The Great Diva Sabotage 2: Knockouts vs Divas
Genre: Humor
Rating: T-13
Summary: It's the ultimate chick brawl – the Knockouts versus the Divas! Who will triumph? Who will crumble? Expect hair weaves, fake nails and silicone to fly. T-13 for humor and language.
I know that 'The Great Creative Sabotage' may have been the somewhat unofficial sequel to 'The Great Diva Sabotage', but to be honest it's been on the back burner for a while and I haven't really had an idea of how to start it back up again. This plot bunny of pitting the Knockouts against the Divas was born after Wrestlemania and persisted so I decided to see where it would go.
As evidenced from some of my other fics, I'm rather protective of the women's division, both in WWE and now in TNA as well. As women in a very male-dominated sport, I think a majority of them deserve respect (note my use of the word 'majority' – as much as I love some of the women there are those I cannot stand as well). I wrote the first 'Diva Sabotage' with this in mind, and I write this sequel with the same intent.
Obviously the events that are to be chronicled in this story will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER happen (barring something like liquidation of the smaller promotion and usurpation of the larger promotion), and therefore reading it will require a certain amount of credulity, I will admit that now. So if you must point out the above, please keep in mind that I've beaten myself to death with it as well, but have still stubbornly decided to continue.
Dislcaimer: WWE, the shows RAW, Smackdown, ECW and its Divas and Superstars are property of World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. TNA, the show iMPACT and its Knockouts and Wrestlers are property of Total Nonstop Action Wrestling/Entertainment. Any other persons, brands, venues, etc, mentioned in this narrative who are not a part of the aforementioned promotions belong to their respective owners.
Date Uploaded: 12 April 2009
Chapter 01: Knockout Round Up
If there was one thing Jacqueline was most proud of in her professional wrestling career, it was winning the WWE Women's Championship – both times. The first time she held the belt was in 1998, having defeated Sable to win the reactivated belt, following the trashing it received by Alundra Blayze on WCW television in 1995.
The circumstances leading to her second championship reign back in early 2000 saw Harvey Whippleman, posing as 'Hervina', pinning the Kat in a Lumberjill 'Snow Bunny' match to win the title. The match itself was degrading enough, but to have a man in badly done drag win the title was, as Jacqueline widely considered, an affront to the very nature of women's pro wrestling. That was why she resolutely won the title back just two days later.
So why was Jacqueline particularly proud of those accomplishments? It was simple, really; she brought prestige back to the Women's Championship – twice. After her notable names such as Lita, Ivory, Chyna, Trish Stratus, Victoria and Molly Holly would go on to hold the belt, proving that competent women's wrestling could exist outside of Japan.
Of course she left WWE in 2004 and what followed were Diva Search competitions, the release of invaluable talent like Molly and Ivory, lingerie pillow fights, chocolate pudding, wet t-shirts and Candice-frickin'-Michelle winning the title. But Jacqueline contented herself with shrugging and her new position at TNA. It didn't concern her anymore.
Until Wrestlemania 25, that is, and that particular moment when she was seated on her sofa, watching as 'Santina' Marella was crowned the first ever Miss Wrestlemania after a 25 Diva Battle Royal.
As 'Santina', with his black bob and ill-fitting wrestling gear, accepted the crown from Candice Michelle with ridiculous happiness, Jacqueline found herself having flashbacks of 'Hervina' Whippleman in his awful brown wig and large pink top, the Women's Championship around his waist. Gradually her mind began to replace 'Hervina' with 'Santina' and she did not like it. She did not like it at all.
With that she reached out, grabbed her cordless phone and began to dial.
"From what I heard, WWE contacted Trish to take part in the battle royal," Ivory was telling her but five minutes later, after Jacqueline had griped to her about the battle royal and made her fears known. "She said that she wouldn't do it unless she could win."
Jacqueline snorted. "Figures."
"Still, if she had gotten her way we at least would have had a woman with genuine enough girly parts and no five o'clock shadow," Ivory mused.
"One of the women from the current crop of Divas should have gotten it," Jacqueline muttered. "Beth, Mickie, Melina – those girls show promise."
"I suspect you've also realized this by now, but the moment Victoria left the most senior diva on all WWE rosters became Maria Kanellis," Ivory suddenly said.
"Holy shit, no, I never even noticed that," Jacqueline said, blinking in surprise. "Thanks for pointing it out to me, Ivory," she said sarcastically.
Ivory snickered on the other end. "Happy to do it, Jackie. Anyway, the moment Vince McMahon declared that it was 'easier to turn a model into a wrestler than a wrestler into a model', women like us were pretty much doomed in the WWE, right? And so we started to get the boot one by one."
"Are you drunk?" Jacqueline asked her suspiciously, "Because usually when we start talking about this topic you get a lot more fired up than you are now."
"Sweetie, I just watched the same shit you did. I had to down something to make the pain in my brain subside to a dull ache," Ivory said, and Jacqueline thought she could actually hear some sort of liquid swishing in a glass. "Ah well, our time has passed, hasn't it? What happens in the WWE Divas division no longer concerns us."
Jacqueline tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Unless…"
"I knew it, the cogs were turning," Ivory commented. "Don't bring me into it. I'll be up to my elbows in doggie baths tomorrow and I'll have a hangover to boot. You have fun, though."
"A lot of help you are. Goodnight, Lisa."
"G'night, Jackie," Ivory responded, sounding drowsy.
Jacqueline hung up, barely registering the match that was now going on between Chris Jericho and Roddy Piper. Truth be told she had also been a little concerned about where the TNA Knockouts were going recently. Maybe, as her final hurrah in front of the camera, she could try and save women's pro-wrestling one more time.
Her mind made up, Jacqueline once again lifted her phone. She had garnered a lot of favors over the years; now it was time to cash them in.
»»»
"Do I look like I give two shits about what a bunch of Divas are doing?" ODB rasped out, glaring from her makeshift couch.
Jacqueline remained patient and suppressed a sigh. When thinking about the Knockouts, she instinctively decided to go to ODB first and pitch her plan, mostly because ODB had long been vocal of her disapproval for primadonna female wrestlers and knew how to round up a majority of the other Knockouts if needed. Of course that didn't mean that ODB herself would be easy to talk into the plan.
"Don't you get pissed off that those women allow the sport that we love to jerk them around?" Jacqueline demanded.
"Sure I do," ODB conceded, "But let's face it; the world of the Divas is completely different from the world of the Knockouts. As far as I'm concerned, one has no business with the other."
"Well what if I can arrange it so that those two worlds collide head on?" Jacqueline prompted.
"Bullshit," ODB snorted unbelievingly.
"Hey, I've been around for a long time; there are things I can do that may surprise you," Jacqueline said to her. "But if I could, and I did, wouldn't you like the chance to beat some dignity into that other camp and show them what a serious female wrestler is like?"
ODB gazed at her appraisingly for some time. Finally she took a long pull from her flask, gave a small burp and then said, "All right, I'm interested. Hit me with what you've got cooking."
»»»
"Crash the next Divas autograph signing session?" Taylor Wilde repeated skeptically the next day when ODB broke the news to her an a few other Knockouts during a training session.
"Okay, that sounds seriously dodgy," Traci Brooks said with a frown, sitting on the edge of the ring and dangling her legs over the side. "For one thing, what kind of legal implications would something like that entail? WWE would hit TNA with such a gigantic lawsuit so fast it would make all our heads spin."
"Never going to happen," Roxxi declared from her place on top of a turnbuckle. "Jackie can yank on a shitload of strings if she wants; there is no way an inter promotional clash like that would go through."
"Look, I admit that when Jackie came to me with this suggestion, I was ready to call her crazy too," ODB said, dropping into a folding chair. "But I gotta tell you, the girl looks determined."
"That accounts for shit," Roxxi said firmly. "I'm telling you that it's a pipe dream. Forget about it."
She was startled by a sudden outburst of laughter from the other turnbuckle. All of them turned to look at Daffney, who was seated on the mat with her arms draped over the ropes. She gave them a slightly psychotic grin and said, "That's not what ODB's saying. She's asking, if you could, would you?"
The girls were quiet as they thought about it. And then Taylor spoke up. "I was released from my WWE developmental deal basically because they thought I wasn't 'Diva material'. So yeah, I'm kind of bitter. And if I could, I would go over there and show them that they made a mistake."
"Yeah, I wasn't exactly 'Diva material' for them too," Daffney said with another hysterical laugh.
Roxxi nodded begrudgingly. "All right, I admit that I wouldn't mind getting a shot at any of the so-called Divas of WWE."
"Neither would I," Traci said with a shrug. "But—"
"Yeah, yeah, there's like one in a three fucking billion chance that would happen," ODB said, nodding her head, "But if Jackie's somehow got that one despite it being a really shitty chance, then she's got me in her corner."
The five of them were suddenly interrupted when the figures of Sojourner Bolt and Rhaka Khan appeared. The two women came to a stop at their group, and Sojo remarked, "So we heard a little rumor that something interesting was about to go down."
"And who told you that?" Traci asked.
"Lauren," Sojo said, "She said that she found out Jackie and ODB here were recruiting Knockouts for some secret mission. Care to share?"
"We doubt you'd be interested," Roxxi said cuttingly.
"Well last I checked we were both still Knockouts," Rhaka cut in, putting a hand on her hip. "So why don't you tell us what's up and we'll tell you if we're interested."
ODB shrugged. "I guess we need all the help we can get," she conceded, ignoring the glare that Roxxi shot her. And with that she motioned the two new additions to take a seat and began to explain everything once more.
»»»
"It's a hell of a gamble," Dixie Carter, President of TNA Entertainment, was saying to Jacqueline at her office, right about the same time that ODB was talking to the other Knockouts.
"But if it works, it'll pay off," Jacqueline pushed as intently but as cautiously as she could. "I still have some verbal agreements with Stephanie McMahon that I can put into play, and think of the publicity!"
"WWE is a very influential company," Dixie said in a measured tone. "I wouldn't put it past Vince McMahon to try and manipulate something like this so as to suck up or, worst case scenario, grind out TNA completely."
"That's why we go unofficial first," Jackie explained. "A place where the public is free to mill around – an autograph signing. Nobody could fault any of the Knockouts turning up. I promise that nothing physical will go down without due provocation from the other party. Afterwards we let WWE make their move and go on from there."
"Jeff's not going to like it," Dixie said, but an interested smile was already on the corners of her lips.
"No, he wouldn't," Jacqueline considered. "But then again he also owes me for that shot to the head with a guitar that he gave me almost ten years ago."
Dixie laughed at that. "All right, go through with showing up at the Divas autograph signing session. But I want you to promise right now that if following the event WWE does not pursue anything further you will drop the idea as well. Agreed?"
"Agreed," Jacqueline said, shaking on it.
»»»
WWE autograph signings always had a large turn out, and an all-Diva one was so rare that gigantic crowds composed mostly of gung-ho male fans were absolute certainty. This was what the group of Knockouts came face to face with when they arrived at the set location in Houston. Taylor immediately groaned and said, "All right, I don't care if you guys think I'm chickening out; I think this is a REALLY bad idea and that we should all turn around and leave right now."
Daffney quickly took her by the arm after she did try to leave. "We're already here, Taylor, dear; it would be useless to back out now. Besides, don't you want to see you friend Gail Kim again?"
"It would take us hours to get in what with that line anyway," Traci pointed out.
"Ah, no it won't," ODB said with a confident smile, beginning to walk to the entrance. "Just watch me work my magic."
And before any of the other girls could stop her she had pushed herself to the front of the pack and immediately besieged the security guard at the double doors. "Hey stud," ODB said to him, giving him a wink and draping an arm around him. "Listen, my girls and I just ducked out for a while to get kebabs and now we're heading back in to meet the Divas. What's say you let us in right now and maybe you and me hook up afterwards in the back alley between the Burger King and the 7Eleven two blocks up, eh?"
"Uh, um…" the guard stammered, suddenly at a loss for something to say.
"Oh yeah, that's going to work," Sojo said dryly, crossing her arms over her chest.
Traci jumped to the front and grabbed ODB by the arm, giving the guard an apologetic smile as she did. "You have to excuse her, sir, she doesn't get out a lot. What she meant to say was—"
"Hey, it's ODB!" someone suddenly called from the crowd. ODB immediately flashed them a wide grin as the fans started to crowd in on the Knockouts and cries of surprise and puzzlement were heard.
Roxxi decided to take advantage of the sudden confusion and started to hustle the girls and herself inside, all the while interacting with the fans and hurriedly signing anything that was thrust into her arm space. So it was in that way that the hapless security guard was nearly trampled over as the crowd swarmed in, and the Knockouts managed to gain access to the WWE Divas autograph signing session.
"So what do we do now?" Taylor asked when they were inside. "Do we fan out or stick together?"
"Stick together," Rhaka said. "Or at least go about with someone else instead of flying solo. Remember Jackie said that we had to watch each other's backs in case someone got a little… hotheaded."
"All right then," Traci said, nodding. "So I'll go with ODB, Sojo and Rhaka will go together, and Taylor, Daffney and Roxxi…" she trailed off as she looked around their little group. "Uh, where's Roxxi?"
The others looked around while Daffney gave an exaggerated shrug. Traci panicked. "Oh no…"
Roxxi, in the meantime, had every intention to stick with the group and go along with the plan, but the moment they had entered she had been sidetracked by a certain somebody. This somebody was one Gail Kim, who had recently re debuted on WWE's Smackdown as a Diva and was once a fellow Knockout just a few months prior. Her jump with no warning to the other promotion had left some of her peers at TNA with a bad taste in their mouths and Roxxi, unfortunately, was no exception.
And so Gail, who had been in the middle of signing an autograph for a nerdy teenage boy who had claimed to have bought her wrestling boots on eBay, was rudely interrupted when Roxxi stomped over and shoved the fan out of the way. "Hey!" Gail said indignantly, and then her eyes widened in surprise to see who it was. "Roxxi! What on earth—?"
"Hi Gail," Roxxi said cuttingly, ignoring the loud complaints raised by the people waiting in line behind her. "What, no warm greeting for a former friend?"
"Roxxi, what are you on about—?"
"So, are you enjoying being a Diva again?" Roxxi barreled on, more than a little pleased at seeing her discomfort. "Was being a Knockout so distasteful, so far beneath you that you decided to kick it to the curb without so much as a 'See you later'?"
Gail flushed at that, and then she lost her temper, getting up and saying firmly, "Listen, I don't have to sit here and take this kind of attack from you. My business is my business."
"Not when it fucks with other people's business!" Roxxi immediately snapped back.
On the other side of the room Rhaka, owing to her startling height, was first to notice the ruckus. "I think I found her," she said to the rest.
Traci looked and gave a noise that was between alarm and irritation. "Shit, we should have figured that she'd make a beeline for Gail!" she said, beginning to make her way over.
When she and the other Knockouts made their way to where the scene had gathered an already large crowd of curious onlookers, they saw that Gail had been joined by fellow Divas Candice Michelle, Alicia Fox, Eve Torres and one of the Bella Twins. Gail was glaring at Roxxi, who was staring staunchly right back at her. The dislike was palpable.
"Not much of a backup you have there, Gail," Roxxi mocked.
Gail bristled and said, "I don't need backup. Besides, you should be more concerned with uniformed guys with the word 'SECURITY' on their backs."
"God, you really are a fucking Diva now."
"If you're only here to antagonize Gail, then get the hell out of here," Candice said bitingly to Roxxi.
"Actually, we were here to grab some autographs," ODB suddenly cut in, inserting herself in between Gail and Roxxi and beginning to pull the latter away.
"Yeah, we're all big fans," Daffney added. "You've all got such pretty hair…"
"Candice Dickinson, was it?" ODB said, looking at Candice.
"It's Candice Michelle," Candice responded testily.
"Ah, right, right, my bad," ODB said, shrugging. "It's just you remind me of… you know what, forget it. Listen, I don't have a piece of paper, but maybe you could sign your John Hancock on my left butt cheek. Does anybody have a Sharpie?"
"All right, that's it, you all have to leave," Eve Torres said as firmly as she could.
"Why? It's a public place," Sojo challenged, "And so far we haven't done anything wrong.
"You're obviously here to make trouble," the present Bella Twin said, "Or else you wouldn't have shown up in a group like you have."
"Prove it," Daffney said, grinning.
ODB was looking at the Bella Twin closely. "Damn, I must be sober," she finally said. "Usually I see two of you."
The Bella Twin scowled and said, "I'm Nikki. My twin and I aren't joined at the hip, you know."
"No, but even with the two of you feuding you still puzzlingly dress alike," Traci commented. "It's a little creepy."
"No; she likes pastel while I prefer earth colors!" Nikki insisted hotly.
All throughout Roxxi and Gail hadn't taken their glares off each other. "Wow, Gail, you really picked the winning team there," Roxxi remarked.
"You're just sore because I decided to take my career in a more lucrative step," Gail responded.
"Yeah; you sold out. Not only that, but I think you blew up your tits another size. Watch out, that shit really messes with your equilibrium from what I heard. Then again it looks like it already has, judging from the crap-tastic matches you've had since getting back into a WWE ring…"
"Oh, that's it!" Gail suddenly yelled, and then with a snarl she dove for Roxxi.
The two of them started a fistfight on the floor, inciting a roar from the watching fans. Candice rushed forward to try and break it up, but ODB 'accidentally' tripped her up and she sprawled onto the ground. That was when Nikki, Alicia and Eve somewhat foolishly threw themselves at the remaining Knockouts and an all-out brawl started.
It was soon broken up by security who had all seemingly returned from their inexplicably long breaks, discovered the ruckus and decided that hey, they probably needed to stop the fight before it really got out of hand. The girls were pulled apart, and the Knockouts were firmly escorted out of the establishment while the Divas needed to head back to their dressing area in order to get themselves fixed up to appear before the fans again. An hour after the fight started, things had somewhat returned to order.
Of course, within that time pictures and videos surfaced on the Internet of the incident. Pro-wrestling websites started to cover it, prompting questions of what had incited the occurrence and if it would continue. The Knockouts had initiated things and hence Jacqueline's plan was put in motion.
Your move, Divas.
To be continued...