Twenty-four hours after Daffney and Tara wowed us with their impressive match at Destination X, the Knockouts were back in action live on Impact with an 8-Knockout Tag Team match that had a scary Diva feel to it in a sense that they were trying to cram as many Knockouts into one segment as possible. The team of Knockout Champion, Tara, Angelina Love, Sarita, and Taylor Wilde took on Team Beautiful People (Lacey von Erich, Velvet Sky, and Madison Rayne) and Daffney.
The Knockouts had the privilege of being the opening match this week and the Beautiful People were the first ones out. Madison and Velvet had matching outfits on again while Lacey stuck out like a sore thumb as usual. That said, the von Erich spawn looked gorgeous. Madison and Velvet had their tag team titles strapped around their waists and on a personal note, I love seeing these girls with titles. Their tag team partner, from Sybil, Texas, Daffney came out next in the same outfit from Destination X. She’s proudly carrying Tara’s kidnapped pet and the Beautiful, who have high tailed it to the outside of the ring, are freaking out over the gross little critter. Daffney is showing off the tarantula when Tara comes storming down to the ring. She gets inside before Daffney sits the spider cage thing down and threatens to stomp on it. Tara begs her not to do it, and that gives those sneaky Beautiful People a chance to sleek into the ring and start stomping and beating on Tara. For the second week in a row, Daffney and TBP work together and Tara is the victim of a four-on-one beatdown until Saritaylor come running to the ring to make the save in their horrendous, circus freak matching outfits. Angelina isn’t far behind them. Shit hits the proverbial fan and we have an eight woman brawl which has really gotten the crowd going.
So of course, TNA goes to commercial break.
When Impact returns, Angelina is pinning Madison, but the tag champ manages to kick out. Taz decides to taunt us all by saying that during the commercial break, TBP and Daffney had firm control over Angelina. It really would have been nice to see that. Angelina gets the tag to Taylor Wilde, who enters the ring via the top rope. That outfit really is awful but it’s kind of cool she matched her lipstick to it. Anyway, Taylor hits Madison with an automic drop and then follows it up with a huge kick right to the booty of Madison. This sends the pastel blue wearing Rayne to her corner and she tags in Velvet. The speedy Taylor greets Velvet with a spinning neckbreaker and a pin, but Velvet kicks out despite being a bit stunned. Taylor works over Velvet’s arm which causes the Knockout to scream and look towards her team for help. Taylor pulls her closer to her team’s corner and tags in Sarita, which draws an even louder scream from Miss Sky. Velvet manages to reverse Sarita’s offensive attempts and gets the stylish luchador on the ground. She kicks her in the back and runs over to make the tag to Lacey.
Lacey confidently gets in the ring and nails Sarita with a forearm and a kick. She pushes her into the corner, but Sarita reverse the whip. Lacey catches herself on the bottom rope and bounces over Sarita, landing on her feet, and getting really excited about it. She shows her enthusiam over her athleticism to the crowd, but Sarita isn’t impressed and slaps Lacey with a drop kick. Lacey scrambles over to the corner and quickly makes the tag to Madison. Madison tries to throw a clothesline at Sarita, but she ducks it, and gets Madison down on her back. Tara gets tagged in, flips over the ropes, and Madison finds her trachea crushed via Tara’s leg. Tara goes for a cover, but Madison gets the arm up. Tara helps the blonde to her feet and locks her in a side headlock. Madison fights her way out and shoves Tara to the ropes. Madison hits the ground so Tara can’t nail her, and once Tara gets to the other side, Daffney grabs the top rope to stop the momentum the Knockout Champ has. With Tara momentarily halted, Daffney takes the cheap shot while Madison distracts the referee. Because of that, all three members of the opposite team try and get in the ring, giving the referee a temporary migraine and Velvet, Lacey, and Daffney go to triple team Tara. According to Taz, the three of them almost pulled Tara apart and while it wasn’t that extreme, it was pretty painful and Madison goes for the cover. Tara kicks out after the two.
Madison wails on Tara after the failed pin attempt and then tags in Daffney. Zombie Hot enters the ring, with Poison, and she stands over Tara to taunt her. Tara doesn’t take Daffney’s crap this time and she wraps her hand around the throat of Daffney. Daffney’s face is pretty priceless as Tara slowly gets to her feet, hand still around Daffney’s neck. Unfortunately for Tara, Daffney’s extended gets slapped by Velvet Sky and she saves her partner by kicking Tara in the chest. Velvet starts kicking away at Tara but Tara fights back. Madison comes into the ring to help and she gets Tara in a compromising position for Velvet to do some damage. Velvet decides to let Daffney have the fun so she tags in the goth queen and goes to help Madison hold Tara. This brings in Angelina and Saritaylor, and we finally have a broken down, out of control situation.
The ring clears leaving Angelina alone with Daffney, and the Canadian ex-champ asserts her authority and takes out Daffney. As she celebrates, Velvet sneaks up from behind and drops Angelina with a spiked DDT. Velvet gets all sexy for the crowd but Taylor Wilde decides she doesn’t want to see it and finishes off Velvet with a bridging Northern Lights suplex into a pin. Neither are legal at this point so the referee doesn’t bother to count and it doesn’t matter anyway. It’s Madison’s turn to have her solo moment. Madison slams Taylor’s face into her knee, getting rid of her, and giving Madison a chance to pose. Madison’s posing lasted about as long as Raw’s diva match because Sarita interupts. She kicks Madison in the stomach, hooks her, and hits a double underhook powerbomb that gets the crowd really excited. As if that wasn’t enough, match MVP Lacey comes into the ring and uses her own power to CHOKESLAM Sarita. Yes, chokeslam. Lacey dances and jumps around, and Tara comes into the ring now. She grabs Lacey and locks her in the Widow’s Peak, and the way Lacey takes it makes it look like the most devastating finisher ever. It’s crazy how well Lacey took and sold that, and Tara goes over to the corner to try and rescue Poison. But this match comes full circle now because Daffney scampers back into the ring. She grabs Tara, gets the Lobotomy on her as the crowd chants “TNA… TNA”, and scores a huge pin over the Knockout Champion to put an end to this crazy 8-Knockout Tag Team match.
The Good: This match is proof that you can have a clusteryouknowwhat of a women’s match and give everyone a chance to shine. No Knockout was left out and everyone got to have their moment in the spotlight. One thing I’ve noticed with the Knockouts is they all have chemistry with each other. You can throw any Knockout combination together and they just seem to click. If one girl has limited ability, the other one is right there to pick her up and it just makes for great television.
Another thing that stood out for me was Lacey. She takes a lot of crap for her lack of wrestling skills but every single time she walks to the ring you have to acknowledge how genuine and excited, and happy she seems to be out there in front of the fans. I love the fact she tries despite the fact fans and critics keep knocking her down. She’s got a thick skin and to survive in the wrestling business, you have to have that. It’s not easy and we’ve all heard the horror stories about how people get treated. It doesn’t seem like anyone is really babying Lacey and she’s doing an amazing job of taking it all in stride and keeping her head up. I’ve been guilty of bashing Lacey myself but the more I watch TNA, the more attached to these Knockouts I get, and I really, really feel that Lacey has potential to be someone in this sport if she continues to work at it. Her timing on her bumps is getting much better and so is her acting and selling. I believe she loves this business and I believe she wants to carry on her family’s wrestling tradition to the best of her abilities. Lacey is growing on me and I fully expect people to continue spitting on her. I just ask that everyone who wants to say something negative about Lacey to think about what she could be going through behind the scenes and just appreciate and respect the fact that she’s getting out there and trying. She did more in this match than she’s done in the past and I look forward to seeing what else Lacey has in store for us during this Beautiful People tag team championship run.
The build-up to Daffney and Tara’s inevitable clash continued in nice fashion. The angle wasn’t dropped with no explanation which is more than I could have hoped for. Daffney getting the pinfall over Tara was great and I can’t wait for their First Blood match next week on Impact. It will probably signal the end of the feud unless Daffney wins the title, but all good things have to end and if next week is the end of Daffney versus Tara, I hope both women lay it all on the line and give everyone the Knockout match they’ve been waiting for since the glory days of Kong/Gail.
Another good thing? Well we got to see Sarita and Taylor! Lets have more of them, please.
The Bad: I don’t know if I can call this a truly bad thing seeing as how it work so well, is the fact TNA went the WWE route and threw together this huge tag match. I thank God it worked out so well and they got a great amount of time for it. I hope big tag matches don’t start becoming a trend in TNA. They’re better than that and for once, I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt. Next week we know we won’t be getting some huge tag match unless TNA wants to surprise us by putting the Beautiful People in one against Angelina and Saritaylor. That I would not complain about it because it would give us a lot of Knockout coverage. It would also be a great move on the part of TNA to show that they respect their women wrestlers something the WWE clearly does not.
The Ugly: Saritaylor’s outfits. Need I say more?
The commercial break during the match was completely uncalled for. I think it was Melanie who pointed out on the post show that perhaps TNA is still getting used to the live format and don’t necessarily know when to take their commercial breaks. If that’s really the case, then TNA better get it straightened out soon. It’s not the first time they’ve interrupted a Knockout match with a stupid commercial and instead of sticking with it, I switched to Raw to watch Miz and Morrison. I recorded Impact so this morning was my first time seeing the entire Knockouts’ match. I just automatically lose interest when TNA pulls something like that and I don’t know why. The WWE does it all the time but maybe I just have higher expectations for TNA. Either way, no more commercials during Knockout matches please?
The lack of Hamada was also an ugly thing but we’re going to save this rant for another day.
All in all, I would give TNA one and a half thumbs up. They didn’t pull off anything spectacular but the match was enjoyable and I liked everyone involved in it. They did everything they possibly could to make this match work and it came off pretty good in my humble opinion. What did you guys think?
