Why hello there people and welcome to another femme fatale filled edition of the Women’s Wrestling Write-Up here at OWW.com! As usual, I am Jack White and my Seven Nation Army have found me all the best Diva and Knockout clips of the week ready for me to recap. Ok, I just went on YouTube and found them and on the subject of finding, I’m still trying to find some decent humour! Whilst I cry over my lack of ability to make you belly laugh and the WWE exit of Maxine (more on that later), let’s recap this week’s action.
On WWE RAW this week, there was an amazing abundance of AJ as her wackjob ways continued. She opened the show in a backstage segment, skipped her way around the ring in a match featuring Kane, Daniel Bryan and CM Punk, was blew off by Kane in another backstage segment and then she also participated in a Summertime Beach Battle Royal featuring all the other Divas (other than Kelly, Eve and The Funkadactyls, BOO). Did she win? We’ll find out later.
Also this week, Taeler Hendrix found out her Gutcheck fate on TNA IMPACT wrestling whilst Gail Kim and Miss, no she will always be BROOKE Tessmacher (even TNA’s website has her listed as it, so it must be right!) had a war of words more bitchy than Tammy ‘Sunny’ Sytch on Twitter! Slight over-exaggeration and I promise never to mention that ‘hacked’ WWE Hall of Famer again! There was also a backstage segment featuring Madison Rayne as one her secret crush candidates. Finally on this jam-packed show, we find out the latest in the Dixie Carter/Claire ‘Should Have Been’ Lynch-ed saga which featured some more acting of Emmy winning standard.
Over on WWE Smackdown, AJ opened the show again (is there anything the WWE won’t let her do?!) and she faced off against Divas Champion Layla and afterwards, she talked to acting GM, Vickie Guerrero and Daniel Bryan. What went down? Was it more shocking than Maxine’s release (trying to get her in this column as much as possible as it’ll be the last time I can)? Also, a former NXT friend of Maxine’s Aksana was seen in a backstage segment which has repercussions for next week’s Super Smackdown Live. And not forgetting, Kaitlyn appeared in a backstage segment as well. Excited? So you should be. Let’s get on with it!
Kicking off this week’s proceedings in the form of our Opening Contest is the backstage segment featuring Knockouts Champ Brooke Tessmacher and Gail Kim and Brooke Hogan was there to back the teasing and touching Tessmacher up. Here’s what went down.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWzgemMRVoE
My Thoughts: Gail, I have some bread you can butter. The KIMPACTFUL super-bitch that is Gail Kim has been under wraps for so long and it’s great to see her unleash the bitch on a more regular basis in the Knockouts Division. Much like her commentary work a few weeks ago, Gail delivered so classic lines like “Cheap rates, cheap girl” which were sweeter music to my ears than Maxine’s theme song! WWE used to do these backstage catty segments so well in their brighter days and WWE’s loss is TNA’s gain as this is the kind of segment that makes me laugh and keeps me interested in feuds. Although the premise is just that Gail and Tess hate each other, we can see why they do when you see the way Gail mouths off at the Champ and the authority figure. Brooke Hogan’s performance was better once again this week and she does come off as genuine in these segments. Miss Tess held her own verbally and she definitely gets my engine racing. Sorry for that awful Jerry Lawler-esque pun. Honestly, these jokes are like a split personality! I’m looking forward to next week’s title match and as much as I enjoy Gail, I hope Brooke retains and moves onto the likes of Sarita (I can dream) or most likely a heel Mickie James. Let’s see what next week brings.
We are keeping with IMPACT now as we verge into this week’s Midcard Mediocrity and firstly, we are going to look at the life of Madison Rayne. Madison a few weeks back watched a tag match involving her crush. The match featured Garett Bischoff, Devon, Robbie E and Robbie T. If you’re wondering who any of those are like I am, well you’ll be pleased to know that this week Madison talks to the dreadfully dull Garett and uh oh, is he her crush? Find out now, most likely looking through the gaps in your fingers as you’ll have your hands over your eyes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4-LGUFBx7E
My Thoughts: Praise Dixie Carter that Garett isn’t Madison’s crush! This segment was so-so and it helped the story along nicely. It would make sense for the Killer Queen’s crush to be Robbie E or T as they’re both heels like her and I just hope to Dixie again that it’s not Devon, how weird would that be? They’d definitely be nowhere near a Johnny Curtis and Maxine! It’s great to see TNA have a secondary Knockout story going on so props to them for utilising their division better than their rivals. There’s still work to be done though.
The next Midcard Mediocrity element this week stops off later on into IMPACT as we see OVW talent, Taeler Hendrix’s Gutcheck decision. Did she get the TNA contract? Get clicking below to see!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBm8GTsRMJg
My Thoughts: Other than Jeremy Borash’s announcing, what a feel good segment. It’s nice to see a new face in the division in the form of Taeler and I’m looking forward to what she’ll bring to the table. Whilst I’m all for new faces, don’t we have enough Knockouts? The What The Hell (WTH) of the Week has to be, WHAT THE HELL are TNA doing hiring more girls? I don’t see Taeler getting anywhere near the title picture yet and I see her helping turn Mickie heel after she beats her via roll-up or something in the future and if I’m wrong and she ends up feuding with the bigwigs at the top of the division, where does that leave Rosita, Sarita, Angelina and Winter who barely feature anyway? Will the just be used as jobber material for Taeler to establish herself against? I bloody hope not yet that sadly may be the case. If TNA are going to keep bring Knockouts in, they need to have them on two matches a week in my view with maybe one focusing on the KO Title picture and the other on the tag team titles, once Eric Young is back from finishing her wildlife series that no one will watch.
The final slot in Midcard Mediocrity this week belongs to Dixie Carter and Claire Lynch! Whilst I thought Claire would never crawl out of the Death Slot, her acting was very minimal this week as Dixie did most of the ‘so cringy yet so flippin’ awesome’ acting. Will you disagree and still think it was horrific? Let’s take a look. If you don’t want to see the awesome ending to the Tag Team Title match that Dixie and Claire watched from ringside, skip to 4:15 to see the juiciness that even Coronation Street and Days of Our Lives would be jealous of. (Again, not entirely sure this is better than Maxine and Johnny being handcuffed on NXT.)
Dixie and Claire Backstage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4orjBDvfBgU
Tag Team Title Match Aftermath: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je4LnfgamOM
My Thoughts: In the immortal words of Don West, YOU HAVE GOTTA BEEE KIDDING ME?! I actually didn’t think of AJ being the father of Claire’s unborn child for some reason – I was on the Shark Boy bandwagon if I’m honest. This storyline is more of a mess than Chyna’s dognapping situation and although it’s atrocious, I’m sure everyone can see the funny side of it. Dixie being a “basket case” made me ROFL as it was so random for her to come out with that; and little idiosyncrasies from her like that make me find her so appalling, I mean appealing and funny. I have a feeling to make this story even more soap opera-ish, TNA will either have Claire be knocked down in the ring and have a miscarriage ala Lita and Snitsky (hey, he’s out of work I’m sure, maybe he can come back) or it’ll turn out to be Kaz’s baby in the end or something. That could then lead to a Traci Brooks return and she can feud with Claire. Ok, maybe not.
To wrap up Midcard Mediocrity this week, here’s some segments worth bringing up that your favourite Diva may feature in. This week, Aksana and Kaitlyn featured in separate backstage segments on Smackdown. Also, if you enjoy Freakin’ Costa Ricans shouting random Spanish abuse whilst doing their best impressions of Queen Sindel from Mortal Kombat, Rosa Mendes accompanied Epico the ring on Superstars.
Aksana: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6SxPbq72nc
Kaitlyn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fXE6KDvbMY&feature=channel&list=UL
Rosa: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OQuorziXxw&feature=related
Up next is the Death Slot and sadly, whilst all the Divas were featured, the Summertime Beach Battle Royal is the worst segment this week from TV. Make your own opinion on it by watching below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bpz2PRd7bT8
My Thoughts: As much as I enjoy AJ winning, I hated this match. Not only did it serve as Maxine’s last appearance, it was a total clusterf*ck. The main story in the match was AJ and Vickie and I just don’t care about AJ attacking a GM. Beth and Layla was teased again but I’d rather watch Jenna Morasca vs. Sharmell again than sit through another round of that feud. I guess the point of the match was to put AJ over yet if AJ appears in too many segments, it might be a case of her getting shoved down our throats, and I don’t want that for her. However, every cloud has a silver lining, Kaitlyn and Natalya looked phenomenal. Tamina, erm, not so much.
And now onto the Main Event which is a match, in-ring segment involving AJ! AJ squared off against the Divas Champion Layla this week in a match that actually got time on a non-PPV show. Before you all die of shellshock, feast your eyes on the epicness that ensued this past Friday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHV69IyiAPY
My Thoughts: From the match, to the post-match attack by AJ to Layla and to the fantastic mic work on show by Vickie, I was really into this segment. It’s not often the Divas get 13 minutes of time and they took the proverbial ball and ran with it! The match itself was longer than normal matches and while Layla got a roll-up victory after a distraction from Daniel Bryan, it still didn’t feel like a cheap victory. I think was because the pin looked so hard to get out of and it gave me the impression that whether or not AJ was distracted, there was no way she would have kicked out. AJ looked strong in defeat too as not only did she need to be distracted to lose, she went BESERK at Layla afterwards. Layla sort of got revenge tonight as when AJ eliminated Layla in the Battle Royal on RAW, Layla was distracted by Beth to be knocked out, whereas the tables turned on Smackdown. But where does Layla go from here? Before her mixed tag with The Great Khali vs. Aksana and Antonio Cesaro, I’d like to see Layla and Aksana maybe square off on RAW with Aksana getting a cheap win, with Layla and Khali losing again on Smackdown, setting up Aksana vs. Layla in a mini feud towards Money In The Bank. As much as it wouldn’t be an amazing build, I’m sure they could put on a decent PPV match.
The in-ring YES-off between D Bryan and AJ was funny as and Vickie Guerrero provided my OMG of the Week when she said to Daniel “I’m sure everyone is sick of you saying the same old annoying catchphrase” before blurting out a classic “EXCUSE ME!” – fantastic comedy writing by the ‘E!
As for the stipulation that was announced meaning that AJ will be the Special Ref for the Daniel Bryan vs. CM Punk match at Money In The Bank, I love this. It does seem even more obvious now that AJ will align with Daniel Bryan and as much as I like her as a Tweener/Face, I think she needs to be a heel due to the sheer lack of them in the division. She is a heel that the fans will get behind just like Daniel Bryan, so turning her in the future won’t be an issue.
And in a not very important backstage segment later on, Daniel Bryan talked to AJ.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajHf1rvIN_g
So everyone, normally this is where I would sign off for another week but before I do, I need to address the WWE departure of The Queen of Mean, Maxine. Maxine confirmed her release this past Friday and I’m gutted in all honesty. Maxine was a Fatal-4-Way in my eyes; she has the looks, in-ring talent, mic skills and she had those attires that made her hotness blow my mind! She cited not being able to showcase herself on a higher basis as a reason to leave and I’m sure other Divas on the roster will be just as frustrated as her but good for her I guess as she was unhappy and did something about it. The bad news is although she wants to continue entertaining, she has 100% ruled out wrestling again which is awful news. Maxine has a lot of potential and like Tiffany, it looks like it will be going to waste. Maxine, you have been a pleasure to watch over your time in the WWE and I wish you the best of luck in all that you do next. If you want it, you’ll go and get it as it’s right there for the taking. *Sticks her theme song on YouTube*
Thanks again for reading people and don’t forget to follow and tweet me at @Jack5326! Till next time!
Jack