Impact Wrestling's Victory Road event for 2017 was held on April 14, 2017 and served as this year's Knockouts Knockdown all-female One Night Only Pay-Per-View special for 2017.
Also, despite being in the graphic above, Mia Yim/Jade is nowhere to be found on this show.
Introductions
Great to see Gail Kim acting as the "talent scout" and co-host for this event, even though she's still sidelined from her injury. I thought most of the girls, especially the newcomers and returning faces, didn't take the ball and run with it on their chance to cut a promo, except for Rebel who knocked it out of the park. She really surprised me on that one. In terms of personas, I think her and MJ Jenkins impressed me the most here.
When WWE does their Women's Tournament later this year, I hope they take a few subtle nods from this annual show where they take the opportunity to give these ladies a chance to show more personality. If they were smart, they'll fill up the brackets with ladies from the main roster who are struggling with getting over on the little time that they have on WWE programming and give them a bigger platform on that tournament to shine. Look at what it did for the bulk of CWC guys, especially for Gargano and Ciampa.
Angelina Love (w/ Davey Richards) def. Kayci Quinn
Quinn's pretty green, but showed promise by the time the match was over. I'm sure as one of Jay Lethal's students she'll get better with time as she gathers more experience underneath her belt. She's fairly new to wrestling on TV from what I've heard. It started off pretty bad (definitely that opening exchange between her and Love) as I think it was the nerves kicking in but her and Love found their chemistry for each other by the time this was over.
I was just disappointed at the finish was just a damn Clothesline/Forearm Smash by Love for the win. No Botox Injection or any of Angelina's other signatures? It just seemed like a lame way for the newbie to go out.
Can someone verify, but wasn't this Angelina Love's first "official" match back since coming back to Impact after her pregnancy?
Diamonte (w/ LAX) def. Amanda Carolina Rodriguez
To say that I follow AmandaxCR on Twitter, I'm surprised she's put on a bit of weight. That's not a bad thing, but I suggest changing her ring gear to accommodate that. If I can nit-pick here, I just can't stand seeing people (especially Mexican/Latino wrestlers doing this...) doing the Eddie Guerrero hip roll trifecta suplexes, but can't roll their hips. I'm glad Chavo stopped embarrassing himself doing it but you'll still see Rey Mysterio and even Sasha Banks bust it out from time to time. Here, you see Amanda doing it and it's not a pretty sight.
The more I see Diamonte (formerly Angel Rose) work, the more I'm becoming a fan of her work. At first, I was questioning why Konnan picked her for this iteration of LAX, but now I see that she definitely fits their unorthodox style.
Leva Bates def. Allie
The opening bits of this match was just freakin' adorable. Bayley could take notes here from Allie on how to be a bubbly, squeaky clean babyface. It's hard NOT to love Allie's innocence here. I found myself chuckling at Allie's remark of "You're pretty good!" at Leva's performance. Allie's selling herself short as she seems to be pretty deadset on not turning up her ring work up a notch until the inevitable feud between her and Rosemary at some point. I'm guessing that Impact Wrestling are saving that for Bound For Glory since those two killed it in their rivalry on the indies prior to joining the company. I'm glad that Leva Bates was able to show off more of her in-ring talents here other than being a comedy act here, even though that came to play by the end.
If I had anything to knock on this match is that it's the second match on this card with a distraction finish. I get they are trying to continue/play off the fallout of the Maria Kanellis-Alllie storyline, but these one-off iPPVs need to have some closure in my eyes, especially if you are going to sell these as stand-alone affairs.
Rosemary (w/ Crazzzy Steve) def. MJ Jenkins
The more I see of MJ Jenkins, the more I like her persona and her ring work. I like that she got a chance to cut a promo here to show that she wasn't afraid of the Decay. I just fear that she might fall into that tired "sassy black girl" trope that Sojo Bolt fell into and a ton of black female wrestlers find themselves trapped into in WWE.
Rosemary's awesome, simply put. From her persona, appearance, mannerisms, and in-ring ability, she's a force to be reckoned with and there's room for more growth too. Her and Jenkins had some great chemistry here and I would love to see them square off again later down the line. I hope Jenkins is a lock to be a mainstay for this new crop of Knockouts.
Alicia Edwards (Alexxis Neveah) def. Sienna
I haven't seen too much of Alicia's work prior to coming to Impact Wrestling as much as I should have but what I have seen here wasn't bad. It just seemed like your run of the mill Knockouts match. Alicia seemed a bit nervous to be working in front of the Impact Zone's fans but she managed to keep up with Sienna.
Much like my earlier complaint to the matches on this show, there was another distraction finish here, bringing the total count to 3 in one show. C'mon, TNA, don't be as bad as WWE with the roll-up being the strongest finisher in the company...
Santana Garrett (formerly Brittany) def. Brandi Rhodes
A strong candidate for the match of the night with Brandi surprising everyone by keeping up with Santana, move for move. Even I was pleasantly surprised here by Brandi's performance.
I get sick and tired of hearing WWE marks saying that WWE needs to sign Santana. They had MULTIPLE opportunities to do so and didn't jump on it. Besides, WWE has more than enough talent that they don't know what to do with 95% of them most of the time. I rather not see Santana go there and end up being a waste to her talents when she's lost in the shuffle. At least Impact Wrestling dropped her previous gimmick and is acknowledging her by the name that she's made for herself since leaving the promotion. She's one hell of a worker and a women's champion for roughly every promotion she's appeared in. She would be a solid talent to be a part of this new generation of Knockouts to build this division around.
She's got a great, marketable look and talented to boot. She's not bad on the mic either from the few indie promos I have seen her cut on YouTube for various promotions, so I don't see any downside on offering her a spot on the roster. If I were TNA, I'd jump at the chance to have her as a lock on my women's division.
I don't want to sell Brandi short here either. This was definitely her best performance out of her few matches on Impact Wrestling to date. I know people have been shitting on her talents so far, but give this girl some time. It's not like she had the chance to do this in WWE regularly. She's coming along in her growth better than a lot of the girls currently in NXT and some of the newer faces on the main roster to boot. Given some time, I'm sure she'll be as impressive as Taryn Terrell and Brooke Tessmacher at the height of their careers.
ODB def. Rebel
I remember seeing something similar to this when Rebel and ODB fought on Impact Wrestling's TV tapings a few weeks prior to this and there was a bit too much comedy here for my taste. It seems like these two love getting Earl Hebner involved into their "sexy" antics in their matches and it was pretty hit or miss here. I felt this was a wasted spot on this card as I was honestly looking forward to see how much Rebel has improved after cutting that promo earlier tonight and how she would bounce back from embarrassing herself during last year's Knockouts Knockdown event against Shelly Martinez/Salinas.
From what she did here was solid for the most part, but doesn't scream anything groundbreaking to blow away critics of her performance last year. If both of these ladies are looking to be taken seriously as mainstays of the Knockouts division, they might want to dial it back a bit with the comedy bits.
Laurel Van Ness def. Rachel Ellering
Now THIS is the Rachel Ellering I want to see as part of the Knockouts division. From the way that the commentary team was pointing out that TNA Management could sign anyone on the roster to the Knockouts division on the spot, I was thinking Rachel was going to get a spot from her hard work here, despite her shoulder injury. I dunno why she sold herself short on Impact Wrestling's TV tapings a few weeks ago, but she put on one hell of a performance here. I wouldn't mind seeing more from a full blown feud between her and Laurel Van Ness. Who knows, Impact might end up giving her the contract that NXT never offered her, despite her dad's brown-nosing over there and being forced to manage a shitty tag team.
Sucks that LVN came out with the win, but whatever. I hope Impact are wise to sign Rachel Ellering to a full-time contract after this because I would like to see what else she can do given a full-time deal.
Alicia Edwards, Santana Garrett, Leva Bates, and ODB def. Angelina Love, Rosemary, Diamonte, and Laurel Van Ness
By this point, I mentally kicked myself that they were going for a heels versus faces main event since they scrapped the usual battle royal finale for the previous Knockouts Knockdown events. This was a welcome change of pace, but it didn't really do much for everyone involved. It came down to be your run of the mill Knockouts match, with a few sweet spots thrown in. TNA seems to love that spot where all of the girls get their finishers in though until someone gets the win. Even the WWE girls are starting to recycle that one.
I wasn't too crazy about Alicia Edwards picking up the win here as I felt they should have let Santana Garrett or Leva Bates get the full-time contract, but I guess it can't be helped since roughly everyone in this match were already signed with the company anyway. Since they didn't let Leva or Santana pick up the win, I'm guessing that they didn't sign deals with the company (yet... I hope) so they went with the sure bet since they have to give Alicia a means to get payback on Angelina Love's assaults on her legally within kayfabe, so I can't complain in that aspect.
Karen Jarrett must be shopping in stores for that Stephanie McMahon authority figure collection, huh?
Closing Thoughts
I was taken back that Anthem abandoned the Knockouts Knockdown moniker for these annual Knockouts specials for Victory Road, but by the time it was said and done, it didn't bother me. This is still a Knockouts-themed event from top to bottom and I can't complain with what was offered here. The ladies - old and new - were given plenty of time to shine and show off their various personas and in-ring ability, while some were even able to cut a few promos to boot. I can only hope and pray that WWE takes some nods from these events (and possibly ChickFight) for their upcoming Women's Tournament later this year and for their three women's divisions as a whole.
Is this the best Knockouts themed event that Impact Wrestling has held to date? No, but they are still in this rebuilding/restructuring phase in the right direction. Showcasing these new Knockouts who will be staples to the division moving forward is the right way to go. I just wish Impact did a better job of promoting this event as I had NO idea that this was available until I saw the pirated upload of the entire show on my YouTube timeline over the weekend.
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