Review of TNA: Knockouts - The Ladies of TNA Wrestling

Introduction

With the relative success of the WWE "Diva" DVDs, this time it is the turn of their nearest competitor, TNA Wrestling, to try their hand at marketing a DVD based on their own female performers.

"Knockouts - The Ladies of TNA Wrestling" profiles the company`s five best-known women, four of whom, ironically, have worked for WWE in the past. On this ninety-minute production, we hear from Christy Hemme, Traci Brooks, Gail Kim, So-Cal Val, and Jackie Gayda, and get to see them during the TNA Knockouts photoshoot.

Video

Video is presented in 4:3 fullscreen NTSC, and is quite good. The image is a little soft for my liking - especially, I noticed, on the Gail Kim interview footage - but this is to be expected from a DVD of this type, which is produced in NTSC format.

Otherwise, the image looks good, and there are some nice uses of colour during the photoshoot segments.

Audio

Audio is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0, and is good for a DVD of this genre. With this being a documentary-style production, there are obviously few thrills to be found in this track, and none are required. Interview audio is always well mixed, meaning that voices are always intelligible, although it would also have been nice if some subtitles were included.

Features

The "extras" on this disc have been authored rather oddly, as they are tagged on to the end of the main feature, rather than having a video track of their own. In other words, they seem to be part of the documentary, and not really extras at all. This issue is confused even further by the fact that you can also access some of the extras from other menus on the DVD!

Thus, there are really only two extras on this DVD. The first is a wrestling match between Traci Brooks and Gail Kim, which is hardly ground-breaking, but is excellent by 2006 standards.

The second is a short music video, compiling footage from the Universal Studios (where TNA TV shows are filmed) photo shoot.

Conclusion

On the main feature, each "knockout" is afforded her own interview segment, as well as a music video of a photo shoot. There is also another music video, this time in the form of a still photo montage. Aside from Gail Kim, there is also footage of each girl, taken behind-the-scenes at a photo shoot for Sole Collector footwear. Other segments supplement this, such as a look at a Gail Kim film role, and an appearance by Traci Brooks at a Nashville baseball game.

Of the five interview segments, only those from Jackie Gayda, Christy Hemme, and So-Cal Val are worth anything at all. Gail Kim traces a little back to her childhood as a sports fanatic, but really tells us little about how or why she became involved in wrestling, other than for a love of watching it. Traci Brooks` interview segment is even worse, as we don`t get any background on her career whatsoever.

The first music videos for each Knockout are standard modelling fare, the kind of thing (minus the nudity) that you would expect to see on a Playboy DVD. Only the videos for Traci Brooks (in the back of a limo) and So-Cal Val (posing in the TNA entrance-way), however, have any theme at all, as the others are merely compilations of many different types of shoot.

The still-photo music videos are quite well put together, and do feature some nice photography, although again, there is no consistent theme. As I write that for the second time, however, I realise that themes are probably not in the mind of anyone who has bought this DVD.

Of all the segments on the DVD, the behind-the-scenes look at the Sole Collector photo shoot might be the most interesting, simply because each Knockout featured does take some time to talk to the camera. This may have been the least titillating part of the DVD, but I guess it depends on what (perhaps quite literally) turns you on.

For what it is, "Knockouts: The Ladies of TNA Wrestling" is not a bad effort. The front cover gives away what this DVD is all about, and that`s the various women in small tops, and little else. That`s all well and good, but if I was really hankering after a look at any of the participants, a Google search would be a heck of a lot cheaper. Oh, and I could order the Christy Hemme edition of Playboy, where I`d get to see it all, and then some.