do something about it and issues an open challenge to any member of the Beautiful People to meet her in the ring tonight. She says she doesn’t care which member it is because all of them have been ducking her for weeks and as far as she is concerned, they’re all trying to be like her. Angelina is an original, and she adds that she is going to start cleansing TNA one Beautiful person at a time.
After a promo featuring time wasters and a tag team match, the Beautiful People are seen backstage with their newly won titles discussing their options. They make plans as the show fades to commercial and after one more segment, we finally get our Knockout match of the night. Angelina comes to the ring first and her hair looks absolutely fabulous. Her ring entrance is short lived because as soon as Angelina gets into the ring, the Beautiful People’s theme song hits. Velvet Sky and Madison Rayne are carrying the titles on their shoulders while Lacey von Erich remains the sole possessor of the ugly stick. The three BP members are carrying themselves with a renewed sense of confidence this week and their smiles are so blinding white the Impact Zone doesn’t really need all those harsh lights while they’re around. Velvet has a microphone and she looks down to the ring with a sneer across her lovely face.
Velvet Sky: “I bet you think you’re all big and bad issuing an open challenge to one of the Beautiful People… DON’T CHA?!”
Angelina is basically like bring it on, bitch, while Velvet continues to look a mischievous cat who just did something it wasn’t supposed to do. She basically tells Angelina that what Angelina wants, Angelina gets and that tonight she will get the opportunity to face off against an honorary beautiful person for one night only. All three ladies motion towards the entrance and of course, Angelina waits with extreme anticipation. In a totally predictable move, Angelina’s opponent doesn’t come from the back but instead she sneaks up behind her. Zombie Hot herself, Daffney, attacks Angelina thus getting the match underway.
Daffney clubs Angelina in the back and knocks the Canadian to the ground. She begins to assault the former Knockouts champion by bending her in an awkward position and holding her like that by the roof of her mouth. I’m not even sure if that explanation makes sense but it looks horribly painful and thankfully Daffney doesn’t subject Angelina to that abuse for very long. The number one contender to the Knockouts Championship doesn’t stop her attack, however. She continues to apply the pressure to Angelina by bending her neck back and hitting her in the head. Angelina is in a terrible position at the moment and all the Beautiful People can do is watch this match with tears of joy streaming down their faces… with arms wide open. Ahem.
Daffney slithers out of the ring and pulls out a toolbox which gives all of us an indication of what’s about to happen. Daffney pulls out a set of vice grips, decides those just won’t do, and she selects a pair of pliers. She truly gets orgasmic as she plays with the pliers but those just aren’t what she wants either. Those wretched pliers hit the ground and Daffney finally discovers the object of her affection. A pretty little hammer is taken into the ring with the crazy one and it seems like Angelina is about to suffer a similar fate to that of Tara and ODB, those poor souls who felt Daffney’s wrath before her. Madison and Velvet are encouraging this action and Lacey just continues to spread her sunshiny smile to the Impact zone. This is the stuff dreams are made of…
The referee balls up and stops Daffney from attacking Angelina with that darn hammer. He wrestles it away from Daff which gives her blonde opponent plenty of time to recharge her batteries. Angelina nails Daffney with a takedown and starts to beat on her. Eventually Angelina goes to the ropes but the Beautiful People have had enough and grab Angelina by the legs. She hits the mat pretty hard and they pull her crotch first into the steel ring post. Taz stupidly asks if that actually hurts a woman and to answer his question, yes Taz. I’m pretty sure it does. No woman wants to feel her ovaries slammed into steel just like no man wants to get punched right in the balls.
Daffney pulls Angelina into her and grips her around the waist. In a truly sick move, Daffney swings Angelina like a baseball bat into the ramp that goes to the ring. I had to watch this part twice because at first it didn’t look like Angelina got her hands up in time but thankfully she did. Angelina hit the side of her head really hard on that ramp and it drew a collective gasp from the people in the Impact Zone. She’s basically out of it and the Beautiful People drag Angelina’s limp body back into the ring. The crowd is giving them a fair amount of heat and Daffney saunters up the ramp and grabs the ugly stick. The Beautiful People are in the ring and Lacey is struggling to get Angelina’s dead weight lifted up. She finally manages it and the Beautiful People are getting ready for one of their classic three-on-one beatdowns. The timekeeper is ringing the bell like mad but it’s not doing any good. Thankfully Tara sprints from the crowd, slides into the ring, and starts cleaning house. One Widow’s Peak to Madison later and Tara locks eyes with Daffney. These two women have absolutely no love for one another and Mike Tenay reminds us that Destination X will see Tara and Daffney square off for the TNA Knockouts Championship.
So same ole, same ole. After weeks of build-up, the Tara/Daffney rivalry is finally going to come to a head this Sunday at Destination X. This match has loads of potential because both of these women seem to despise each other. Everyone knows how hardcore and dirty Daffney can get, and the best from Tara is yet to come. Impact could have done a better job at building this tonight, but they don’t want to devote the time to the Knockouts it seems. The Knockouts consistently have the highest rated segments on Impact and if TNA were smart, they would space out promos and matches for these girls during both the first and second hours. It’s a real shame we have to subject ourselves to Daffney becoming a honorary member of the Beautiful People in order to advance Daffney/Tara and Angelina/TBP.
The Knockout segment was good and it did what it had to do, but it wasn’t great by any means. We basically saw the same thing we’ve been seeing every week but for some reason it just wasn’t that exciting. Everyone looked great. All these women work well together. You can definitely sense the chemistry and the fact they care about what their delivering to the fans. The Knockouts aren’t getting a whole lot to work with at the moment and I’m worried that once Daffney and Tara have their match that their feud is just going to disappear. Destination X should NOT be the blow off match to this rivalry. It should signify the beginning. I would love to see it end in DQ or a double count out or something. No one needs to win or lose at this point. TNA has a wonderful thing going with Daffney and Tara, and they need to capitalize on it. It sucks that their feud has to be tied in with Angelina Love/TBP. I thought last week would be a one time thing. I hope this isn’t something that continues on because if it is, it’s just going to be apparent to everybody that TNA is going down the WWE road when it comes to their women.
Angelina Love seems to be in limbo right now. She’s going to keep getting the short end of the stick with this Beautiful People feud until someone in the front office decides to give her an ally not named Tara. I don’t know what TNA will do. They’re a wild card every week now because they’re no longer taping three or four shows in advance. We’re left pondering and guessing what will happen next and sometimes that’s not always a good thing. We have ridiculously high expectations for the Knockouts and rightfully so. This division used to bring people to their feet and have them marking out over women’s wrestling. Long gone are those days but it’s really not to late to get them back. TNA needs to stop caring so much about image and looks, and get their butts back on track. It truly baffles me that they’re going down the WWE path and making sure they only get the extremely pretty faces on television. If TNA cared that much about image, they wouldn’t drag their show down into the depths of Hell with overweight drunks and Hulk Hogan’s old ass buddies. I don’t want to hear about how creative doesn’t have anything for certain Knockouts when there are a million and one potential angles out there for every one, and yes, you can cram it all into a two hour show when you know what you’re doing.
The Knockout action fell short this week and that’s basically the bottom line. Tara and Daffney shouldn’t have to share their spotlight with TBP and Angelina, and vice versa. These are separate feuds and should stay just that, separate. The Knockouts Championship and Knockout Tag Team Championships should not overlap. There are enough girls around so everyone should have something to do. Hamada deserves a rematch for the belts because it wasn’t her fault she lost them. She was the victim in a poorly handled situation by TNA. How about we make Hamada Angelina’s partner? Lets get Sarita and Taylor involved too. The Beautiful People piss off everyone and it would be nice to see them backed into a corner with the numbers advantage not on their side for a change.
I’ve ranted and raved it seems, and lost the true meaning of this. The point is, management is screwing the Knockouts. I really did enjoy the segment because I love everything these girls do, but I want more. I want TNA to give the Knockouts their deserved amount of time and spots on the show. I’m not alone in wanting this and all we can do is hope and pray to the wrestling gods that this Sunday we get an amazing match between Tara and Daffney that will leave the door open for more drama between these two. It’s not that much to ask.
