TNA Impact Wrestling has it's main women's title created in 2007. Gail Kim was the inaugural champion, winning a Gauntlet match. During it's existence the belt was owned by the likes of Awesome Kong, Velvet Sky, Angelina Love, Madison Rayne, Brooke, Tara, ODB and etc.
They have a Knockouts Tag team Title for a while, too.
These days TNA decided to search for talnts on the indie scene and to give an opportunities to famous indie wrestler to compete on a bigger stage. Their Knockouts division is not excluded from that strategy.
We have:
- ALLIE (Cherry Bomb)
- GAIL KIM
- JADE (Mia Yim)
- MADISON RAYNE
- MARIA KANELLIS - BENNETT
- MARTI BELL (Marti Belle)
- RAQUEL
- REBEL
- REBY HARDY (known as Reby Sky)
- ROSEMARY (Courtney Rush)
- SIENNA (Allysin Kay)
- CHELSEA GREEN (yet to debut)
As long as you can see, there are a lot of indie workers involved and some former WWE talents, as regular. Our top 3 peaks:
1. SIENNA
Sienna is lanscape changing heel and she does what she does with a lot of concentration and real desire for wrestling. Her reign as Knockouts champion was expected and we hope to see it lasting for a long time.
2. JADE
Another beloved indie worker. Jade is one of the busiest women in the sports entertainment. Known as Mia Yim, she didn't miss an opportunity to shine, as joining any all-women or mixed promotion's roster.
Jade looks like a free spirit. Her character is displayed as one. It was nice that TNA decided to push her and pull her out of the Dollhouse, booking her to win the Knockouts title.
Jade is very talented and her finisher - Small package piledriver is just a breath taking and risky move, talking a lot about her power and skills as a wrestler(Piledriver is a move that is banned in some states, in WWE it's allowed to be done only by Kane and The Undertaker).
3. GAIL KIM AND MARIA
What comes from WWE is coming with a great quality!
Actually, Maria started to show what she was capable of, months before her release. Gail Kim showed it from the beginning of her WWE career. TNA allowed her to expand her experience and experiment in a different types of matches, that are rare to be seen in WWE - like ladder and steel cage matches between women.
Maria is amazing like a heel! Maybe WWE needed to tyr this role for her, before kicked her out. TNA decided to allow her to appear as villain, gimmick that she acquired in ROH and FWE. She is great in that mean and arrogant role, as well as she was great in her sweetheart role. Most importantly Maria improve her wrestling skills and expand them. There is only one bad thing about Maria in TNA - we want to see her wrestle one-on-one with everyone, especially with Gail!
Talking about Gail!
It's, logical when you have an apex-predator (even face at the moment), to centered all of your women's division attention around her. When you need to push indie worker like Sienna or Jade, just book them against Gail! When you don't have a suitable challenger for the Knockouts title, just bring it back to Gail! Now Maria is stealing some of Gail's fame. Jade and Mart are fighting for their spot, too. I hope to see Allie in the ring, soon. But at the end of the day it's all about Gail! With all of our respect and without meaning any offenseр that is just simple fact!
Check out the last two edition of Impact Wrestling - Gail get an opportunity to fight against every woman in the roster the following weeks. She beat Madison, she will beat the others. At the end we'll have Sienna(c) vs. Gail Kim for the belt. Gail deserves it! She deserves to break every record in Impact, but I am starting to asking myself isn't that comfortable zone/division, too poor of challenges? I ask myself: Isn't there a time, when Kim asked herself "Isn't it time for a change and trying something new? Like NXT and Asuka?". :D Gail as a Hall of Fame Inductee, become TOO BIG for the Knockouts division. She reached the top, the roof...and beyond! She can won that title 10-20 times, but is that good enough for her?
BONUS PICK: ROSEMARY
The Decay's valet Rosemary (aka Courtney Rush) is not the typical women's character. She is exotic in one darker, decay way!
Since her debut in January, this year, she becomes one of the most interesting women characters. We didn't see her in action very often. These days she is involved in some romantic-horror angle.
As former SHIMMER Tag team champion (with Sara Del Rey/Sara Amato), she is capable of more. At this point she can bring a lot of horror in the valets "division", chasing Raquel, Reby Hardy and why not Maria and Allie. She just need more wrestling time invested in her. More ringside interference and attacks!
Next weeks we will take a look at Lucha Underground and ROH's and etc. women's rosters!
TO BE CONTINUED...
