TNA has delivered itself a stunning blow by releasing Roxxi from her contract, but will it be enough of a self-inflicted wound to take down an already weakened women's division?
A year ago (more or less), TNA was on top of the wrestling world with its Knockouts Dvision. Gail Kim and Awesome Kong continued to battle for the championship, while The Beautiful People tormented the likes of ODB and Taylor Wilde.
Now Kim has returned to WWE; ODB has basically been reduced to a comedy act; Kong has been turned from a monster heel into a babyface; and The Beautiful People are still in recovery from a string of bad creative decisions.
And now Roxxi has become another casualty in the scenario.
The Voodoo Queen
My TNA fandom doesn't extend back but about two years, and when I started watching, Roxxi was known as the "Voodoo Queen" Roxxi Laveaux, the manager of the Voodoo Kin Mafia (VKM), B.G. and Kip James.
In this role, Roxxi didn't make much of an impact in TNA. She didn't seem to draw fans, though her patented Voodoo Drop drew attention from the fans.
Seeds were planted for VKM to split when B.G. James won a "Feast or Fired" case and a World Tag Team Title shot and chose his father to be his partner instead of Kip James.
Roxxi was fired by the duo and went on for a while continuing her Voodoo Queen gimmick. She became a babyface persona and began to get over with the crowd, even winning the Queen of the Cage match at Lockdown 2008.
Roxxi continued to gain a fan base, and she kept improving and improving. Then came the fateful Sacrifice pay-per-view, where she would truly find a place in the heart of many fans.
The ladder match that changed it all
At Sacrifice 2008, the knockouts competed in the first ever Makeover Battle Royale.
The match started as a gauntlet match, with the final two women competing in a ladder match. The winner would receive a title shot, and the loser would have her head shaved.
Gail Kim, one of the final two competitors along with Roxxi, had won immunity, meaning if she lost, the third finalist would suffer the head shaving. That woman, at the peak of her heel heat, was Angelina Love.
In the end, Love screwed Roxxi out of a win. Following the match, fans everywhere watched in horror (or sick fantasy fulfilled for some weird guys out there) as she made the ultimate sacrifice for a woman and gave up her hair... and she had a lot of it.
As the hair was trimmed away, a cut suffered during the match continued to bleed, and Roxxi's blood poured everywhere.
Fans thought this would be the start of something big. It should have been the start of a massive push, as Roxxi suddenly found herself on top of the women's division (if not the entire company) in terms of fan support.
It was a push she deserved. It was push she had earned. It was a push that never came.
A hardcore failure
Roxxi found some success after making her sacrifice, but fans kept wanting more.
What they got instead was a gimmick change. The former Voodoo Queen became The Hardcore Knockout, a punk rock-inspired Roxxi who swore worse than a sailor.
The new character was not who Roxxi needed to be. It was not a character that connected with the fans.
To put it bluntly, TNA dropped the ball with Roxxi.
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