It’s just after 4 AM and I’m feeling quite sprightly at the moment. The French Open is on my television. Rafa Nadal is playing. The entire Impact show is up on YouTube so I don’t have to leave the comfort of my livingroom desk and big screen TV in order to recap the Knockout action for each and every one of you. At the time of this introduction, I have yet to watch the match itself but it features Lacey Von Erich. That fact alone makes this an epic in the making and I know that secretly all of you are closet Lacey fans. Without Lacey, you’d have nothing to look forward too or complain about! And speaking of our girl, she her part of the show involved a tag team title defense alongside the devious Velvet Sky. The two Beautiful People were in action against Sarita and Taylor Wilde, who to my knowledge have done nothing to earn a tag title shot, but whatev. At least they’re on television for like the third week in a row so I’m not going to complain.
The Knockout portion of Impact starts with a stupid promo for Halfpint Brawlers which isn’t a surprise if you read spoilers. Something named Puppet is sitting at the commentary table with Taz and Mike Tenay. Apparently he’s the owner of the new midget show and he puts it over before we go to the backstage area. Christy is standing by with Roxxi, who last week defeated Madison Rayne in a non-title match. Roxxi is wearing her ugly brown outfit again, but Christy sports a pair of fit jeans and a white wife beater. Christy talks about Roxxi’s victory over Madison and welcomes her back to TNA with open arms. Roxxi replies that it’s great to be back and that she’s looking forward to her time in TNA. As she’s talking, the video of her injury is being played. I’m totally shutting my eyes because it’s just far to gross to watch again. Roxxi says that the position she’s in now is a familiar one but this time, she’s not going to let her chances slip through her fingers. Roxxi’s pretty pumped and ready to go, and Christy decides to drop a bomb. She mentions to Roxxi that because of her (Roxxi’s) victory last week, Roxxi will be Madison at Slammiversary for the TNA Knockouts Championship. Roxxi gets all excited over the opportunity and basically freaks out. Christy is super giddy herself and Roxxi finally takes the microphone and tells Madison that she will meet her at Slammiversary.
Christy sends it back to the ring area where Sarita and Taylor are waiting for the Beautiful People. Puppet is invited to stick around for commentary (oh joy) and the BPs begin to make their way to the ring. I refuse to talk about their entrance ever again so to take up this writing space I want to say that Rafael Nadal is wearing my favorite color combination at this year’s French Open – lime green and turquoise. True story. Instead of discussing the in-ring action, the announcers and the midget begin to talk about Halfpint Brawlers. Shocking. Velvet and Sarita are looking to kick things off and Sarita catches Velvet around the waist. Velvet reverses whatever Sarita was planning and hiptosses her to the mat. Velvet’s super proud of herself but Sarita’s not down for long. She Shawn Michaels’ up to her feet and when Velvet turns around she shrieks and goes back at Sarita. Sarita brings her down and goes for a quick roll-up, but she only gets a two count. Velvet’s back up in a flash but is brought down with an elbow. Sarita makes the tag to Taylor, then splashes Velvet just to do it. Taylor mounts her first bit of offense by somersaulting on top of Velvet and she goes for the cover. Another two count.
Velvet is picked up by the hair and punched in the face. She’s sent to the ropes but reverses a whip. Sarita tags herself in as Taylor kicks Velvet in the gut and does a Power Ranger move to get the tag champ on her back again. Sarita drops an elbow and tries to get Velvet in position for a pin but she goes with a roll through instead and gets another two count. Velvet desperately tries to tag in Lacey but Sarita begins to work over the arm. Taylor gets tagged in and together, the innagural champions force Velvet into the ropes. They push her across and when Velvet comes back at them, Sarita takes her down with a drop toe hold and Taylor follows it up with springing kick to the face. She makes a cover but only gets a two. This is getting old. Velvet battles back to her feet, or maybe she’s helped, either way it doesn’t matter because Taylor just hits her in the face and tries to go for a whip. Velvet reverses it and Taylor ends up getting distracted by Madison. That allows Lacey to take the cheap shot and send Taylor down. Velvet uses the cheating to her advantage and finally makes the tag.
Lacey comes into the ring much to my delight and the Beautiful People sloppily double team Taylor Wilde. Velvet gets out and allows Lacey to take over. She puts the Claw on Taylor, picks her up and slams her down, then goes for the cover. Sarita doesn’t bother to break up the pin attempt and Lacey wins the match for the Beautiful People, and they retain their championships. Sarita gets Taylor out of the ring and the Beautiful People begin to celebrate. Puppet, you know, the midget on commentary, decides he wants to join the party in the ring so that’s what he does. Everything is fine and dandy for a bit. The girls probably think he’s cute, like one of those little purebred dogs you carry in a bag, so they dance with him. Eventually, Velvet’s over it and she gets out of the ring. As she does, the creepy perv Puppet runs over and slaps her on the ass. This pisses off Velvet and she backs the little critter into an equally offended Madison. The Knockouts Champion DDT’s Puppet into the ground and both Vel Vel and Madison begin to stomp on him. Lacey looks pretty upset because she clearly doesn’t believe in child abuse. She pleads for her friends to stop and that infuriates Velvet who orders Lacey to get out of the ring.
Lacey, however, is a grown up and doesn’t take orders from Velvet Sky. She drops to her knees and checks on the poor thing who’s playing up his injuries like some kind of war veteran. Lacey falls for the ploy and Puppet grabs her into a kiss. She ends up falling on top of Puppet while they’re making out. Eventually Lacey breaks free and she’s apparently pretty hot for this dude. She exclaims the word “wow” and begins rolling around on the mat with him some more. Velvet is horrified by this and is throwing up on the stage and I’m just left shaking my head. Oh Lacey. You amuse me so much.
Moving on!
On this week’s WCW (Weekly Chelsea Watch, clever right?), our favorite arm candy made her first appearance as the reluctant valet to her new owner, Abyss. Abyss was in action against Orlando Jordan, who interestingly enough had pasties on his nipples featuring Abyss’ face. Wonderful. Their match is pretty insignificant to me until the point where Orlando Jordan shoves Abyss into poor Chelsea. She takes the hit like a pro and in turn, Abyss gets pissy and starts to beat the snot out of Jordan. He sends Jordan into the ring post but before Abyss can check on Chelsea, the hotness that is Desmond Wolfe decides to attack Abyss with a lead pipe. A 2-on-1 attack on Abyss ensues until random Rob Terry comes storming to the ring to make the save. Desmond bails and Terry dismantles Jordan. Abyss finally gets the chance to check on Chelsea, who’s basically dead on the outside. He finally just scoops her up and carries her backstage. Yup, that’s it.
The Good: The first thing that comes to mind is Velvet Sky. She sold Taylor and Sarita’s offense pretty well and I enjoyed watching her play the whipping girl for the majority of the match. We criticize Velvet’s wrestling skills a lot, but she’s really good at taking punishment and her acting is always spot on. To me, Velvet is more of a performer than an actual wrestler, and Saritaylor are the opposite. That’s why this worked so well in my opinion. Taylor and Sarita were allowed to wrestle and Velvet took it like the star she is. The best part was at the end when Lacey was rolling around with Puppet. Velvet was seen standing on the stage and the look on her face was totally priceless. She was disgusted, sick to her stomach, and just overall horrified that Lacey was liking the midget and what he was doing to her. The fake throwing up in her mouth was great and Velvet was the Knockout MVP tonight. Dispute me if you like.
The Bad: Most everything else was bad this week. I hate that, but c’est le vie. Roxxi is another one of those “wrestlers” and her reaction to finding out she had a title match at Slammiversary was cringe worthy. I took drama for three out of four years in high school so I feel as I have a right to state that Roxxi’s reaction was seriously fake and way to put on. I don’t really know what she could have done to make it a little better. Maybe TNA’s crack creative team should have wrote her some better lines. Maybe Roxxi could have stood there and stared at Christy, and just kept saying “Oh my God” in a stunned voice. Anything would have been better than her phony excitement.
Lacey getting the win was bad and it hurts my heart to write that. I wouldn’t have a problem with this if Velvet Sky hadn’t been so spot on tonight. I don’t like that Velvet took all the abuse and let Lacey have the win. It doesn’t seem very Velvet-like, but TNA is known for doing strange things. I’m happy for Lacey and I love the fact she uses The Claw for her finisher, but again. She didn’t even take a hit in this match. At least sell a few punches or something before getting the win. This probably sounds a bit hypocritical and I’m sure I’ll get comments saying “Lacey never does anything anyway” but whatever. She’s been doing very well recently and I don’t think she got enough of a chance to show that tonight.
The Ugly: The Chelsea/Abyss stuff was awful tonight. As much as I love Chels, she’s not ready to take bumps and she proved that tonight. Abyss barely knocked into her and Chelsea went down very sloppy and never got up. If they wanted to do this sort of angle, then they should have trained Chelsea to take the hit and make it believable. Abyss is a big dude but he’s also a veteran of the squared circle. He should have done his part in making the whole thing more “real” as well. This storyline has been so hot and I was terribly disappointed to see that Desmond didn’t even bother to check on Chelsea. He went right to attacking Abyss and ran away as soon as Rob Terry hit the ring. I said last week that I didn’t want Chelsea and Abyss to end up together and I got the impression this week that we’re heading in that direction. My heart definitely hurts for that.
The stuff with Puppet was terribly ugly. It further proved the point that the Knockouts are the new Divas. This reeked of a painful reminder of all those God awful Hornswoggle/Diva segments on Raw. Why are midgets and women always put together in wrestling segments? Is it because chauvinistic male egos get off on putting something so insignificant and pointless with a woman to remind everyone that women don’t need to be taken seriously in wrestling?! Damn you Eric Bischoff. As hot as you are, quit TNA already please. And take Hogan with you just because. Talking about Puppet’s stupid show during the Knockout match was disrespectful and something I expect from the WWE. Maybe TNA let Lacey win the match for the Beautiful People to compensate for the fact she had to simulate a make out scene with this Puppet character. It’s nothing against midgets or anything like that. I’m just sick of seeing them overshadow Divas and now Knockouts.
TNA is so frustrating. A year ago they were the best place to watch female wrestling action. Now the Knockouts are nothing more than a sideshow act at some cheap carnival. I hate it for the girls and I hate it for the fans who watch every week and somehow remain devoted. I promise you guys I’m not PMSing this week. I was just general disgusted with what I had to watch. It did nothing for me but if you enjoyed it, then more power to you. I wish I could say the same, but I can’t, and like always, I’m not going to sugar coat things. Tonight’s Impact was a fail and that sucks because TNA has shown flashes of brilliance as of late. TNA is being a tease these days. They give you something good to keep you somewhat satisfied and wanting more, but they absolutely refuse to go all the way. When are we going to see the Knockouts perform at the highest level again? The girls there now are capable, that I would bet money on. They may not be Awesome Kong, Gail Kim, or even Tara, but they’re talented and they can work.
But you’d never know it judging by this week’s Impact.
