It’s time to play guess who’s still under contract with the company as we head off into the Impact Zone for TNA’s latest One Night Only show, Knockouts Knockdown, shown this past Wednesday night on Challenge here in Britain.
The format of the show was simple – eight singles and one three-way match, with the winners going through to a battle royal to decide the “Queen of the Knockouts”.
After much jaw-jacking at the beginning of the show the action finally got under way with Gail Kim taking on Alyssa Flash.
This was a pretty decent opener. Both girls put in a great effort in this back and forth encounter. Kim, as always, looked on top form as she showed once again just how good she is. Flash, for her part, was more than able to keep up with her as she showed why she’s one of the top talents outside of the big two right now.
The best part for me was whey they exchanged submission holds, but then again the whole match was quite good, with Kim taking the win after taking Flash down with her eat da-feet finisher.
One other thing though. Flash kind of reminds me of someone else who was in TNA a while back, that woman who used to hang around with Awesome Kong. Now what was her name….
The next match saw Iveleze taking on Lei’d Tapa.
As far as speed versus power battles go this was pretty decent. This was the first time I’d seen either of these two in action, and I was impressed. The back and forth encounters were well executed, and while Iveleze impressed me with her high flying and high speed moves Tapa showed that the apple really doesn’t fall far from the tree as she showed many of the barbaric mannerisms of her uncle.
This one really looked like it could go either way, but when Iveleze put her woman in a guillotine it looked all over. Tapa managed to resisted the hold though and eventually slammer Iveleze down to the mat, breaking the hold and securing the three count.
Then Tara, accompanied by Jesse, faced Mia Yim.
The last time I saw Yim was when she was dropkicking guys at ringside in a pair of high heels in Ring of Honor, so seeing her in the ring was a new experience for me, and a pretty enjoyable one at that.
This one began with the age old routine of Tara taking her less experienced opponent down with a series of moves before Yim came back and took Tara down with the same moves in quick succession. From there it developed into a nice back and forth encounter with periodic interference from Tara’s boy toy.
Yim put on a decent performance, and at one point it looked like she could take the win, but when Jesse momentarily distracted her while she was on the top rope it gave Tara the chance to recover. Yim eventually came down with a corkscrew but found no target to hit. That target then took her down with the widow’s peak as Tara picked up the pin.
Next up, Miss Tessmacher faced Santana.
A short and sweet encounter this one. After they engaged in the age old popularity contest Santana took Tessmacher down with a clothesline before going for a couple of arm submissions. She looked okay when she went for these holds, although as the match went on when she went for a few other moves she did look a little rough around the edges.
Unlike the other matches only one combatant looked like they were going to get the win, and that honour went to Tessmacher as she ducked under Santana’s clothesline and slammed her down face first to the mat for the pin.
Then it was on to my least favourite Knockout ODB as she went up against Trinity.
If you were expecting a technical kind of match here then you were probably very disappointed, because what we had here was two women beating on each other for a few minutes. That’s about it really, and you can’t really write about much when the biggest moves of a match are clotheslines.
ODB took the win here. After connecting with a bronco buster in the corner she finished Trinity off with a TKO.
Former referee Taryn Terrell then arrived on the scene as she took on Jackie Moore.
You could call this one a veritable battle of the generations. You could also say it was a lot better than the last match.
Moore came into this one kind of dismissing Terrell, and she ended up taking her to the proverbial woodshed early on, but even though she controlled the early going Terrell eventually worked her way back into the match, taking Moore down with a series of fast-paced moves.
But when she missed with a bulldog off the top rope it was more or less over. As Terrell sat on the mat Moore ran the ropes and connected with a dropkick to seal the win.
The three-way match featured Hannah Blossom, Taeler Hendrix and Sojo.
As the match began the two heels looked as if they were going to work as a unit, bus as is the custom with these kind of things it wasn’t long before they began to argue over who should get the pins.
This gave young Miss Blossom the chance to pull off a few good moves, and I’m not saying they were good just because she’s a fellow Brit. She certainly was the best thing in this match, certainly better than Hendrix, and a hell of a lot better than Sojo, who really hasn’t improved since her last stint in TNA.
The arguing between Sojo and Hendrix led to their downfall. As Sojo held Blossom in place Hendrix came forward, but when Blossom ducked out of the way she ended up clobbering Sojo. Blossom then took her down with a big kick to take the win.
The penultimate singles match saw Velvet Skye going up against Jillian Hall.
When I saw that Hall was on this show I hoped that they wouldn’t give her a microphone. Sadly my wishes weren’t granted, but thankfully within a few seconds she showed that she’s a far better wrestler than she is a singer, because this was another match that fits nicely into the pretty decent category.
It was a nice back and forth encounter with both Hall and Skye pulling off some good moves, and to be honest with you I don’t think I’ve seen Hall looking this good in the ring. It was as if she’d gone up against Skye countless times before.
Skye came out on top in this one, which meant that we were spared any kind of celebratory song from Hall, when she took her down with her version of the pedigree, or whatever the hell it’s called in TNA land.
The final singles match saw C.M. Punk’s former stooge Serena taking on Mickie James.
This one started off in a good natured way as they exchanged hugs and handshakes, and when they finally began competing they put together some nice exchanges as they went move for move and hold for hold.
The action went on like this for the next few minutes until Serena got kicked in the jaw. After she liked her wounds at ringside she got back into the ring and suddenly changed tact when a friendly handshake was turned into a headlock.
From there she took the aggression levels up a notch or three, and that was when the match got even better, but it wasn’t long before James came back into the match, and she soon took Serena down with her jumping DDT for the win.
The main event was the gauntlet battle royal thing featuring all of the winners. You should know how these things work by now, mainly because they always seem to have one of these matches on these One Night Only shows.
Beginning with Hannah Blossom and Gail Kim, this was your typical battle royal fair. There were no real outstanding performances or moments in this one as the ladies came and the ladies went, with the aforementioned Kim and Mickie James as the final two.
That was when this thing turned into a normal match, and after James dominated the proceedings she pulled Kim off the top rope. It was then that Kim grabbed her ankle claiming an injury, but after a doctor briefly checked her over and began to help her out she quickly recovered and rolled James up for the three count and the Queen of the Knockouts title.
In conclusion – you know, I’ve seen some pretty poor all-women wrestling shows in my time, and this wasn’t one of them.
Knockouts Knockdown proved to be a pretty decent show, and possibly the best of the One Night Only series so far. Okay, there were a couple of performances that were less than stellar, but overall I finished viewing this show feeling happy and pleased that I’d taken the time to watch this.
As for my match of the night no-prize, there were a couple of candidates, but this time around the honour goes to Mickie James and Serena. Now that was good.
So with all of that out of the way there’s just one more thing left to do, and that’s to give this show the thumbs up.
By day I’m an unemployed retail worker, and at weekends I volunteer at a local museum, but by night I’m the author of The Two Sheds Review, Britain’s longest running professional wrestling and mixed martial arts blog. Visit my site at www.twoshedsreview.vze.com. It’s been online in one form or another since June 2000!
