TNA Knocked Out

This is a DVD from 2008 focused on what was, at the time, the best thing going in TNA in the Knockout's division. In many ways, watching this DVD was kinda depressing, as you realised that, despite TNA currently being on top form, the Knockout's division is currently a pale imitation of what it used to be. That said, the DVD isn't without flaws. You can't skip straight to a match, you have to sit through interview with the various knockouts first and trust me, there is only so many times you can hear "We're not wrestling barbies/We wrestle like the men/All the girls here enjoy the competition" without wanting to kill yourself. Luckily, the matches are pretty great.

10 Knockout Gauntlet For The Gold
Ms Brooks and Jackie Moore kick this off. There is only 60 seconds per new entrant, so things stay pretty high paced. Jackie has barely planted Brooks with a huge German suplex before Shelly Martinez comes in. Tenay hypes up her "lucha libre moves". This doesn't happen. Awesome Kong enters and Traci and Martinez look rightly terrified. Kong took so long getting to the ring that ODB's music starts before anyone has a chance to attack her. However Kong swiftly backfists Martinez from the top rope to the floor and Jackie eliminates Brooks. Kong swiftly destroys and eliminates Jackie. ODB isn't faring much better until Angel Williams enters. The future Angelina Love tries a sleeper on Kong, which doesn't end well before Kong suplexes her and ODB at once. Christy Hemme comes to the ring, and Kong decimates her, torture racking her and Awesome Bombing her to eliminate her through injury. They really made Kong look like a monster here. Gail Kim rushes to the ring and assaults Kong. Kim gets a headscissors on Kong over the top rope, and Williams and ODB help to eliminate Kong. Talia Madison (Velvet Sky) enters and works a weak looking segment with Williams, before ODB and Kim eliminate Williams. Roxxi Laveaux is the last entrant, and Talia and ODB are eliminated in quick order to leave Kim and Roxxi in a 1-on-1 match. Roxxi hits a swank looking fallaway slam, but Kim comes back with an octopus stretch. Roxxi manages to keep on top with her power advantage, hitting a powerbomb with a (weak) bridge for two. Gail avoids a blow and nails a Kryptonite Krunch to win. The battle royale was fun, especially with the Kong monster push, but the final match was a bit too your-move-my-move.

Roxxi Laveaux vs Angel Williams vs ODB vs Gail Kim
All three challengers focus on Gail right away, but Kim manages to overcome all three. The Voodoo Kin Mafia, who accompanied Roxxi, get thrown out for interfering. Roxxi puts a spell on the ref for this, which means he doesn't count when OBD rolls her up. Christ. Williams botches a flip into the corner, and the camera takes a lingering view of her backside as ODB spanks her. Roxxi and ODB then have a "mental face face-off" in the middle of the ring. ODB hits a 2nd rope Thesz press on ODB for two before Kim makes the save. Feels like ODB is concentrating here on getting her character over which, considering how popular she became, is no bad thing. Gail hits a top-rope crossbody to the outside on Roxxi. Williams flips out of a backslide attempt to DDT ODB in a nice move. All four end up in the ring, and Gail nails a nice diving legdrop on Roxxi for two. Roxxi accidentally spits some mist in ODB's face before getting blitzed with a Gail Kim spear. Kim then hits the Happy Ending on the blinded ODB to win. Fun match.

Angelina Love & Velvet Sky vs ODB & Roxxi Laveaux
With Angelina Love renamed, we are in Beautiful People territory here. Curiously, the BP wrestle like faces in the early going, with Love avoiding a Roxxi attack and controlling the early going. We end up in odd comedy territory as Velvet rides ODB like a horse and wedgies her, before ODB wedgies the ref. Roxxi nails Sky from the outside, so yeah, the BP are faces here as we get the heat section on Velvet. Nice spinebuster from Roxxi gets two. Velvet brekas out of the Dirty Dozen and makes the hot tag to Love. Probably makes sense to Love to be the hot-tag partner, as shes a better wrestler than Velvet, and thus more able to pop a crowd with her moves. The BP throw ODB out and hit a Yakuza kick/Russian legsweep combo on Roxxi to win. Solid, if unspectacular, tag match, but switching the face/heel dynamic for these two teams would soon be one of the smartest things TNA did with the knockouts.

Awesome Kong vs Gail Kim
Kong nails Gail before she even enters the ring, leading to the two brawling outside. Kong naturally has the advantage here, but Gail manages to avoid a clothesline, leading to Kong hitting the post. Gail wisely goes right after the arm, but gets too close to Kong, who grabs her in a sleeper and hurls her across the ring. They both manage to look good in this match: Kim gets to look resiliant, firing away on Kong any chance she gets, whilst Kong gets to look like a monster, as one of her shots in enough to send Gail to the mat. Everything Kong does looks so impactful, and Gail sells every shot like death. When Gail does get on offence, it takes a lot to knock Kong off her feet, so it really means something when she does so. Kong loses control and keeps choking Gail in the corner and shoving the referee to the floor, which earns her a DQ. Kong goes on a rampage afterwards, attacking the ref and both Beautiful People. Great match and, whilst the ending was cheap, it did lead up to a no-DQ match, so makes sense booking wise.

Awesome Kong vs Gail Kim
THIS no-DQ match in fact. Gail gets attacked on the ring apron AGAIN. Kong threatens to Awesome Bomb Gail through the announce table, but Kim bends over far enough to kick Kong in the head with a mule kick. In the ring, Kong is now able to choke Gail with no problems, playing off the last match. Kong sends Gail off the top rope with the spinning backfist. Kong swings Kim into the guard rail, which looks insane. They brawl into the crowd, which I normally hate, but they used it wisely in this match. Gail uses the elevation of the stairs to kick Kong directly in the head, then is able to find a bottle to beat Kong in the head with. The brawling looks really good here, like they're actually having a fight. The no-DQ stip also allows Kim to be able to cause serious pain to Kong, whilst keeping Kong looking like a monster: Kong misses a chairshot and instead gets it kicked into her face to kickstart a spell of offence for Kim. Gail gets caught on a top rope crossbody to the floor and dumped by Kong, which is really impressive. The referee gets powerbombed by Kong for only counting two after a facebuster. Kong loses control again and levels the ref with chairshots, but Gail grabs the chair and waffles Kong with it. What I love with these matches is that, even when Kim is in control, Kong feels like she's only one move from victory so Kim has to stay on top whilst she can. Kong gets two from a chokeslam after a new ref comes in, which sends her furious again. She tries to Awesome Bomb the new ref, but Gail rolls her up, with the ref landing on top of Kong, for the win. Great match, and they used the No-DQ stip effectively.

Awesome Kong vs Gail Kim
This is the first appearance of Raisha Saaed. This time Gail is prepared for Kong's early attack and moves out of the way, which shows she's learnt from the previous matches. They brawl outside where Gail takes a nasty bump into a wall, but avoids a charging Kong who breaks through the stage. In the ring, Gail takes over with a tornado DDT and a top rope senton for two. Saeed distracts Gail, who gets caught off the top by Kong with a chokeslam for two. Kong remains on offence, but they really show the resiliance of Kim as Kong hits her with an implant buster, which only gets two. Gail leaps off the top with a Frankensteiner attempt, but Kong holds her and nails two powerbombs, holding on and nailing the 3rd as an Awesome Bomb for the title. For a sub-ten minute TV match, this was really good stuff, putting Kong over strongly, but also making Kim look tough as nails, with Kong needing to hit 3 powerbombs to be sure of putting her away.

Angelina Love vs Velvet Sky vs Rhaka Khan vs Salinas vs Christy Hemme vs ODB vs Roxxi Laveaux vs Jacqueline vs Traci Brooks vs Gail Kim
I need to highlight how awful Rhaka Khan's ring music is. This is a battle royal with the last two entering a ladder match to become the number one contender to the Knockout title. However, the loser in the ladder match will get her head shaved....unless it's Gail Kim, who won an immunity match, so it would be Angelina taking her place. Already a bit of overbooking, you'll notice. The battle royal part is pretty uneventful, though Jackie and ODB teaming up on Rhaka Khan is quite fun. The final two are Roxxi and Gail, so we'll either see Roxxi or Angelina Love shaved bald. The referees demand Angelina stays at ringside in case she needs to be shaved, but it does also clearly allow her to be at ringside to massively interfere. The booking here is so arse-backwards, as the fans don't want to see Roxxi shaved, so they cheer for her over the number one face in the division. Good plan TNA. It's a shame, as Roxxi and Gail really go for it in this match. Gail takes a proper battering, getting sandwiched at speed between Roxxi and the ladder. Roxxi too takes some lumps, getting monkey-flipped onto a ladder and getting split open on a ladder on the scalp. Roxxi spinebusters Kim onto a ladder in another sick bump, but the BP stop Roxxi from being able to climb and essentially gift victory to Gail, which doesn't really help Gail. Roxxi is then shaved as the BP gloat to a chorus of "Fire Russo" from the crowd. This might have been acceptable if Roxxi got her revenge on Angelina and Velvet, but I'm pretty sure she never did.

Awesome Kong & Raisha Saeed vs Gail Kim & ODB
This is a cage match and should be pretty good. ODB starts with Kong, but gets hurled into her own corner to tag in Kim. Gail demands Saeed gets in, which sorta makes her look scared of Kong. Saeed is, of course, Cheerleader Melissa, and is a rather great wrestler. Her initial exchanges with Gail, working over Kim's left arm is pretty sweet. The problem with the Saeed character is that she soon became the person people would beat in build-up for title matches with Kong, making her little more than a glorified jobber. Kong gives Saeed the advantage by ramming Kim's face into the cage. Saeed uses so many cool little touches while in control, like climbing to the top rope with Gail and ramming her head into the cage over and over with her foot. Kim makes the hot-tag to ODB, but Saeed can't make it to Kong in time, so ODB flattens her. All Hell breaks look, leading to Gail hitting an insane Hurracanrana from the top rope on a standing Saeed, using the cage for assistance. The crowd goes rightly nuts for that. Kong accidentally hits the backfist on Saeed and ODB nails a top rope splash on Saeed for the win. Super-enjoyable tag match.

Taylor Wilde vs Awesome Kong
This was after Taylor had been the most successful challenger from the crowd in the $25,000 Kong challenge and had beaten Raisha Saeed to earn this match (see, told you). Kong blitzes her to start. Like Gail, Taylor isn't afraid to bring the fight to Kong, but uses a few more cat-and-mouse tactics to play the underdog card more clearly. Kong misses a second rope splash, and Taylor gets a 2 count from a missile dropkick. The match is structured differently to the Kim matches, as Taylor is less experienced than Gail so has less spells of dominance. Kong's tendancy for attacking refs comes back into play as she swats one away as he tries to stop her choking Wilde in the corner. This distraction allows Taylor to hit a crossbody, with Kong tumbling over the downed ref for a nearfall. Taylor's inexperience shows again as she tries to German suplex Kong, but instead gets caught in an implant buster for two. Kong goes for the backfist, but Taylor ducks and rolls her up for the win and the title. Not as good as the Kim series, but it told the story it needed to really well.