After announcing her retirement from the ring last year, Gail Kim wrestled the final match of her career on Saturday in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, England.
In the main event of Southside Wrestling’s Raw Deal show, Kim beat Kasey Owens via inside cradle.
As seen in the photo and video below, Kim and Owens embraced in the ring after the match. Then as Kim headed to the backstage area, she received a “Thank you Gail” chant and embraced her peers before saying goodbye.
Kim then said on social media it was her dream to retire in the UK.
I wanna thank @KaseyOwens5 , @SouthsideWE & the Amazing UK fans SO MUCH for my final match in the UK. It truly was everything I ever could hope for and I couldn’t be happier. Was TRULY my dream come true. I actually cried 3 times which is a miracle. THANK YOU!
Kim’s accolades include being the first-ever Knockouts Champion, holding the Knockouts Championship a record seven times, winning the WWE Women’s Championship in her first televised WWE match, and being the first female to be inducted into the TNA Hall of Fame.
Kim began her wrestling career in December 2000 on the Canadian independent circuit before signing a developmental contract with WWE in 2002. In June 2003, she became the first female in WWE history to win a championship in her official debut match by capturing the WWE Women’s Championship in a battle royal.
After being released by WWE in November 2004, Kim joined TNA Wrestling in September 2005. There, she joined the tag team America’s Most Wanted as their valet. After the group broke up, Kim began performing as a singles wrestler and would become the inaugural Knockouts Champion in October 2007.
In late 2008, Kim left TNA for WWE and rejoined the main roster in March 2009. She remained with the company until September 2011, without winning any titles. She was not happy with her second stint in WWE due to her feeling that organization officials held her and other female wrestlers back.
Kim returned to TNA in October 2011 and captured the Knockouts Championship six more times. In October 2016, she was inducted into the TNA Hall of Fame. At Bound for Glory last October, in Kim’s final match for the company, she won her record-seventh Knockouts Championship after pinning Sienna. The next night, she formally announced her retirement from professional wrestling and vacated the title in the process.
– Former WWE Women’s Champion Gail Kim will not compete in tonight’s first-ever Women’s Royal Rumble Match.
In response to fan speculation on Twitter that she could appear as a surprise entrant, Kim replied “Hell no.” She will actually be in Dallas, Texas for a Royal Rumble viewing party.
Heading to a live viewing party for #RoyalRumble tomorrow night. Excited to see the women And hoping to see the women of my generation make some surprise appearances. I’ll live tweet as I’m watching. Can’t wait!
Kim again said she won’t be in the match after a fan said he hoped to hear her first WWE theme song. She said that song was good, but hated her song during her second run with the company.
Well it won’t. Lol. Again, I’m going to a viewing party and also remember the last run I had there, they gave me some garbage generic music that sucked. That entrance song was good however. I think my fave is puppets on a string https://t.co/WS1f2jVKhv
– Saturday marked the 25-year anniversary of the passing of Andre the Giant. On the night of January 27, 1993, he died in his sleep of congestive heart failure in a hotel room in Paris, France. He was in Paris to attend his father’s funeral.
In this post on Instagram, Hulk Hogan remembers his friend.
Gail Kim spoke to Brian Fritz of Sporting News and below are some highlights from the interview:
Vince McMahon not liking women’s wrestling:
My honest opinion, and this is only my opinion and I don’t know this as fact, I just think Vince McMahon did not like women’s wrestling. With this whole revolution that happened in WWE these past couple of years, it’s because of the fans. Remember they were saying “Give Divas a Chance” that it got to the point where Vince is like OK, I’m going to give them a chance. It was really truly Hunter (Triple H) who created all these great girls in NXT. It wasn’t Vince. It’s almost like, thank God Hunter did it so that Vince could see the reaction that these girls were getting in NXT. Then it was OK, let’s jump on the bandwagon and let’s make it happen. I think he was never a fan of women’s wrestling whether he had talented girls or not and he didn’t want to watch that.
Being involved backstage after her in-ring career is over at the end of 2017:
We’ve already started that process and I’m going to continue with that. (She now works in a behind the scenes role as an agent for the women’s division.) I love helping the girls. I want to help rebuild this division to where it has the potential to go. I’m very invested, I’m very dedicated and passionate about the division and the company.
On taking a moment to pause before her matches:
Not with the taping schedule we have. (laughs) It’s very overwhelming so when I’m at work, I’m kind of running around like a chicken with its head cut off. But I think, for my last match when it starts coming near the very, very end, I definitely will. Who knows how I will react that last match. I just don’t know.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUgIJXIx-98
You can check out the entire interview by clicking here.
– Following a report that Brandi Rhodes is no longer listed by Global Force Wrestling as an active Knockout on its official website, it is now confirmed that she is no longer with the organization.
According to the latest issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Rhodes was recently released from her contract. It is not clear whether GFW opted to release her, or she asked to be let go.
A big reason for her departure is that she’s being filmed for a non-wrestling television show in Atlanta, Georgia and GFW weren’t cooperative about it. Rhodes debuted for Ring of Honor last Saturday and the promotion is more than willing to work with her on the show.
– In this video, GFW X Division Champion Sonjay Dutt talks about his journey through wrestling and what motivates him outside of it.
– Gail Kim, who recently announced on Impact Wrestling that she will be retiring at the end of 2017, is making a rare independent wrestling appearance on Saturday, August 12 for Pro Wrestling Blitz in Romeoville, Illinois. She will be wrestling Taya Valkyrie.
This Saturday, she will be appearing at the Sac Pop Culture Expo at the Scottish Rite Masonic Center in Sacramento, California.
The big story coming out of Monday night’s GFW Impact Wrestling taping in Orlando, set to air on Thursday, is former WWE & TNA Women’s Champion Gail Kim announcing her plans to retire this year.
The ring veteran announced that 2017 will be her final year as an active wrestler, confirming rumors in recent months stemming from her lack of in-ring action this year.
Kim began her career in 2000 and joined WWE in 2002, winning the Women’s Title in her debut match. She joined TNA in 2011 and won their Women’s Title six times, along with their Women’s Tag Team Championships. She was inducted into the TNA Hall of Fame last year.
Former Impact Wrestling star and former WWE Superstar recently did an interview with Kevin Eck for PressBoxOnline to discuss her time with the WWE. During the interview it was brought up that Vince McMahon doesn’t like for women to wrestle the same way the guys do inside the ring. Kim talked about her own experience with that, as well as what Triple H told her before she left the company:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOVBjLeOnNA&t=26s
KE: When I worked on the WWE creative team — I started in 2011 right after you left the company — Vince McMahon said several times that “no one wants to see the girls fight like the guys.” Was that something that was ever said or implied to you while you were there?
GK: “It wasn’t politically correct to say out loud, nor would they say that straight up, but — I’m not going to say which agent said it — but they would tell us that Vince doesn’t like that. I remember specifically a match I had on “Superstars” with Jillian [Hall]. We got seven minutes, which was rare back then — we usually got three minutes. There’s no way to tell a story in the ring in that time, so when we had a match on “Superstars” it was like a pay-per-view match [laughs].
“Jillian and I had awesome chemistry, so we’d want to wrestle. We wanted to do a superplex off the top rope, and the agent — again, I’m not going to name names — said, “Go ahead. I’ll take the heat for it,” because he knew Vince wouldn’t really be happy with that. Now I heard WWE has announced a Money in the Bank match for the girls. I honestly feel like [Triple H] has done so much for the girls, because he started that whole thing in NXT with the Four Horsewomen. When I left WWE, he was one of the people who was so positive. He told me, “You’re talented and don’t let anyone else tell you any different.” I was very flattered and glad that he respected women’s wrestling.”
Six-time TNA Knockouts Champion and former WWE Women’s Champion Gail Kim recently spoke to Busted Open Radio with Bully Ray and Dave LaGreca to discuss her time in the industry of professional wrestling. You can check out some of what Kim had to say in the highlights below (quotes via Wrestling Inc.):
Who she believes is the best female competitor in pro wrestling today:
“Charlotte Flair definitely. I don’t watch a lot of wrestling right now because number one there’s an overabundance of it, I can’t keep up. I pretty much keep track of all wrestling through social media, which has been great, and so I watch bits and pieces. If I talk about people having a great match then I have to go watch it. That started happening when the NXT girls were doing their thing, you know The Four Horsewomen, and I remember watching a four way with those girls and thinking ‘Who stands out to me?’ And Charlotte actually didn’t stand out to me back then.
“I thought she was solid, I thought she was athletic, and then the way that she’s progressed over the years just in her confidence, her year, everything is just now the complete package. And mind you, since we’re in the business we hear about people and their work ethic, their personality, whether they’re well liked or respected, and that usually factors into everything. And Charlotte, everyone will tell me she’s the hardest worker. And I can respect that. I met her for the first time maybe two months ago, so sweet, really great girl. I love that she has hard shoes to fill. The people that come from, especially successful, second-generation talent, it’s just hard to fill those shoes of their fathers or mothers. She has done an awesome job. That would be a dream match for me as well.”
If she were to wrestle Charlotte today, would it be her best match of her career:
“It could be, yeah. It definitely has the potential to be. I’m not gonna like, I’m a little old. There are some girls that I would love to work with up there and Charlotte is definitely one of the. But I don’t know if that’s a possibility at this point. Where I am and where she is, so that’s too bad. I would love for that to happen, I think that’d be great. Her Figure Four, my Figure Four in the post. Who knows who’d win?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOVBjLeOnNA&t=24s
What’s next for her in her career:
“My ultimate goal is always to make magic. I’m not retired, everyone always thinks I’m retired, I was injured. But hey, I’m 40-years-old, I don’t wanna be decrepit, I don’t want the fans to think of me in any way of being slowed down, which I’m not. That’s why I’ve taken my time coming back. I’m sure at some point I’ll retire but I don’t know when that is. Then, I’m already at the point where I’m helping the girls and I feel that’ll be my natural transition. I don’t know, we’ll see. I’ve always been that spontaneous, go with the flow, I don’t turn any great opportunities down whether it’s in our out of wrestling. I’m an opportunity grabber.”
Would she ever return to WWE:
“I will say never say never. Number two, my loyalty is always with Impact Wrestling to tell you the truth. But never say never, and if that was the case, if I ever had to or did go back and get that opportunity, I would be myself. Because at this point you have nothing to lose, it’s like whatever. If you can’t accept me for who I am, f*ck it.”
You can listen to Kim’s full interview on Busted Open Radiohere.
Gail Kim was forced to drop the TNA Knockouts Championship at Sunday’s Impact tapings in Orlando as it was announced that she is injured. According to PWInsider, she suffered a minor back injury.
TNA then held a Six Sides of Steel match to crown a new Knockouts Champion and that match, which should air in early December, saw Rosemary defeat Jade to win the vacant title.
Gail just won the title back on 10/2 at Bound For Glory.
Current TNA star and former WWE star Gail Kim has worked with most of the big names in women’s wrestling, but was able to narrow down her top three favorites in a recent interview with Ring Rust Radio. The top spot on her list goes to none other than fellow former WWE Women’s Champion Beth Phoenix.
“She is probably, from my recollection, the best person I have been in the ring with from a worker’s point of view,” Gail said. “She is always so calm and collected and really knew what she was doing in the ring. She was a great leader as well.”
The other two names that made her top three were Alicia Fox, and second-generation wrestler Natalya Neidhart. As far as who she hasn’t worked with yet, Gail said that Sasha Banks and Bayley catch her eye.
She spoke on the new generation of female talent in TNA, noting that her and Madison Rayne are the only two left from the previous generation of Knockouts. Gail says she is in a place in her career now where she can help younger talent and rebuild the division in TNA. She says many of the new women in TNA have a “thirst and passion” for the business, and she loves working with them on improving the entire division.
TNA’s Hall of Fame inductee for the class of 2016 has been revealed. This year’s inductee will be former Knockouts Champion Gail Kim.
Her induction will likely take place later this year at TNA’s annual Bound For Glory pay-per-view, which is typically their biggest event of the year. An official statement from TNA will be coming soon.
She’ll be joining fellow TNA Hall of Famers Sting, Kurt Angle, The Dudley Boyz, Jeff Jarrett and Earl Hebner.
Nashville-based model and branding specialist McKenszie Mitchell is now handling the weekly Impact Breakview segment, looking back on this week’s episode.
Following Impact, here’s the final card for Sunday’s Slammiversary PPV:
TNA Champion Drew Galloway vs. Bobby Lashley (Submission or KO only)
Jeff Hardy vs. Matt Hardy (Full Metal Mayhem)
Knockouts Champion Jade vs. Sienna
Tag Team Champions The Decay vs. The Bromans
X-Division Champion Trevor Lee vs. Eddie Edwards vs. DJ Zema vs. Andrew Everett
King of the Mountain champion Eli Drake vs. Bram
Mike Bennett vs. EC3
Maria Kanellis vs. Gail Kim
Grado & Mahabali Shera vs. The Tribunal (with Al Snow)
Following an invite from TNA’s Jeremy Borash, WWE Hall Of Famer Mick Foley recently took part in Chef Robert Irvine’s live show at the Paramount Theater in Huntington, New York. After the show, Foley was inspired to write a new blog about Irvine’s wife, TNA Knockout Gail Kim.
Foley, who has been a big vocal supporter of the current Divas Revolution in WWE, focused his latest blog on the fact that Kim doesn’t get enough credit for being the all-time great talent that he considers her to be. He also shares his opinion on how he feels she wasn’t properly utilized during her time in WWE.
A NIGHT TO REMEMBER – and a woman we should never forget.
I had no idea what to expect when my old pal Jeremy Borash, invited me to Chef Robert Irvine’s live show at the Paramount theater in Huntington, New York. I certainly did not expect to end up handcuffed to the world-famous, and incredibly fit chef, as we worked together as a team to defeat two talented local chefs in an extreme cooking challenge. It was the rush of wrestling, combined with the terror of doing the big money round of Family Feud. Chef Irvine and I scored a decisive victory, and I sat down in my car for the drive home with a a feeling of elation and accomplishment, and the satisfaction a father feels when he knows that his adult daughter still likes hanging out with him.
But after a couple minutes behind the wheel, I started thinking about Chef Irvine’s wife, TNA Knockout Gail Kim – and her contributions to the wrestling business.
I have written quite a bit about women’s wrestling in the past year and a half – since I saw the Natalya/Charlotte match at ?#?NXTTakeover? that I absolutely saw as a game changer for women’s wrestling in ?#?WWE?. But in all that time, I think I only mentioned Gail Kim once. That’s a shame. For while it was the Natalya/Charlotte match that made me see the potential for women’s wrestling in WWE, Gail Kim had raised the bar years earlier with her classic TNA matches with Awesome Kong. I remember being blown away by their series of matches, and getting caught up in the emotion and excitement that pro wrestling is still capable of creating when things are done really well.
Gail Kim did so many things really well. No discussion of the best current female wrestlers in the business is complete without the inclusion of her name. In my opinion, no discussion of all-time great female wrestlers is complete without the inclusion of her name.
I will never understand why Gail wasn’t better utilized during her time in WWE. That’s the danger of working in a business as subjective as professional wrestling – sometimes the swift don’t always win the race.
I hope some of you will take the time to look up some of Gail’s great matches. She gave so much, for so long – and in my opinion, her contributions to our business are often overlooked. I’ve been guilty of overlooking them myself.
Thank you, Gail, for everything you have done. Funny how being hand-cuffed to your husband made me feel so much closer to you.
TNA has announced the first official match for this year’s Bound For Glory pay-per-view.
In Knockouts action, Awesome Kong and Gail Kim will go one-on-one for the Knockouts Championship at the October 4th pay-per-view event in North Carolina.
TNA’s Dave Lagana and Kim tweeted the following:
Just announced for #BoundForGlory in Charlotte on October 4.
– Next week’s TNA Impact Wrestling will features TNA World Heavyweight champion Ethan Carter III (with Jeff Hardy in his corner) defending against Rockstar Spud.
– Gail Kim became the new TNA Knockouts Champion on last night’s Impact Wrestling as she defeated Brooke Tessmacher, Awesome Kong and Lei’D Tapa. This kicks off her 5th reign with the Knockouts title.
– Team TNA defeated Team GFW in the “Winner Takes All” Lethal Lockdown match this week on Impact, effectively ending the Global Force Wrestling invasion and marking Jeff Jarrett’s latest departure from the company. TNA President Dixie Carter tweeted:
Victory feels good. #TNA has a bright future ahead without @RealJeffJarrett in it.
TNA Knockout Gail Kim recently spoke with Scott Fishman of Channel Guide about a number of topics. Below are some of the highlights from the interview.
On WWE’s Divas Revolution: “I made a comment on Twitter that we’ve been doing it all along, but that was not to bash any other company at all. I think it’s great what they’re doing. I’ve been waiting for them to do that for years now. I think it’s great. I think they have a really great group of talent, especially the girls that have come up through NXT. I wish Nattie was a part of it because I don’t see how see she can’t fit into the equation. She should have been in there from day one.”
“They just have a really good core group of girls. I really like Sasha [Banks]. I know she is a fan favorite. I just love what they’ve been doing. It’s so funny I saw a match I thought, ‘That’s so like TNA knockouts style.’ They are bringing it to another level, and I love it. I the saw Sasha and Bayley match. I just loved the psychology and the crowd was into it. It was great.”
On Taryn Terrell’s heel turn: “With Taryn, there were just things that had to change that fans don’t know about in terms of why Taryn turned heel. That’s up to creative to tell you. I can’t say, but when it happened I think everyone was kind of surprised. It was nice because in this business you can sort of see things coming a lot of times. She didn’t even see it coming. They told her she was going to turn heel and this was going to happen.”
“I remember her and I talking about it, and she had never been a heel in her life. I said, ‘Don’t worry. You just have to find that zone and you will get used to it.’ Honestly, we all laughed because wow, she was so good at it. It was really good for her and Marti and Jade because they got to work with one of our top girls and characters. I think Jade is really strong in the ring, but got to explore a different character she would probably not do on the independents on her own. That’s how you learn. It’s been a great progression with all three of them.”
There were two more title changes at the TNA Impact Wrestling television tapings in Orlando, Florida on Wednesday night.
After losing the TNA Tag-Team Championships to “Team GFW’s” Brian Myers (Curt Hawkins) and Trevor Lee at the tapings on Tuesday night, The Wolves won back the gold on Wednesday night. This marks the fifth TNA Tag-Title reign for Davey Richards and Eddie Edwards.
Another title change at the taping last night saw Gail Kim beat Brooke Tessmacher, Awesome Kong and Lei’D Tapa in a four-way match to become the new TNA Knockouts Champion. This is Kim’s fifth reign as Knockouts Champion.
TNA Knockout Gail Kim recently spoke with Marc Madison of The News Hub about a number of topics. Below are some of the highlights from the interview.
On training under Ron Hutchison, Rob Etcherverria and Dave ‘Fit’ Finley: “Ron was the first person that I went to and trained with and obviously a lot of people associate him training Edge and Christian, Trish Stratus, many great Canadian wrestlers so I knew that was the place to be. He really taught me psychology and taught me the basics and taught me right. A lot of wrestling schools would grab the student and say hey you can learn this cool move and do a moonsault your first month in and he really just pump trained us on the basics in terms of psychology and train wrestling and after we moved onto the more advanced stuff and he was a great trainer.
When I trained with Rob and I was a student of his (Ron) and Rob decided later on to open up his own school and he favored the Mexican style of wrestling, the Lucha style also I took a liking to that as well. Once I had enough experience where I could have matches, pretty much a year after that I could be fearless with Rob and he was very supportive towards the women.
When I joined the WWE, Dave “Fit” Finley was our first agent that we worked with all the time and he brought in another form of aggression in me. I was very green when I started but he always said to me, “you need to be more aggressive”. I thought I was being aggressive but he was would say “no, more aggressive” and then more aggressive. I think each one of them gave me a little piece of who I am today and I think if you were to ask any of the women that I work with I think that is one of the things that they’ll acknowledge about me is that I like to be physical and I’ve become more aggressive. I think each one of them (Ron, Rob and Dave) you’ll see a part of me when I wrestle.”
On her initial run with TNA and the decision to be aligned with America’s Most Wanted: “He (Scott D’Amore) said we want to build the women’s division and but the only thing is we only have an hour of programming and realistically it won’t happen for a little while and he said we want to bring you in and we want you to manage and they wanted to give me a prominent role, this was Jeff Jarrett and America’s Most Wanted and I said oh, I’d love to do that and I did that for over a year and that was really fun. All the guys in that company were always so supportive of the women including women. Sometimes you may see back in the day women come down there and really do nothing and hope to be a part of and get camera time. They always included me and then eventually me just having a passion for the sport of wrestling was very hard for me to just stand on the outside and watch the guys do what I’ve loved and eventually I said, ‘you know guys’ you said that you wanted to have a women’s division and I’ve been waiting and you know I just can’t wait anymore so luckily Jeff (Jarrett) said can you work with Jackie Moore and I said yeah, absolutely.
“I can work with whoever you want me to work with she’s absolutely amazing and the toughest women I’ve been in the ring with so we just had some amazing catfights as you would call them, physicality and people loved it and people were like oh, holy crap these girls are beating the crap out of each other and so just went slowly with Jackie and brought in Jamie D from the Independents and they would bring in girls slowly one at a time and then all of a sudden they said they wanted to bring in a title and bring in 10 girls and it was just a success overnight virtually and it just happened so perfectly I couldn’t have asked for anything better.”
On whether or not TNA Impact Wrestling capitalized on #GiveDivasAChance: “I don’t think it’s ever really changed. The true wrestling fans that watch TNA Impact, I think they’ve always known. I don’t want to say they take it for granted in anyway but they always just know that TNA and Impact Wrestling are going to give them women’s wrestling. It’s almost like they want to see it in the WWE and this is why they are so vocal as well. I don’t know if anything really changed.
I think we’ve always been strong with women’s wrestling and I think the fans have always known that. I think that’s a lot of the reason why they would tune in from the feedback I get from it through social media or meeting fans or that’s one of the things that I think that they love is that they would always say Impact Wrestling treats the women really well and one of the reasons they love watching it is because the women’s actually wrestle. I’m just glad when I was fighting for us to wrestle I would always have people tell me Gail, women’s wrestling is for the bathroom breaks, you know they really don’t want to see it. I would get discouraged a little bit but I was very adamant so I’m glad that we girls proved them wrong.”
TNA Knockout Gail Kim took a shot at WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon on Twitter in response to fans raving about the NXT Women’s Championship match at NXT TakeOver: Unstoppable.
Kim praised Triple H for the way women are booked in NXT but doesn’t share the same feelings about Vince McMahon and his WWE Divas.
As reported earlier today, TNA will be taping several weeks worth of Impact Wrestling episodes across the next four days, starting with tonight’s show, which airs semi-live on a two-hour delay from Orlando, Florida.
In the main event of tonight’s show, the TNA World Heavyweight Championship will be on the line with Kurt Angle defending the title against Eric Young with a former TNA Champion returning to serve as special guest referee of the match.
Unless the former champion is a swerve of some kind, the following are the most likely candidates, according to a report from F4WOnline.com:
– Sting (highly unlikely due to his WWE deal)
– Samoa Joe (possible, but unlikely due to his rumored negotiations with WWE)
– Mick Foley (also seems unlikely now that he just recently taped a highly-promoted special for the WWE Network)
– A.J. Styles (would seem unlikely due to his various commitments, including Ring Of Honor starting next Tuesday)
– Chris Sabin (a possibility)
– Rob Van Dam (a possibility)
– Bully Ray (a very strong possibility)
– Also confirmed for tonight’s Impact Wrestling is a Ken Anderson vs. Ethan Carter III match where the fans get to choose the stipulation (likely an arm-wrestling match or a falls count anywhere match), and Divas action with Gail Kim & Awesome Kong vs. Taryn Terrell & Jade & Marti Bell.
Make sure to join us here at SEScoops.com for complete results of tonight’s Impact Wrestling, as well as spoiler results of any matches/segments taped for future Impact Wrestling episodes!
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– The TNA Content Manager for Digital and Social Media, Josh Eldridge, gave his notice to the company this past week. Eldridge is scheduled to leave TNA at the end of this month for a new job opportunity.
– The Great Sanada is officially gone from TNA. Sanada was under a contract with the promotion through July, but ended up being released on April 17th. TNA officials knew back in the beginning of March that they would be parting ways with Sanada. Many are of the opinion that this could be the end of the working relationship between TNA and Wrestle-1.
– TNA Knockouts Gail Kim, Angelina Love, Brooke and Madison Rayne discuss the number one contenders match airing on Friday’s edition of TNA Impact Wrestling in the video below.
TNA is planning on running live events in China on May 22nd, May 23rd and May 30th as part of an 11-day tour with two other international events outside of China.
On the advertisements issued to promote the event, Jeff Hardy, MVP and Gail Kim are the featured talents.
TNA talents are scheduled to leave the country on Wednesday, May 20th to head to China for the tour, however as things stand now, not everything is completely finalized, as some issues still need to be worked out.
It’s worth noting that TNA had discussions about running a tour in China several months ago, but those plans never came to fruition.
TNA wrestlers, as recent as this week, have been informed that they are still booked for that tour, and many will be disappointed because most count on those types of paydays due to the fact that TNA hasn’t had much work for their talents lately.
– Matt Hardy and Jeff Hardy — The Hardy Boys — won a four-way Ultimate-X match to become the new TNA World Tag-Team Champions in the main event of Friday’s edition of Impact Wrestling.
– TNA’s Christy Hemme announced that next week’s edition of Impact Wrestling will be called “TKO — A Night of Knockouts.”
The following matches and segments are confirmed for the show:
Jade and Marti Bell debut
Mickie James’ future revealed
Angelina Love vs. Gail Kim vs. Madison Rayne vs. Brooke [Number One Contender’s Match]
Awesome Kong vs. Taryn Terrell (c) [Knockouts Championship]
Kurt Angle vs. Eric Young [TNA World Heavyweight Championship]