Mickie James Wins The TNA Knockouts Championship

Tonight, Mickie James made history by becoming the first woman to have held the WWE Women's Championship, WWE Diva's Championship, and TNA Knockout's Championship. Overall, this is her 7th female title from a major promotion. She also completely squashed Madison Rayne to do it, ending her 6-month reign.

Let's talk about the quickness of the match. Everyone who read the reports, followed Mickie on Twitter, watched Impact and bought kayfabe as reality, or just heard it through the grapevine, all pretty much knew Mickie James had suffered an injury a few weeks ago. As I have said before, rather than write Mickie off and work some other woman into the match (Tara being the obvious choice), they gave Mickie the time to heal as best as she could, worked in a storyline to explain the injury, and allowed Mickie to work. Honestly, she didn't disappoint. She didn't botch anything horribly like I have seen certain other wrestlers do when they either work through an injury or are just returning from one. Moreover, you frequently see short matches that end with a face squashing a heel. Do not forget that Mickie James defeated Michelle McCool for the title in a short match as well, and neither woman was injured there. And however long tonight's match was, it was still at least twice as long as Christian vs. William Regal at Summerslam a few years ago.

Going back to how I was saying TNA was finally raising the bar in this feud as of late, the quick finish is also passable in my eyes for that reason. For months, Madison and/or Tara have made life difficult for Mickie James. They kept pushing this routine of Tara saving Madison reign from losing the title right as Mickie was closing in on it. They did this twice. Third time? Madison decides to go at it without Tara. Mickie's hair is on the line. Mickie is recovering from a real injury. Combine all that with the months of torment that I just mentioned, which sounds quite familiar to the backstory to Mickie's squash victory over Michelle McCool last year, and you have a storyline reason to have the cocky Madison Rayne get beat as she did by Mickie James. It was a "feel good" moment.

TNA really owed Mickie James that victory, in my eyes anyway. This is her first TNA PPV victory. They easily could have given her the title in her 3rd or 4th month in the company, but they dragged it on. For the ninth or seventeenth time, I am once again going to say that they finally started really raising the stakes prior to Lockdown. Mickie James has worked hard to do her part since coming to the company, taken risks to perform (including working through the injury), has had to work with Madison Rayne, who is obviously not as solid in the ring as most of TNA's other women, and still was willing to fulfill her duties, both in and out of TNA (a lot of appearances while she was injured). How would it look if Mickie did ask to be written off in favor of her recovery? Just as I am sure there are some fans who don't even know Mickie James was really injured, I am sure some fans would feel Mickie weaseled out because she didn't want to lose her hair. Really? After all the build for the moment, it would be a letdown if Mickie was replaced at the last moment. As much of a letdown as Jeff Hardy vs. Sting from last month? No. Had the performance tonight have been as awkward as it was there, then I would see reason to still see a letdown. But Mickie James was given the shot by TNA to still perform. She came through.

What happens now? The obvious choice would be a triple-threat match. Mickie vs. Tara vs. Madison. You can have a very good feud there, with Tara turning face. Should TNA, in their infinite wisdom, decide to write Mickie James off and have her lose the title on Impact this week, with the idea that she will be out to recover properly for a while, that still will not undo what she has accomplished. I admire her desire to work through this injury, and not just wrestling tonight but also traveling all over just to be at events and interact with fans. That is commitment. As I said before, TNA owed her that shot to perform on her own tonight. They are lucky to have her. Congratulations to Mickie James.

Title, Hair, Injury

The last time I spoke about Mickie James in TNA, I criticized the fact that they were not building the feud very well between Mickie and Madison Rayne. It was a basic title feud. The finishes to the title matches were all the same. Mickie James is about to put Madison away, Tara comes down and causes a distraction, Madison uses some dirty heel tactic, and that's it. For two PPVs in a row, same story. In between, not that much development to really raise the stakes. The bar was set at a mediocre level that I did not believe would draw interest. Since then, I must admit, TNA has done a better job. Aside from being a steel cage match, which is a match type Mickie and Tara utilized a few months ago to get fans talking, Mickie's hair is also on the line. Madison Rayne is not a very solid worker in the ring, so it being a cage match may not have made for anything as respectable as Mickie and Tara did, even if Mickie was not injured. Nevertheless, the stakes are definitely raised. Title vs. Hair. You also have the added storyline element of Tara slowly turning on Madison. In a segment before Tara and Mickie went at it in a singles match on Impact a few weeks ago, Madison basically ordered Tara to do her bidding and take out Mickie. That lay the seeds down. This makes Tara's involvement in this more interesting than just a person who comes out at the end of the match to cost Mickie the win. I just hope that this aspect of the storyline does not overshadow the issues between Mickie and Madison. Then there is the part I like the best. I am definitely not happy that Mickie James was injured at a house show a few weeks ago, but I liked how TNA handled it. They didn't completely write her off. They didn't try to rush some last-minute substitution into the feud. They didn't pretend Mickie wasn't injured. They actually made an angle out of it. This isn't me crying about how the WWE treated Mickie James, but do you realize that they never gave her any true injury storyline in her entire time there? I'm not saying Mickie James never sold an injury in the ring or that they didn't make up an afterthought injury excuse to explain Mickie's absence when she had that infection in her leg. These aren't real storylines to me. In one case, it is really Mickie James who is carrying it, not the WWE. In the other case, it is treated as a trivial matter. In both cases, the WWE does not intend to do anything for Mickie's character. That is the thing about most real injury storylines. They do something for the character of the wrestler and usually draw interest. Whether it is a comedy angle, like Cody Rhodes and his mask, or something treated more seriously and epically, like the feud between Shawn Michaels and Batista that spawned into a feud between Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho a few years ago. That latter example definitely became an epic. Very elaborate storyline. I do not think Mickie's injury storyline here will turn into that, but it still allows her to show character. Can she overcome an injury to win the title and save her hair? I also like that they did the motorcycle bit, instead of trying to sell it off as Madison injuring Mickie at a house show or in some other way. It makes Mickie's character look stronger if she is able to bounce back from being hit with a motorcycle. If the hair was not enough, the injury angle definitely raises the stakes and can raise interest. TNA may suck for a lot of reasons, but I think they really went in the right direction for this feud. They took the negative of Mickie's injury and turned it into a positive. Only thing left, they have to book the right woman to win.