TNA Epics TV show report

Aired June 13 on Bravo in the UK

Report by Dot Net reader Adam Milne, Scotland

The air date is not a typo. Epics appears to have lost its Friday time slot and has been moved to Saturdays at 11 p.m. (an hour later), after the showing of this week’s Impact. The current listings have the next episode of Epics at next Sat at the same time. A small point to note, as I thought I’d forgotten to record Epics when it didn’t show up on my Sky+. Also, The Wrestler has stopped sponsoring TNA programming, and hearts will be breaking all over the world on that news.

The show kicks off with Mick Foley in the studio, telling us that tonight’s show is all about the “lovely ladies” of the Knockouts Division, including “bruisers like Awesome Kong and Roxxi, to beauties like Christy Hemme and Gail Kim”. Kong, Roxxi, and Christy were shown in recent clips (Roxxi was as the “Hardcore Knockout” while Kim was archive footage as the difference in quality of the clip was staggering.

1. Gail Kim won a 10 Knockout Gauntlet Battle Royal to become the first ever TNA Knockouts Champion. This match was taken from Bound For Glory 2007. It started with the Borash trying to interview Shelley Martinez, O.D.B., Talia Madison, and Angel Williams, and yes we did start with the unashamed close up of Martinez’s chest. In fact, before the match begins we get the full video hype package about the match, Tenay’s bullet points break down of the contest (yay...) and the full entrances for the first two competitors .

Entrant 1: Ms. Brooks; Entrant 2: Ms. Jackie Moore. They fought for a minute before...

Entrant 3: Shelley Martinez (the future Salinas) made her entrance, and more close ups of cleavage before she got into the ring and battled with the other two.

Entrant 4: Awesome Kong. Everyone froze and looked scared except for Moore who wanted some, and Tenay and West freaked about her size, strength, and anything else to get her even more over.

Elimination 1: Kong eliminates Martinez with a Spinning Back Fist to knock her off the top. Following her shortly after...

Elimination 2: Jackie Moor eliminates Ms. Brooks by countering a charge with a Back Body Drop/Toss over the top rope.

Entrant 5: O.D.B. who did her “dance” on the outside while...

Elimination 3: Kong eliminates Jackie by tossing her with one hand over the top rope after the Implant Buster. We get a brief shot of Moore on the floor outside. [c]

Entrant 6: Angel Williams (Angelina Love) welcomes us back to action with her enterance as in the ring Kong has ODB by the throat.

Entrant 7: Christy Hemme, who gets greeted and pulled in by Kong.

Elimination 4: Kong eliminates Christy Hemme by Knockout after taking the “Accordion” Torture Rack and then the Awesome Bomb.

Entrant 8: Gail Kim who rushes in like a house on fire, targeting Kong and soon helped by the others.

Elimination 5: Kim, ODB, and Williams use a combined effort to dump Kong over the top rope. Kong gets pixellated when she suffers her wardrobe malfunction, but they don’t edit out West having a chuckle at the sight.

Entrant 9: Talia Madison (Velvet Sky). Whatever happened to those strangely coloured chaps ring gear?

Elimination 6: Kim and ODB knock Angel Williams off the apron with double team running forearms as she celebrated thinking she was the smartest.

Entrant 10: Roxxi Laveaux

Elimination 7: Kim eliminates Talia Madison by catching her foot as she’s in the corner, and then tossing her up and over the top.

Elimination 8: Roxxi eliminates O.D.B. by knocking her off the top with a forearm.

Pin or Submission regular match with final 2: Gail Kim pins Roxxi Laveaux with an Air Raid Crash (Finlay’s Celtic Cross) to become the first ever TNA Knockouts Champion. The clip ends with Kim celebrating with the belt and the announcers gushing over the accomplishment and the Knockouts division. We then cut to a TNA Epics “Spotlight: Velvet Sky”. This was just like all the TNA “Webography” videos except with Epics graphics covering up the old ones. If you’ve seen Velvet’s video before, then there’s nothing new here. [c]

2. Awesome Kong (w/Raisha Saeed) defeated Gail Kim to win the TNA Knockouts Championship.

This match was taken from the Janurary 8th 2008 edition of TNA Impact, and was dubbed (at least by the info bar) as Kim vs. Kong III. This also started off with a video hype package about their feud, and included ring introductions by Borash. When Kong ran into the staging wall there was an edit to a crowd shot to not show Kong running into the deadly wooden structure. So showing Kong swinging Kim into the guard rail during the video package is OK, but not “live action” of a huge woman crashing through a wall? Worse to come as right after this edit, there’s a flash of white and then we’re suddenly in the ring with Kong body checking Kim to knock her down.

After a great match of action, Kong wins with a combination of powerbombs. First she counters a Hurricanrana attempt by Kim into a powerbomb, but holds on to lift her up for a second, and then lifting her up for the sit out Awesome Bomb and the pin to win the title. We get shown replays of the bombs and the clip ends with Kong raising the title above her head. Then it’s into another Spotlight video, this time on Traci Brooks. Again, if you’ve already seen Brooks’ Webography video, you aren’t going to find out anything new. [c]

Back in the studio with Foley who informs us that “we have another fun first for you, if you call women locked up in a cage fun. I do, [looking off camera] you do? [Looking to other side] You? [Back to camera] OK we’re all in agreement.”

3. Roxxi Laveaux won the first ever Queen of the Cage Match to become Number One Contender for the TNA Knockouts Championship.

Taken from Lockdown 2008. This match also featured Christy Hemme, Salinas, Jacqueline, Traci Brooks, Angelina Love, Velvet Sky, and Rhaka Khan. It wouldn’t be TNA without a gimmick match. As if having a gauntlet battle royal that ends with a regular singles match isn’t enough.

We got full entrances for everyone involved, so if you enjoy watching Christy doing high kicks and Salinas “dancing” you are in luck. Everyone started outside and had to fight to climb into the cage to have a one on one match. Whilst the others brawled, Angelina climbs in, and is followed by Roxxi after she cuts off Velvet from getting in. Their match featured some back and forth action with Roxxi kicking out of Angelina’s Lights Out finisher. Roxxi won it after sending Love into the cage and then hitting the sweet-looking Voodoo Drop for the pin. The show ends with Roxxi on the top rope, holding onto the cage to “celebrate” winning.

Overall thoughts: I had been expecting a Knockouts themed show for a while now, and I found it quite enjoyable. The show actually felt like an advertisement for the Knocked Out DVD, as the first two matches on this show are available on DVD (we get Kong and Saeed vs. Kim and ODB from Lockdown instead of the Queen of the Cage). And I’m pretty sure that they cut to crowd shot when Kong suffered her malfunction on the DVD. It would have actually made sense to chuck in an advert for the DVD somewhere, as it’s still easy to get from UK online stores and the like. I found it interesting that Kim and Roxxi, former employees to TNA, would not only be shown as strong winners in matches (you can argue Kim suffered a big loss as well) but be talked up by Foley, albeit in a brief, one word way.

I have a few problems with this edition of the show, apart from the edit in the Kong vs. Kim. Firstly, the choice to include Queen of the Cage. Seriously? That can be considered a classic match? No offense to any of the women involved, but it wasn’t exactly memorable stuff. The Makeover Battle Royal springs to mind if only for the ladder match portion, but I guess TNA didn’t want to give us too much Gail Kim in one go. Also, they included the video “interviews” with Velvet and Traci to fill time, why not conduct a couple of new interviews with Knockouts to give a little something special in addition? It’s also funny how TNA includes an early match with Williams and Madison, and later show them with their TNA trademarked names, but that’s a minor point.

This edition of Epics was decent, and I think if they’d showed us more or all of Kim vs. Kong it would have been a better show. As it is, we got a good one. If Epics does another Knockouts themed show, it will be interesting to see which bouts are considered as classic as these ones.

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