TNA (now known as Impact Wrestling) boasts a women’s division, called the Knockouts Division, that brought a lot of attention to the validity of women’s wrestling through the efforts of wrestlers like Awesome Kong and Gail Kim in the late 2000s. But, just like the men’s divisions of TNA, there has been a lot of turnover over the years, so many of the wrestlers who once starred in the company have since moved on.
Many of the women in the Knockouts Division have moved on to greener pastures and are doing quite well. So let’s take a look at ten successful Knockouts!
10 Brittany a.k.a. Santana Garrett
Santana Garrett signed to TNA in 2013 under the ring name Brittany, who feuded with The Beautiful People and was never able to win a single match since winning her debut. One year and some change later, she was gone, although she did appear as Santana Garrett in a few 2017 matches.
Nowadays, Garrett is signed to NXT where she periodically appears but hasn’t been totally established as a character yet. But hey, it’s bound to happen any day now.
9 Sienna
Better known as Allysin Kay, Sienna spent 2016-2018 in TNA, where she won the Knockouts Championship and later the Global Force Wrestling Women’s Title, before then unifying the two titles, thus making her a three-time champ overall.
After quitting TNA, Allysin Kay competed in the 2018 WWE Mae Young Classic and is now a regular on National Wrestling Alliance’s weekly YouTube series, NWA Powerrr, where she held the Women’s Title until a loss to Thunder Rosa.
8 Awesome Kong
The aforementioned trailblazer of the Knockouts division, Awesome Kong made her bones wrestling in Japan before coming to TNA and putting the division and women’s wrestling in general on the map via some incredible matches with Gail Kim.
One abortive run in WWE and a short return to TNA later, Awesome Kong has found further success as Tamme (a.k.a. The Welfare Queen) on the Netflix comedy series GLOW. She is also in All Elite Wrestling, where she continues the proud tradition of Awesome Kong wrecking other ladies.
7 Sarita
Sarita was a member of the stable Mexican American with her onscreen cousin Rosita, Hernandez, and Anarquia, and ended up becoming a two-time Knockouts Tag Team Champion. At the same time, she wrestled as Dark Angel in Mexico’s CMLL (where she worked for 11 years) and in Japan’s World Wonder Ring Stardom, where she once held the Wonder of Stardom Championship.
After leaving TNA in 2013, Sarita continued to wrestle for CMLL and Stardom, and eventually ended up as a trainer at WWE’s Performance Center under her real name of Sarah Stock.
6 Raisha Saeed a.k.a. Alissa Flash
Cheerleader Melissa has not spent too much time on television under her “real” ring name. At first, TNA had her wearing a full-body Muslim dress and working as Raisha Saeed, the evil foreign manager. When that ran its course, she was repackaged as Alissa Flash, whose shtick was, apparently, being a good wrestler who never won a match.
Eventually, Melissa understandably quit TNA. Since then, she portrayed another television wrestling character – Mariposa on Lucha Underground – and continues to be a staple of indie women’s promotions like SHIMMER and RISE, where she’s much more appreciated.
5 Maria Kanellis
A former WWE talent, Maria Kanellis resurfaced on TNA alongside her husband, Ring of Honor mainstay Mike Bennett. As part of the Knockouts Division, she managed to become Knockouts Commissioner and even Knockouts Champion (albeit via abuse of power).
Since then, Kanellis has returned to WWE, bringing her husband with her as “Mike Kanellis.” Together, the pair have been a great heelish wrestling couple (with incredible entrance music), though they keep disappearing from television each time Maria Kanellis gets pregnant.
4 Allie
Formerly known as Cherry Bomb, Allie officially signed to TNA in 2016 and became Maria Kannellis’s assistant. She eventually became a babyface and was even a ring bearer in her real-life husband Braxton Sutter’s on-screen wedding. In due time, Allie turned evil and canonically died on the show. For real.
In the afterlife, Allie signed for AEW, where she started out as a vanilla babyface before rebranding as The Bunny, managing The Butcher and her real-life husband, now known as The Blade. How history repeats itself.
3 Laurel Van Ness
With her gimmick of being in denial of being left at the altar by Braxton Sutter by continuing to wear her increasingly messed up wedding dress with smeared makeup, Laurel Van Ness kind of ruled and even managed to capture the Knockouts title once.
Eventually, she signed with WWE, where she wrestles on NXT under her real name, Chelsea Green. She hasn’t had a lot of time to develop her NXT persona, but she did end up entering the 2020 Royal Rumble!
2 Jade
Wrestling under the very generic TNA Knockouts name of “Jade,” Mia Yim was one-half of the duo (and later stable) The Dollhouse alongside Mari Belle and stuck with the company for a couple of years, eventually winning the Knockouts Title.
After leaving TNA, Yim wrestled for WWE in both the 2017 and 2018 Mae Young Classic tournaments, having great matches that earned her an NXT contract where she’s often in the Women’s Title scene.
1 Rosita
Indie wrestler Thea Trinidad signed to TNA in 2011 and was named Rosita, the on-screen cousin of Sarita. Together, the two ended up winning the TNA Knockouts Tag Team Championship and held it for like four months.
Once her contract ran out, Rosita made her way over to NXT and eventually debuted on WWE’s main roster as Zelina Vega, where she manages lucha rudo Andrade “Cien” Almas and often sneaks in a Hurricanrana on Almas’s opponents when the ref isn’t looking.