After four days of not being able to sustain a reliable Internet connection long enough to view a single Youtube video, I am here and attempting to bring forth the action from this weeks episode of OVW before I lose it once again. (In simpler terms: if I rush, I apologize.)
Following a strange week of not having a single female match or segment on the show last week, the OVW females return to form this go-round with a pair of segments involving Nikki St. John, Taeler Hendrix, Heidi Lovelace and OVW Womens Champ, Trina, as well as a bout that pits Lei’D Tapa against Holly Blossom. Holly may have Hannah in her corner, but will they be able to stop the Tongan Tour of Terror from rolling on?
Let’s find out!
Backstage we go, as we spot the dastardly duo comprised of Taeler Hendrix and Nikki St. John chatting about how much fun they had last week sipping drinks during Heidi’s match. Nikki asks Hendrix how her whole scheme with Heidi’s been going down, but Taeler just laughs it off and parodies how easy it’s been taking advantage of Heidi’s emotions. Taeler simply wants to become a four-time Women’s Champion without getting her hands dirty (She must love her reality TV as this is a common method used on Survivor and Big Brother). Nonetheless, she wants more cosmos, but the ever so daring Nikki wants to change things up and go for margaritas. What will Taeler do?! Place your bets now on whether she’ll agree to it or disagree. If you said agree, you win double your money as it turns out Taeler’s both in the mood to see Pablo and indulge in some Mexican. What the two ladies don’t quite know though, is that Heidi herself was standing by a door and overheard the entire conversation! Ahem… as always, please click here for appropriate sound effect.
The crazy haired Tongan warrior that is Lei’D Tapa enters the arena as we prepare for some women’s action, and her opponent will be none other than Holly Blossom! Please allow me a few seconds of joy that I finally get to recap a Blossom Twin(s) match, and then give me a few more to indulge the fact that they use “How We Do” as a theme song. As far as I’m concerned, the Blossom Twins can do no wrong and should have held the possibly vacated TNA Women’s Tag Team Titles longer than ODB and her feline partner… but I don’t decide what happens in the Knockouts Tag Team Division so I’ll focus on what’s going on now, and that’s that the Blossom Twins seem to have unfortunately graduated from bringing cupcakes with them to the ring. After the twosome enter the ring, for some reason we get repeated camera zooms of Lei’D Tapa’s thighs, which while I won’t object to their impressiveness, seems a bit odd.
The bell sounds as Holly looks pumped and ready to go. Oh my, we now have a zoomed in shot of Lei’D Tapa’s chest region which I’m sure if she was aware, she’d not only take her frustration out on our coveted Holly Blossom, but she also might throw the camera in whoever operating it’s face. Nonetheless, Holly nails a few kicks and runs off for a crossbody, but Tapa catches her and bodyslams her straight down. Holly fights out, but not for long, as Tapa overpowers her. Holly manages to counter something into a headscissors that sends Tapa flying into the corner, however as she goes for a roll up, Lei’D stands tall… and we get a very special camera shot to prove it for anyone who may have missed that. Tapa and the zoomed in camera angles continue their dominance, as she hits a nasty superkick. Following another chest zoom, what on Earth?! Suddenly a pair of eyes engulf the camera and everything I’ve ever feared as I watch SyFy’s “Paranormal Witness” has come true in that I’m staring at my computer screen and it’s staring back at me. I literally have no words right now, but I’m hysterically laughing at this brilliant randomness.
Lei’D Tapa hits some sort of double fist off the ropes, and then it’s finally revealed that the pervy cameraman is none other than the Tapa obsessed, Epiphany dating, Eddie Diamond! Saint Epiphany is fired up, but Lei’D Tapa doesn’t let their ringside drama distract her from the Tongan Tour of Terror as she locks in a choke to my poor Rita Ora loving Holly Blossom. I’m okay though, because my royal Epiphany has grabbed a microphone!
“Eddie, put that camera down! Put it down!”
Holly begins to fade inside the ring, as the camera is set down on the ring apron and Eddie hilariously screams for help as Epiphany… well let me just quote it because my words can’t do hers justice.
“You… you… boy you gon’ need help! I knew-I knew every time I looked at your phone, you wasn’t doing no research. You understand me? It wasn’t research…”
Suddenly, my queen of mean turns her attention to Lei’D Tapa, who still has the Tongan Death Grip locked in on poor Holly. Oh my Goodness, Epiphany is now asking Lei’D Tapa who she even is, before grabbing Eddie by the collar and claiming that she thought he was her man. Epiphany wants to know if he’s listening, because both he and his fake ol’ girlfriend, Lei’D Tapa is about to get hurt! My saint wants him to apologize loud and clear, but before he can even do so, she asks Tapa if she’s got a problem. Epiphany may not know who Tapa is, but she’s interfering in some bad bad company baby girl (her words, not mine). There’s only room for one powerhouse female in OVW, and that’s Epiphany.
Tapa has a microphone now, as Holly just lays in the corner probably hoping that the bad lady doesn’t remember she exists. Lei’D wants Epiphany to bow before her, and then asks who that male peasant even is. Tapa would NEVER be with some low trash scum like Eddie Diamond, but that offends Epiphany even more!
“Are you asking me to bow? Who you talkin’ to? I don’t bow before nobody boo… you understand that?”
She demands Eddie get out of her way, as she steps inside the ring and circles Tapa. Lei’D lets it be known that she’s not scared of her, before throwing the mic down as Eddie tries to separate the two. They both shove him back and go chest to chest as Epiphany shoves Tapa! Tapa shoves back, but neither woman falls. They continue to stare off with one another, as both women fire up to deliver a punch… only Eddie walks between them and is the receiving end of both. Ouch… Epiphany claims that if she could do that to someone she loves, just imagine what she’ll do to Lei’D Tapa at Saturday Night Special. This is about respect, and we’re about to see just who the real Queen Bee (which I take as her meaning the letter “B” for… well you can gather, but take it as you may) of the ring is.
I’m speechless… but I must continue for the sake of this redux. Lei’D Tapa claims that just like Eddie Diamond is laying in the ring with his butt up (her exact words), Epiphany is going to be laying right next to him after Tapa whoops them both. Epiphany tells Eddie to stay in the ring because he ain’t coming home tonight as perhaps my favorite wrestling moment of 2013 comes to a close. (Deep breath)
Wait, we have more! Although, it’s not a continuation of what just went down, Trina is seen consoling Heidi Lovelace backstage. Heidi thought Taeler was her friend, but it was all a trick. Trina comes up with the idea that the two of them team up to kick the smirks of both Taeler and Nikki’s faces. Heidi agrees, as we get set for two big matches come Saturday Night Special.
Thoughts: I have a lot of mixed thoughts about what happened tonight, so let me start with what I loved and that’s everything Lei’D Tapa and Epiphany related. I don’t even know where to begin with how much I loved that segment. It was amusing, kept my eyes glued to the screen, and I believed everything they both said. Epiphany is absolutely hilarious, and I don’t think I’ve laughed this hard in a long time. I can’t speak on her wrestling ability because I’ve only gotten to review one short match thus far, but her promos alone would be enough for me to swoop her up instantly were I to form my own wrestling promotion. Everything she does works, and I love how she could insult Eddie all she wanted, but as soon as Lei’D Tapa did it, and essentially treated Eddie as being below her, Epiphany wasn’t having it. She’s great at acting, and speaking of which, Lei’D Tapa’s acting is getting a lot stronger than what I recall on Gut Check as well. I was a big fan of her there, but I think seeing her in an actual storyline as opposed to having to come off as essentially begging for a spot on a roster that has less active women than the one she’s in now is what helped her to sound more real to me.
The camera zooms were a great touch and I thought the segment was extremely creative. I was already excited at the possibility of the two of them facing off because of the powerhouse vs powerhouse label, but adding a storyline with it is icing on the cake where most companies wouldn’t feel the need to do so. I truly think Lei’D Tapa vs. Epiphany, in terms of their OVW histories as the original dominant force against the newcomer one, is a match that is big enough on its own right to entice viewers in buying the Saturday Night Special DVD, so I love that OVW didn’t just take the easy way out and have Tapa destroy Holly Blossom, only for Epiphany to stare her down on the entrance ramp. They went above and beyond to give this feud that extra oomph, and I can’t wait to see how it unfolds.
Now onto the Taeler and Heidi storyline, which I have to sadly admit completely dropped the ball for me. Back when I first posted the storyline catch up, they had spent five weeks teasing it and leaving us wondering what was going to happen. Ever since then though, we’ve already went from finding out to now Heidi finding out. I know that I said in my last recap that I didn’t feel excited waiting to play catch up with Heidi, and so I’d be completely fine with them speeding it along like they did this week. But the problem I have is that Heidi didn’t even confront Taeler on screen. She just figured out this entire plan, and all we got to see was her crying in a room. Now, if at Saturday Night Special, they do a backstage segment before the match or something, I’d 100% eat my words because I just feel like it’s strange that they spent so much time developing this story only for us to not even get a single confrontation now that Heidi knows before they square off for the first time. Albeit it’s in tag team action, I still feel like this is a program that could’ve been huge for OVW, but it sort of turned into something we’ve seen before. And I hate saying that because this is basically what got me involved with OVW enough to feel I was knowledgeable to recap it weekly, but it just didn’t work for me in the end. It may have for some others and that’s A-OK, but for me, I don’t know if it’s because I expected so much, that this would be a long storyline ala Mickie/Trish where we get months of them together not really knowing where everyone really lies in terms of their allegiance or what.
I know I use that Mickie/Trish feud as an example a lot (like some others, it’s my all time favorite), but I loved the aspect of it where you truly didn’t know what was going to happen. Trish would show signs of turning heel on Mickie some weeks, and others, Mickie would seem too obsessed to where it’d be her. That type of unpredictability is what I thought Heidi and Taeler would end up being, and while I don’t mean to knock it because in reality it is a perfectly fine storyline and I’m grateful that we were even able to get two solidly built women’s feuds going at the same time, I just feel like it could’ve been so much more and really done a lot to get their division even more attention and focus from various outlets.
And who knows, maybe it could continue on into a singles feud between them and prove me wrong by delivering some emotionally charged amazing promos and matches that turn it into the feud I had always hoped for. I’m not going to completely be down about it just yet because I don’t feel like the tag team match will be the end of everything. I’m going to look on the bright side and expect the unexpected, as my famed Julie Chen(bot) would say. The feud isn’t over until they both move on, and since that hasn’t happened, I’ve still got my hopes that this will become even greater than I had ever thought.
One more thing, major props to OVW for actually giving their Women’s Division two week to week feuds. Granted, we had that mysterious vanishing act last week, we’ll forget that existed and just pretend OVW had a rerun. They only have an hour long show each week, but are providing two separate feuds that get necessary build up every week which is something I don’t believe can be said elsewhere.
… Oh, and if I didn’t make it clear, seeing The Blossom Twins makes me happy. I don’t like to be greedy, but more please OVW?
Okay guys that’s it for this week. I ended up actually getting so invested that I didn’t even remember I was trying to rush to get this done before my Internet kicked out again so I do believe that goes to show we had a pretty strong week. Until next time, goodnight friend. (Yes, I’ve got Nancy Grace stuck in my head right now.)
