Almost a decade before WWE attempted modern Women’s Tag Titles, TNA (now known as Impact Wrestling) had a tag championship for their own division. Introduced in 2009, the Knockouts Tag Team Titles was another entry in TNA’s under-the-radar attempt to legitimize mainstream televised women’s wrestling, alongside their singles division, which featured a landmark feud between Awesome Kong and Gail Kim.
The Knockouts Tag Team Titles were deactivated by Knockouts division boss Brooke Hogan in 2013, but not before there were nine total title reigns, many of which have gone forgotten because honestly, LOL TNA is much more fun to talk about and especially because the Knockouts Tag titles were last held by ODB and Eric Young. Seriously.
10 Taylor Wilde
Alongside Sarita, Taylor Wilde is one-half of the very first Knockouts Tag Team Champions, having defeated The Beautiful People in the final round of a tournament. In addition to being the first woman to win both the singles Knockouts Championship as well as the Tag Team Championship, Taylor Wilde also has the distinction of being the first two-time Knockouts Tag champ alongside Hamada.
Hamada also won the title once before. Pretty notable achievements considering Wilde was only in TNA for two years and quietly retired from wrestling to become a firefighter.
9 Angelina Love
You’d probably have assumed Knockouts veteran Angelina Love held the Tag Titles as part of The Beautiful People, but she actually didn’t. She won the Titles with Winter, during that storyline where Winter was wooing Love away from The Beautiful People via weird mind control potion (not a joke), but managed to hold it for 80 days before losing it to Rosita and Sarita.
There’s no conclusion to that Love/Winter storyline by the way. It just went kind of forgotten and Angelina Love eventually left the company.
8 Rosita
A member of the stable Mexican America, Rosita captured the TNA Knockouts Tag Belt alongside her on-screen cousin, Sarita, in 2011 and held the title for 129 days, which is pretty average as nobody has held the Tag Belts for less than two months.
Eventually the pair would lose the title to TnT, Mexican Americana would fizzle out, and Rosita would leave TNA in 2013 and end up in WWE a couple of years later, where she’d take on the name Zelina Vega.
7 Tara
You probably know her better as Lisa Marie Varon or as Victoria in WWE, but in TNA she had the ring name of Tara and has the distinction of being a five-time Knockouts Champion.
On the tag team side, she’s only a one-time Knockouts Tag Team Champion, having held the title with Brooke Tessmacher as the team TnT. Eventually, they’d lose the titles and Tessmacher would win the singles Knockouts Championship, after which Tara would fail to challenge her for the title and turn heel on her friend.
6 Sarita
Also known as Dark Angel in the indie and lucha scene, Sarita was the other half of the first Knockouts Tag Champs, alongside Taylor Wilde. After losing the Tag Titles to Awesome Kong and Hamada, the pair eventually split up because (in kayfabe) Sarita wanted to be a heel, and Wilde wanted to stay a good guy.
A couple of years later, Sarita managed to capture the Tag title a second time, alongside her on-screen cousin, Rosita.
5 Awesome Kong
Awesome Kong and Hamada -- another great TNA Knockouts talent -- managed to capture the Knockouts Tag belts from Sarita and Rosita in 2010. They only held the belt for two months and defended it once before TNA fired Awesome Kong for beating up Bubba the Love Sponge for being a racist.
On-screen, TNA claimed that the belt had been stripped from Kong and Hamada because it wasn’t defended in 30 days, even though it had been defended like three weeks before that.
4 Winter
Also known as Paul Burchill’s sister (and possible lover?) Katie Lea in WWE, the more-generically-named-in-TNA Winter is that witchy lady who stalked Angelina Love and managed to get her to leave The Beautiful People by putting a spell on her or something.
Together, they held the Knockouts Tag Team Championship but eventually lost it to Rosita and Sarita. Winter’s other big deal was a feud with Mickie James where they traded the singles title back and forth, making her a two-time Knockouts Champion.
3 Gail Kim
Gail Kim held the Knockouts Tag Team Title surprisingly late in the championship’s existence, in 2011 alongside Madison Rayne.
Having defeated TnT for the belt, Kim and Rayne held onto it for a pretty good 126 days and two title defenses before losing it to Eric Young and ODB in five minutes. Just so you know, Young and ODB are the longest reigning champs at 478 days and only defended it twice.
2 Lacey Von Erich
Lacey Von Erich -- an actual spawn of the Von Erich clan, it should be noted -- is not only a forgotten Knockouts Tag Team Champion but also a forgotten member of The Beautiful People. Fans seem to remember Cute Kip more than Lacey Von Erich.
At least her status as a forgotten Knockouts Tag Team Champ can stem from the fact that Madison Rayne and Velvet Sky won the titles and Von Erich just defended it via the Freebird Rule. She didn’t win it, but she did lose it to the team of Taylor Wilde and this next Knockout.
1 Hamada
A veteran of Japanese wrestling, lucha libre, and the American indie scene, Ayako Hamada is another two-time Knockouts Tag Team Champ. She won once alongside Taylor Wilde and once alongside Awesome Kong.
In both of her title runs she only ever defended it against The Beautiful People, and both reigns ended with the title being vacated due to one of the champs being released by the company. The second time, it was Hamada’s own release.