Impact Knockouts Championship

The Impact Knockouts World Championship is a women's professional wrestling world championship owned by Impact Wrestling. It is primarily contested for in Impact's women's division, known as the Impact Knockouts. The championship debuted on October 14, 2007 at the Bound for Glory pay-per-view (PPV) event under the name TNA Knockouts Championship until the promotion changed its name in March 2017, then added the world status in 2021. The current champion is Jordynne Grace, who is in her second reign.

The tag team counterpart of the title is the Impact Knockouts World Tag Team Championships, which was re-introduced at Hard To Kill in January 2021. There have been 60 reigns shared between 25 wrestlers. The first champion was Gail Kim.

History

TNA Knockout

TNA Knockout, or just Knockout for short, is the term used by TNA to refer to its onscreen female performers; this is similar to TNA's main rival World Wrestling Entertainment and their Divas pseudonym. TNA's first women's accomplishment was announced at TNA's first weekly pay-per-view event on June 19, 2002. It was called the "Miss TNA" crown. The holder of the crown was determined in a lingerie battle royal on June 19, 2002, which aired on June 26, 2002. The participants in the match were Alexis Laree, Elektra, Erin Bray, Francine, Miss Joni, Sasha, Shannon, Taylor Vaughn, and Teresa Tyler. Vaughn last eliminated Elektra to win the crown. The TNA Knockout of the Year is another award in TNA given to the knockout who achieved the most or had the best run that year. The most recent Knockout of the Year was Gail Kim in 2007; no award has been given out since.

On the August 20, 2009 episode of ''TNA Impact!'', backstage interviewer Lauren announced that TNA were planning to host an eight-team single elimination tag team tournament to crown the first TNA Knockouts Tag Team Champions. The tournament began on the following ''Impact!'' and continued on for four weeks, concluding on September 20 at TNA's No Surrender PPV event. There, the team of Sarita and Taylor Wilde defeated The Beautiful People (Madison Rayne and Velvet Sky) to become the first champions. Two DVDs on the topic of the TNA Knockouts have been released by TNA. The first was named "Knockouts: The Ladies of TNA Wrestling Vol.1" and was released on August 29, 2006. "Knocked Out: The Women of TNA Wrestling" was the second, released on October 7, 2008.

Creation

TNA first announced in early September 2007 through their TNA Mobile service that they planned to start an official women's division and debut a women's title soon. Later that month, TNA began to promote a 10 knockout gauntlet match to be held on October 14, 2007 at TNA's Bound for Glory PPV event to crown the first-ever TNA Women's Champion. At the event, Gail Kim defeated Ms. Brooks, Christy Hemme, Awesome Kong, Roxxi Laveaux, Talia Madison, Shelly Martinez, Jackie Moore, ODB, and Angel Williams to become the first champion. The championship was renamed in 2008 to the TNA Women's Knockout Championship until 2010 when it became simply known as the TNA Knockouts Championship.

Belt designs

During the championship's history, the belt has had four designs. Its first design featured a white leather strap that is covered with two small gold plates that are encrusted with silver. In the center of each plate stands a figure resembling a globe made out of gold. On the outer edge of the plate are red gems, which circle the entire plate. The center golden plate of the belt has TNA's official logo engraved in the very center with the word above it and the word "Champion" below it. At the very top of the center plate is a queen's crown. The word "Knockout" does not appear anywhere on the belt.

At the end of December 2014, TNA uploaded a photo on their Instagram account, in which the Knockouts Championship has a new design, replacing the white strap with a black strap, with the red color scheme changed to blue to coincide with the company's color scheme and the plates are now fully gold thus the encrusted silver is removed. As with the previous belt, the word "Knockout" does not appear on the belt, despite its current name.

After Slammiversary XV, the Impact Knockouts Championship and the GFW Women's Championship were carried together, with the unified championship representing the lineage of the Impact Knockouts Championship. At Destination X 2017, a recoloured version of the former GFW Women's Championship was created to represent the championship.This description is based on the name and design of the Knockouts Championship, from 2007 to 2017 the title was called the TNA Knockouts Championship from 2007 to 2015 the Knockouts title design was of white leather, gold center and side plates, and a red TNA sign in the middle with a red with gold lining crown on top of it. From August 17, 2017 to November 5, 2017 the title was renamed to the GFW Knockouts Championship taking a unified look of the then GFW Women's Championship and the 2015 look of the Knockouts Championship which was gold with blue imprints and black leather unified with the then GFW Women's belt appearance as a result the green GFW sign was tookin off and blue and silver replaced it with the Impact sign in the middle and a black leather strap, somewhat resulting the current image at the top of the article with the Impact logo and before the year 2017 was over the title name was changed to the Impact Knockouts Championship (after a while the title was renamed to the Impact Knockouts World Championship). This belt was later modified to cover the GFW logo with an Impact Wrestling logo. At Redemption, Impact revealed new championships. The Main plate has Impact Wrestling logo with the "Knockouts Champion" below the logo. On each side of the center plate is a group of four smaller silver plates, with each side featuring separate circular owl symbol and a "KO" Symbol. In 2020, a new belt was made, with red being the dominant color.

Championship Tournament(s)

Impact Knockouts Championship Tournament (2017)

On November 23, 2017 it was announced after Gail Kim retired and vacated the Impact Knockouts Championship that it would be a 6-Women tournament to determine who would be the new Knockouts Champion where two triple threat matches will happen and one finals.

Reigns

As of , , there have been 60 reigns shared between 25 wrestlers. The inaugural champion was Gail Kim, who defeated Ms. Brooks, Christy Hemme, Awesome Kong, Roxxi Laveaux, Velvet Sky, Shelly Martinez, Jackie Moore, ODB, and Angelina Love in a ten Knockout Gauntlet for the Gold match on October 24, 2007 at TNA's Bound for Glory PPV event. She also holds the record for the most reigns, with seven. Kim also holds the record for shortest reign in the title's history, during her seventh reign at hours, while Taya Valkyrie's reign holds the record for longest in the title's history, with days.

Jordynne Grace is the current champion in her second reign. She defeated former champion Tasha Steelz, Chelsea Green, Deonna Purrazzo, and Mia Yim in a Queen of the Mountain match on June 19, 2022 at Slammiversary in Nashville, Tennessee to win the title.

Notes

See also

*World Women's Championship (disambiguation)

References

External links

Impact Wrestling Knockouts World Championship
at Cagematch.com

{{DEFAULTSORT:Impact Knockouts Championship
Impact Knockouts
Impact Wrestling championships
Women's professional wrestling championships
2007 in professional wrestling