{"id":144353,"date":"2025-10-20T08:00:48","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T12:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=144353"},"modified":"2025-10-20T19:23:25","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T23:23:25","slug":"tna-knockouts-and-how-they-lost-themselves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2025\/10\/20\/tna-knockouts-and-how-they-lost-themselves\/","title":{"rendered":"TNA Knockouts and How they Lost Themselves"},"content":{"rendered":"

A TNA “Knockout” refers to the female wrestlers, announcers, interviewers, and valets of TNA. Since its inception in 2007, the Knockouts have always stood out due to how they were treated. Instead of catfights, bra and panty matches, and sexualization, Knockouts were serious, respected wrestlers who proved they can be both sexy and strong. TNA also laid the blueprints for women’s tag team wrestling. The TNA Knockouts Tag Team Championships were introduced all the way back in 2009.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, this unique and revolutionary approach would only last a short while. Eventually, constantly changing management, monetary issues, and desperation to hold an audience caused the Knockouts to fall into the same ‘eye candy’ stereotype for a period of time. Even the TNA Knockouts Tag Team Championships would be deactivated in 2013, after a male became one-half of the champions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, TNA has made strides to correct its mistakes and once again build up its Knockouts division. However, the recent partnership with WWE not only highlighted some of the remaining issues, but it also added more. Recent issues include a lack of star power, an over-reliance on ex-WWE and current NXT stars, and a lack of creative or intriguing storylines.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

TNA’s Lack of Star Power<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

This issue isn’t just exclusive to the Knockouts; it applies to the whole promotion. However, departures within the Knockouts Division have made this issue more obvious. Departures, injuries, and backstage issues have caused strong points of the roster like Masha Slamovich, Ash By Elegance, Jordynne Grace, and Gail Kim to leave the company. The same can be said for other departures throughout the company’s history.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was also said earlier in March that Gail Kim was incredibly involved with the Knockouts. Her former role in creative helped reshape the division, but now that she’s gone, its remaining issues have become more obvious.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite an apparent void needing to be filled, TNA refuses to sign new, fresh talent. Instead of scouting for new talent or putting resources into things like tryouts, TNA decided to solve this issue by having NXT and former WWE stars win top titles.<\/span><\/p>\n

TNA’s Dependency on WWE<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Although bringing in talent from other companies isn’t inherently a bad thing, it does get to a point. Especially when that talent isn’t even signed to the promotion where they hold a top championship. Fans have criticized this recent practice, arguing it takes away opportunities from more deserving women and halts the building of reliable, long-term stars.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The recent NXT\/TNA co-special ShowDown (first named Invasion), had this glaring issue. While the men’s team for TNA included people who’ve been in TNA for a long time, the women’s team consisted of nothing but ex-WWE and current WWE stars.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kelani Jordan (an NXT star) won the TNA Knockouts Championship at Victory Road, a controversial and negatively received move. Only a week or so later, Jordan would fight on behalf of Team TNA. She would fight alongside Cassie Lee, Jessie McKay, and Mara Sade, all former WWE stars.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"A
Photo Credit: WWE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Shortly before this, Jordan would pledge her oh-so-real and believable allegiance and loyalty to TNA, but not before spoiling The IInspiration’s Tag Title win, which was filmed but not yet aired. TNA management focusing more on the WWE crossover rather than itself has led to fan complaints of poor creative.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lackluster Creative<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

The creative direction and lack of storylines for the Knockouts have significantly decreased. Tag team matches feel like an afterthought, thrown together and just there to fill up time. The monotony of these matches has been heavily criticized throughout the industry. These types of matches have been an ugly trend as of late, with AEW and Tony Khan facing this same criticism as well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Additionally, the lack of originality or differentiation has been criticised. Promos are all written the same, very poorly. They have the same model, which gets old and tiring. Character portrayals have also been a long-standing issue. The same copy-paste teams make fans less intrigued.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Solutions<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Potential solutions for this issue are <\/span>incredibly simple<\/span>. First, TNA can focus more on themselves, build up their roster, and put more thought into storylines. There. I fixed the Knockouts Division for you. You’re welcome, TNA. By doing this, TNA can return to its unique approach to women’s wrestling that set it apart originally. They can also win over both new fans and fans who’ve turned away.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

More From LWOS Pro Wrestling<\/strong><\/p>\n

Header image credit \u2013 TNA Wrestling \u2013 Stay tuned to\u00a0Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a> for more on TNA Knockouts, and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world. As well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. Catch all TNA events and shows on TNA Plus<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A TNA “Knockout” refers to the female wrestlers, announcers, interviewers, and valets of TNA. Since its inception in 2007, the Knockouts have always stood out due to how they were treated. Instead of catfights, bra and panty matches, and sexualization, Knockouts were serious, respected wrestlers who proved they can be both sexy and strong. TNA […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5605,"featured_media":144370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2192,8959,317],"tags":[185,2422,8692,7963,9349],"class_list":["post-144353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-north-america","category-wrestling","category-tna-wrestling","category-women","tag-gail-kim","tag-jordynne-grace","tag-kelani-jordan","tag-the-iinspiration","tag-tna-knockouts"],"modified_by":"Marilee Gallagher, Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5605"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144353"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":144394,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144353\/revisions\/144394"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}