Greetings one and all! After a successful week of auditions in Glasgow, Scotland, we continue to follow TNA’s search to find the next break out star from the UK. Will we come across any potential Knockouts in this second week of auditions on our trip to Manchester, England this week?
As always we are joined by our panel of judges that include TNA Knockout Gail Kim, TNA Superstar Samoa Joe and talent agent Al Snow (my least favorite judge thus far) to see who has enough personality and charisma along with adequate wrestling skills to advance on to the semifinals.
Up first is the self proclaimed “It Girl”, Melanie Price, who does it all; she models, wrestles and valets! She loves the fame and attention that comes with a wrestling stage. A trainee of seven years and performer of five years, Melanie prefers to have others do her dirty work for her but assures to Gail Kim that her wrestling skills are in par to that of the Knockouts division. Interested in seeing whether or not Melanie can deliver on her promise of her wrestling skills, the judges give our “It Girl” the green light to move on to round two.
Next we have pro bodybuilder, Heather Schofield who has been training in body building for the past three and half years but has only had a week of intense wrestling training. With Heather’s lack of experience, the judges wonder if there is anything else that Heather would be able to offer to make up for her inexperience in the ring. She gets the opportunity to cut a promo against Gail Kim, who sets up a scenario where the two would face each other on a Saturday night. Much like her wrestling skills, Heather’s promo only comes across as short and sweet which costs the blond beauty amateur to be left behind after round one.
Last but not least we meet Lana Austin; a mother of three young children. She tells the story of wanting to be an example to her daughter, who wants to grow up to be a singer, that with hard work and determination you can achieve you dreams. As Lana gets her chance to showcase a promo in front of the judges, she stutters among her words and is unable to thoroughly deliver. Despite her unpolished execution promo, Lana’s story intrigues the judges enough to have her advance to the next round and emotions take over Lana backstage.
In what seems to be the “storyline” of show this season, Grado follows on his vow of not staying behind and pleads with Gail Kim to give him another chance in the competition. Gail tells Grado that he has to win Al Snow over and prove he respects the wrestling business and all the people involved in this boot camp project.
As we enter to round two, both of our advancing female talents square off against each other to prove that each have enough ring skills to move on to the semi finals. As they tie up, it becomes clear to Gail Kim that both ladies are lacking a level of experience that she is specially looking for to the Knockouts division. With that, Gail Kim respectively dismisses both Lana and Melanie from the competition and encourages them to co to us their aspiration at another time.
So we leave Manchester without any female talents moving on to the semi finals but congrats to Mark Andrews, Kris Travis, El Ligero and Rampage Brown for moving on to the semi finals.
Watch Christy Hemme break down the episode with Rockstar Spud below:
Next week we make out final stop of auditions in London where we hope to have better luck in finding potential Knockouts than we did this week!
