News: TNA Knockouts Tag Team Championships officially retired

The roster page on Impact Wrestling's website appears to indicate the Knockouts Tag Team Championships have finally been retired.

The titles had been long inactive, having been won by the inter-gender tag team of Eric Young and ODB on February 28th, 2012 and defended sporadically.

Several weeks ago, on an episode of Impact Wrestling, the Knockouts General Manager Brooke Hogan vacated the titles, due to Young's being a man. It seems as though this will be the last we hear of them.

Clem's Take: I'm hardly surprised by the move and could've seen it happen sooner. The Knockouts division simply doesn't have enough depth to sustain a tag team division. Hell, they barely have enough depth to sustain a singles division anymore. For whatever reason, TNA have let the division fall into disarray and besides feuds for the title, don't bother to fly in more than four women at a time.

Trash Talking: State of the Knockouts

written by Rob Poulloin

On the previous episode of Impact Wrestling (20/06), Knockouts official Brooke Hogan addressed the current state of the division, she praised and hyped the division but somehow failed to notice that by the end of the segment there were only four wrestlers in the ring. 

The Knockouts suffer similar to the Tag Team and X Division and is often considered an after thought to the main event scene and with all focus on the BFG series it is unlikely much else will get a look in this summer. The segment was placed to highlight the division especially on the back of the well received match at Slammiversary between Gail Kim and Taryn Terrell and hype what will be on offer this summer, but beyond the aforementioned being booked in a Ladder Match to continue their feud and Velvet Sky getting her rematch for the title against Mickie James the division looks light on the ground missing a number of names such as Brooke Tessmacher, Tara; who announced that she would be off Impact for a few months and the pregnant Madison Rayne. 

Champion Mickie James
has a lack of competion
image by Impact Wrestling

The segment started off with six wrestlers in the ring, but these included KO tag team champion and current referee ODB and her husband Eric Young who haven't defended the belts in over a year, thankfully they vacated the belts with EY admitting he wasn't a woman and hopefully these belts won't be seen for the foreseeable future until the division has the number of competitors to make it worth while having them around. 

With the lack of wrestlers around it surprised me that TNA didn't make an effort to put Gut Check contestant Taeler Hendrix in the ring, especially as she had a match a few weeks ago and will provide a much needed opponent once we have seen the rematches announced and no doubt tag team match pitting the heels against the faces. 

Besides announcing two future matches this segment didn't really add much to the show and could have easily taken place backstage and have been shorter. Without Mickie James entertaining new heel role this segment would have fallen flat on its face, Brooke Hogan stumbled through her lines whilst Terrell blended into the background with her win over Gail Kim was over looked completely. If TNA want the Knockouts to excite through the summer then more effort and bodies are going to be needed than this showing.