New TNA Knockouts Champion, Victoriahas scored the cover of the new issue of ‘The Wrestler’ magazine which is being touted as the veteran’s first magazine cover in her long career.
The issue will feature an in-depth cover piece on Victoria, whose title win was broadcast a week ago today. In it, she talks about coming to TNA, her run in WWE and much more.
I’m so happy to see Victoria getting so much praise and publicity, 2009 really is shaping up to be a year for ‘career comebacks’, as music legend Whitney Houston readies her new album for release in September. I know it’s an odd comparison to make, but they are both much loved in their respective fields and both have had slumps in recent years [personal slump for Whitney, career slump for Victoria] but this year, they’ve managed to re-emerge to new levels of acclaim.
One of Whitney’s new tracks is called “I Didn’t Know My Own Strength” and for a while there, it looked like Victoria didn’t either, allowing herself to be unhappy in her workplace and playing second fiddle to inferior wrestlers; I don’t know her personally, but it genuinely seems like Victoria is in a happy place right now! With a new lease of life on her career, a major championship under her belt and now she scores her first magazine cover too! Get ’em, girl!
You guys have been voting for the 50 Sexiest Divas top 50 for over a week now and so far we have had a huge response! With 2 weeks still to go until polls close, I thought I’d give you periodical updates about how the countdown is shaping up!
I can tell you that the race for the #1 spot is definitely tight and is a 4 Diva race, right now. Here’s some teasers:
– All four of these Divas are currently working for WWE.
– Two are Raw Divas and two are SmackDown Divas.
– Only one of them is blonde [which shows that your idea of beauty differs from WWE’s cookie cutter blonde image!]
– I would say I’m surprised that one of them is getting as many votes as she is, she’s not exactly a ‘top Diva’.
Remember you can keep voting for 50 Sexiest Divas until July 31st!
New WWE Diva, Serena Deeb made her FCW debut at a house show last night in Punta Gorda, Florida. It looks as though they have ditched the ‘Deeb’ as she went simply by the name of Serena.
Minor spoiler image for this Friday’s episode of SmackDown, as the gorgeous Laylareturns to her Miami Heat roots this week. The show emanates from the American Airlines Arena, the home of the Heat, where Layla made her name as a dancer and earned an NBA championship ring.
As you can see above, Layla returns to the arena it all started sporting a Heat jersey. It must be a nice comeback for the SmackDown Diva, who is finally getting decent exposure on the blue brand.
TNA Knockout, Christy Hemme who was sidelined last year in the midst of a huge push, has written a suggestive message on her MySpace teasing what I assume is her wrestling return. She writes:
A little birdie told me that a certain firey redhead is coming back to kick some ASS! I will give you one guess as to who that might be :-)
Hemme opted to naturally heal her neck injury rather than have fusion surgery, which has put her on the shelf longer than most. Earlier this year, I wondered whether Christy would return at all because there hadn’t been word from her and she was seemingly wasn’t getting better, much like Torrie Wilson‘s back injury in 2007 that ultimately ended her career.
It looks like Christy has managed to get healthy again! Though I wonder if there’s even a spot for her on the TNA roster right now, the division has moved on without her and gained top talent like Victoria and the incoming Sarita in babyface roles.
# She’s a Diva Search reject that got future endeavored, Gail Kim was signed back which made fans suspicious, but now she’s back and she’s Wrestlicious #
That was fun! Anyhoo, it looks like Wrestlicious has now signed former ECW Diva, Lena Yada! The 30-year-old [Dang, I didn’t know she was 30!] who recently worked a match for ChickFight, updated her MySpace page to read ‘Wrestlicious’ in block capitals.
There had been rumours making the rounds for a while now that Wrestlicious was looking to sign Lena, at the time one of the Wrestlicious producers told us that they were in talks. It looks like it worked out!
Wrestling veteran, Jacqueline has been released by TNA. Her profile was removed from the company’s website last week and by all indications, she is completely done with the company. Earlier this year, we reported that TNA had decided to drop Jacqueline as an on-air character, but had plans to use her in a behind the scenes role. It now looks like she has been dropped altogether.
There was some talk of bringing her back as a wrestler a couple of months ago, though this didn’t materialise. Jacqueline had her final TNA match at a house show last month against Rhaka Khan.
TNA’s release of Jacqueline brings to an end her unprecedented 12 year career working for a promotion with national exposure. Between 1997 and 2009, Jacqueline has appeared for WCW, WWE and TNA. Among her career highlights include two Women’s Championship runs in WWE and in 2004, Jacqueline was the first WWE Diva to win the Cruiserweight Championship.
We are looking for a guest panelist for tomorrow’s Roundtable recording. I realise it’s short notice, but if you are interested we require you be available at 9.30am ET and have access to Skype as well as suitable recording equipment.
To take part in tomorrow’s recording or even future recordings, please e-mail me at [email protected].
TNA’s resident busy-body, Jeremy Borash has confirmed the company’s signing of Ayako Hamada — even though the news was confirmed by the new Knockout herself, months ago. He writes on where else, but Twitter:
After months of rumors, I can finally confirm Japanese female star Ayako Hamada has signed with TNA. Hearing she arrives in the US this wk.
With Ayako arriving in the States this week, that would imply she’s going to be used at the next set of Impact tapings which take place next Tuesday through Thursday night.
On this week’s episode of Impact, fellow new Knockout Sarita joins the ranks.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock this past week, you know that the TNA Knockouts Championship changed hands on Thursday’s Impact. The wrestler formerly known as Victoria, Tara, now has the strap firmly in her grasp. Now while all that is just peaches and cream, I’ve found myself asking a question I’m sure is on everybody’s mind: Who’s next in line for a shot at the title? Here are my picks:
Angelina Love: This one is a given. No way is Angelina Love going to let her title go without a fight. I expect to see her in a rematch in the very near future.
Awesome Kong: Awesome Kong may have had Tara’s back during their tag match with The Beautiful People, but chances are she has her mind set on getting that belt back. Kong has been out of the title picture since losing it to Angelina Love and now would be the perfect time to get back in the game.
The Raw Divas weren’t the only ones getting ready for summer last night, as Stacy Keibler was spotted in a summery orange top at the Matt Leinhart Foundation’s Celebrity Bowl on Monday night. The Keib looked cute and well put together. Check out more images below:
Meanwhile, it looks as though Stacy’s three years of making the rounds hoping to get discovered may pay off. The 29-year-old is reportedly on the list of candidates for the female lead in Warner Bros’ Green Lantern movie, which will star the husband-of-my-fantasies, Ryan Reynolds.
Last night’s Raw was a scary one, as WWE seemingly found a balance between the throwback T&A and actual wrestling. However, the two don’t quite go together and as the title of this post would suggest, I liken it to ‘running with scissors’. It wasn’t a bikini contest nor was it a respectable wrestling match, it just didn’t work. I fear WWE will use this new found balance on future shows, in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if SmackDown got it’s ‘turn’ this Friday.
I can honestly tell you that on first watch, I had no idea what was going on in the ring, all I could remember was the end of the match. The rest is a blur since I, and probably many of you, couldn’t get past the ‘wrestling in bikinis’ crap. So rewatching the match for this Redux is the only way I can actually talk about the wrestling in the match — but then again, I don’t necessarily want to. It just seems pointless to call the wrestling [as Michael Cole did last night] in such a match. However for the sake of this column, I will attempt to talk about the match…
First of all, I have no problem with the occasional swimsuit type stuff… just keep it out of the ring. I think all the girls [except Kelly Kelly] looked gorgeous in their swimsuits, but I would prefer to see that in a Summer Skin photoshoot or a Divas magazine. They looked great, but stuff like that should be reserved for a beach themed photoshoot or something — I don’t want to see it on Raw. Rosa’s one piece was probably my favourite, she looked hot. The only Diva that didn’t look great was Kelly, in her cliched tacky hot pink bikini.
So looking at this match, it’s funny how they had Kelly as the centerpiece of this match; it goes to show just what they think of her, having her be the ‘eye candy’ to sell the match rather than trying to establish her as an actual wrestler, which she has the chops to become. Instead of coming out to the top babyface’s music like they usually do [which is Mickie James], this week we have the girls coming out to Kelly’s music and her taking the center spot which is usually Mickie’s. Any other week it’d raise eyebrows, but it seemed very clear that they did it on purpose to sell Kelly as the ‘eye candy’, which is funny because Mickie looked 10x hotter in her bikini than Kelly did. And this should put to rest those horrible rumours about Mickie’s weight, because she looked banging! I guess blondes are hotter in the WWE Universe *eyeroll*
Meanwhile, leading the heels was Maryse flanked by Rosa Mendes and Alicia Fox. I pretty much guessed that would be the team beforehand. No Beth Phoenix, go figure… I don’t know if she should feel offended WWE didn’t want to put her in a bikini or if she should feel honoured. Perhaps a bit of both?
My two favourite new Raw Divas, Alicia Fox and Gail Kim kick things off and Alicia from the outset looks aggressive, getting in Gail’s face. Good look for A-Fox, it shows that she’s not afraid to mix it up with the veterans, as we’ve already seen in the past. The more experienced Gail however uses her quick wit to roll up Gail, but Alicia kicks out and goes for a cover of her own. Gail hits a nice hurricanrana but Alicia manages to get the upperhand and tags out to Rosa Mendes. Oh lord, let us pray…
Thankfully, Rosa isn’t going for anything technical and soon G-Kim takes the lead with a nice clothesline on Rosa followed by a tag to Kelly, who hits an impressive handspring elbow. Kelly goes for a monkey flip, but Rosa pushes her onto the mat. Rosa goes for a cover and then lays in some kicks. That’s it Rosa, just keep to the stomping, it’s best you don’t try any actual moves. Alicia Fierce [Sasha Fierce, get it?] is back with a headlock for a little while before Kelly counters. Kelly and Alicia tag out at the same time to Maryse and Mickie and things pick up!
Mickie hits some jumping clotheslines on Maryse and knocks her partners off the apron. She then hits Maryse with a nice hurricanrana from the corner before going up top, hitting an awkward Thesz press. Mickie goes for the cover but in come A-Fox and Rosa and we all know what this means… six Diva brawl!
In all the excitement, ‘Maurice’ catches Mickie off guard throwing her into the ringpost and hitting her French Kiss DDT, which didn’t look as good as it usually does, for the win. Interesting ending and it almost salvaged what I would call a throwaway match. They seemingly tacked on a little storyline to the end which is good. Usually the babyfaces get the win for the fan reaction, but it’s nice to see that they actually developed the storyline after what was essentially a pointless match by having Maryse pin her opponent.
This week’s Roundtable will be recorded on Thursday, the whole Diva Dirt team will be on hand plus a guest panelist. As with last week, we want your input on the topics we have to discuss! We’ll be reading out your comments/questions on the show!
Please try to keep them short and sweet — just one sentence, so we can read out as many comments as possible.
WWE Topic: “Fans are divided on the current feuds going on right now; Raw has Mickie James and Maryse while SmackDown has Melina and Michelle McCool. Which feud is better and why?”
TNA Topic: “TNA has teased dissension among the Beautiful People. Could there be a ‘Beautiful’ breakup on the horizon? And if so, how will the three members cope on their own?”
We are also going to do a segment where we answer your questions about anything and everything, from wrestling to random stuff! If you have a question for Melanie, Erin, Steven or Tiffany, just leave it in a comment and make sure you state who your question is for! Whether it be an opinion on a certain Diva or if you just want to know what their favourite sandwich filling is!
Remember: Keep your comments brief, one sentence is best. I’m being serious about this, last week we got huge paragraphs from some of you and bear in mind, I have to read this out and it gets tongue-twistery. I know it’s hard to say what you want to say in a line or two, but it’s important to keep your comments brief so we can read them out.
Please copy and paste and the form below into the comments box, to best help us! Feel free to leave any field blank if you don’t want to answer:
Your name (required):
Comment on WWE topic:
Comment on TNA topic:
Question for Melanie/Steven/Erin/Tiffany (delete as applicable):
You’d think Vince McMahon’s geriatrics would fail to shock us after all this time, but nope — the egotistical WWE Chairman has found even more salacious ways to make us shriek in horror. This time, Vince McMahon believes that Vickie Guerrerobetrayed WWE by leaving the company to spend more time with her children.
The former Raw General Manager left the company in early June, but handed in her notice weeks prior, hence the change the direction for Guerrero as the writers began scripting the pig jokes to appease Vince. Power Slam magazine has the scoop:
MID-MAY 2009: Vickie Guerrero, the least likely wrestling success of the last five years, asks for her contract release. Vickie’s reasoning is perfectly rational: as a single parent, she feels it is important to spend more time with her fatherless teenage daughters during their crucial adolescent years. Vince’s reaction to her decision is perfectly irrational: he takes grievous offence and begins to rant and rave that Vickie has betrayed WWE. Yes, Vince believes the widow of Eddie Guerrero is ungrateful to the pro wrestling industry because she is putting her family first. From this point on, Vince’s shameless lackeys curry his favour by pitching gratuitous pig and fatso jokes about Vickie at creative meetings — which earn booming guffaws from Vince.
This news comes off the heels of word that several WWE Superstars [including Rey Mysterio and Edge] were pissed off at the way WWE treated Vickie near the end of her run. I am just so glad that Vickie had the sense to leave when she did rather than stick around and continue to be humiliated. Vince and company seem to have a sick, perverse pleasure in treating women like dirt and I’m not even talking about the endless T&A — Trish barking like a dog, making out with Divas in front of his wife, trying to do a storyline where he was the father of his daughter’s child. Excuse me, I just gagged a little bit…
Have you ever thought that a certain Diva resembled another celebrity out there? Ever done double-take while watching a movie or TV show and thought “Hang on, isn’t that so-and-so?” Well we certainly have! Diva Dirt’s Dead Ringers aims to seek out our Divas celeb dopplegangers and highlight them here, for you to vote whether there’s a passing resemblance or not! Also feel free to suggest your own dead ringers by e-mailing us at [email protected].
The Diva: Former Women’s Champion and A-list Diva, Melina. The Celeb: 30-year-old star of 25th Hour, Alexander, and Sin City, Rosario Dawson. She’s known for being a fan-friendly and down-to-earth actress who can play any number of female roles – seductress, geek, badass, FBI agent, makeup artist – you name it, she can pull it off.
Melina and Rosario are very close in age – in fact, Melina is exactly 2 months older than her (Melina was born on March 9th, 1979; Rosario on May 9th, 1979). They share strikingly similar exotic facial features: eyes, lips, nose, and a strong jaw. They have dark hair and killer curves, too, and it doesn’t hurt that they both have the attitude to make themselves stand out. Rosario never blends into the scenery in her movies, and you can’t miss Melina when she’s out in the ring. Two of a kind? I think so..
Can you see it? Is Rosario Dawson a dead ringer for Melina? Vote below:
[poll id=”383″]
PS: Feel free to recommend your own dead ringers by e-mail or comment.
It’s official: Twitter has become a full-blown internet phenomenon. I mean, what’s better than seeing the inner thoughts of your favorite celebs? I’ll tell you what – seeing the inner thoughts of your favorite Divas! That’s why we’ve devised a new weekly feature, titled Tweets of the Week, where we’ll take a look at what the women of wrestling have been tweeting this week: the funny, the poignant, and the random. We’ll scour Twitter and serve it up for you, complete with the requisite Diva Dirt charm.
This week’s #5 is newly-crowned Knockouts Champion Victoria (@tnalisamarie) thanking her friends and fans for their support and basking in the glory of her title win:
It’s great to see a wrestler’s excitement over a big win, even more so when you can witness it first hand! Twitter’s allowed us to feel a little of that triumph, and it’s certainly a cool thing. Not to mention, Victoria’s super grateful and sweet to anyone and everyone, so it’s nice to see her get a little of what she deserves.
At #4, TNA Knockout Daffney (@screamqueendaff) sends a friend and fellow wrestler a heartfelt birthday wish:
Hey, however he chooses to celebrate is up to him.
#3 sees SHIMMER hotshot Allison Danger (@allisondanger) doing the type of philosophical self-searching that only few accomplish and even fewer comprehend:
Once you find the answer, Allison hit us up on our Twitter account. Much like you, we hunger for knowledge.
I’m sure you’ve all heard of your ‘five a day’, but Diva Dirt is here to provide you with your ‘five a week’ in our Weekly 5. Join us every Sunday as we take a look back at the week gone by and highlight our top 5 moments of the week.
NIKKI BELLA… IS THAT YOU, GIRL?
Oh those Bella Twins! Just when you write them off, they come back and start earning their keep… just about, anyway. Last week, the twins impressed with their mic skills and this week, Nikki Bella made a solid effort against Katie Lea on ECW. Nikki’s Gail Kim-esque running armdrag made my jaw drop. Perhaps there’s hope for them yet? My eyes have certainly opened and I’m willing to give them a fair shot.
Welcome to another edition of ‘Before They Were Divas’, the Diva Dirt exclusive where we look back at our favorite Divas and Knockouts before the glitz and glamour of the “big leagues”.
Today we’re taking a look back at TNA Knockout and sidekick extraordinaire, Velvet Sky. This week on Impact, we saw Velvet take on TNA newcomer, Tara (ugh), in singles action. Believe it or not, this was history repeating itself. Back in 2005, Velvet made a one shot appearance on WWE Heat as ‘Talia’ to take on the Diva better known as Victoria with the same result.
The recently released Candice Michelle took part in a live chat with StarCam.com this past week, her first interview since leaving WWE — speaking directly to the fans. In the chat, Candice admits that she saw her release coming and was ready to leave.
The Diva, who had well documented injury issues, knew ‘her time was up’. She continues to say that she asked John Laurinaitis why she was being released, he responded “It’s time.”
It seems to me that after her several injuries, she had given up on her career, which is sad.
Interestingly, Candice offers her criticism of our current Divas Champion, Marysewho she says ‘does the same three moves over and over’.
It’s unanimous that the ‘Trump Trade’ two weeks ago helped beef up Monday Night Raw, gaining the services of two Diva Dirt favourites, Alicia Fox andGail Kim. Meanwhile, it’s becoming clearly evident that SmackDown is now suffering due to the lack of Divas available — case in point, we pretty much saw the same tag team match two weeks in a row with just one line-up change [Eve for Maria on yesterday’s show]. Make no mistake though, I’m not knocking our blue-brand girls, they are definitely making the best of a bad situation; the work continues to be of a consistent standard.
It’s clear to me that the division is soon going to run out of match options considering the five active Divas it has — there’s only so many times we can see the same matches, right? I think it’s time WWE did something about that before the division starts to suffer — a kayfabe ‘Diva exchange’ between SmackDown and ECW. It shouldn’t be too hard to explain on television either, after all ECW GM Tiffany is the protege of SmackDown’s GM, Teddy Long, they are on friendly terms. Plus as a female GM, would Tiffany not want her Divas to be able to compete for a title? It’s win-win all around.
The ECW Divas – the Bella Twins and Katie Lea – can work matches on SmackDown, allowing fresh match opportunities. Plus they’d effectively have the chance to compete for the Women’s Championship, creating for more title storylines i.e. Katie Lea in the title picture.
With SmackDown and ECW working together, the combined division would be a little more evened out: Babyfaces led by Melina would include Maria, Eve and the Bella Twins. The heels led by Michelle McCool, would include Layla, Katie Lea and eventually Natalya.
Plus there’s some prime cuts of meat in FCW that could more than handle themselves on SmackDown, for example veteran Serena Deeb [who really doesn’t need to be in developmental, let’s be honest] and ‘homegrown’ talent, Angela Fong.
What do you think, should SmackDown and ECW once again exchange talents — even if limited to the Divas?
Following in the footsteps of Santino, Cryme Tyme and Miz & Morrison, the Divas have finally been given their own WWE.com exclusive show “Ask the Divas”, which is similar to the columns they’ve previously had in WWE Magazine.
In the first webisode, Eve, Maria, the Bella Twins and Kelly offer their advice to the fans:
Not exactly hard hitting, but the part with the Bella Twins was funny. I’m really liking that these girls are finally being able to show some personality, which has been a revelation to me on ECW, Nikki smirking and just turning around was hilarious.
Erin has successfully taken the reins of the SmackDown Redux but as you guys know, I always have something to say on pretty much everything! So I’m hoping to put my SmackDown thoughts into audio form every Saturday here at Diva Dirt, or whenever I feel like it really lol.
Also included in this bulletin are my thoughts on Victoria becoming our new Knockouts Champion in TNA.
As you can see by now, the SmackDown Redux has been gifted to me by the generous Melanie. As she stated earlier, she’ll be handling the Raw side of things from now on. Hopefully you guys will warm to my style of Reduxin’ just as you did with her. Now with that settled, onto the show!
It seems as though the WWE can’t get enough of tag team matches, because it feels like that’s all we’ve been getting for weeks now. Of course, that’s hyperbole, but it’s clear that they’re using “paint-by-numbers” booking as a means to extend this feud between Michelle McCool and Melina. Melina’s got her third partner in a week, teaming with Eve Torres, who one can only assume gave up her seat on the bench for Maria (Don’t cry for Maria, she had more important things to do, like coming out of closets with Dolph Ziggler. I’m not even joking.). Meanwhile, Michelle teams with her new Alicia, Layla. Let’s see what this slight tweak in the ingredients does this week – watch Melina & Eve take on Michelle & Layla below:
Eve and Layla start off the match. Granted, that sentence probably would’ve scared you a few years ago, but their work wasn’t bad at all. Sure, it feels a little deliberate and calculated, but those two Diva Search alums have come far from strutting for Tom Grisham or whoever the hell hosted that thing. Eve remains in control for much of the beginning, until a sick kick to the head by Michelle takes her out. Michelle must have Inspector Gadget legs, because it’s like she reached Eve from the other corner of the ring. Damn.
This week on TNA Impact marked a very momentous evening for the Knockouts.
Victoria is set to first take on Velvet Sky. Backstage we find the Beautiful People making their way to the Impact Zone. Velvet seems very upset at the events that took place last week. Velvet holds nothing back in pronouncing just how fed up she is with Angelina Love‘s selfishness ; she puts Angelina in her place as Madison Rayne timidly looks on.
When the Beautiful People make their way to the ring in their typical manner, something very non-typical occurs. The camera man reaches out to fondle poor Vel-Vel, but Velvet is having none of it. I’m not exactly sure why this little random little incident takes place, but I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone tried to cop a feel. Creepy, but funny.
Next, Victoria confidently approaches ring. Her signature tarantula, ‘Poison’ is in tow to level the playing field. Victoria delivers a very steady set of punches to the chest of Velvet Sky, followed by some lunges into the turnbuckle. An irish whip into corner, but Victoria eats the sole of Velvet’s boot. Velvet then perseveres with a clothesline and resorts to her cat fighting expertise again with a choke to Tara.
Velvet insists on more prissy offense before she goes for a pin. When Victoria is hung up against the ropes, Angelina sees this as an opportunity to get the better of her. However, the referee catches her before she can assault Victoria with the Knockouts belt. Unperturbed, Victoria takes down Velvet with a few clotheslines and scoop slam. Velvet puts up a fight but cannot quite wiggle herself out of an amazingly powerful Widow’s Peak. Victoria picks up the win.
New TNA Knockouts Champion, Victoria has scored the cover of the new issue of ‘The Wrestler’ magazine which is being touted as the veteran’s first magazine cover in her long career.
