The Beautiful People was a stable in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) mainly consisting of Angelina Love and Velvet Sky. Others were added to the group such as "Cute" Kip James, Madison Rayne and Lacey Von Erich. Their gimmick was that of arrogant heels who believed that their physical appearance was superior to all others in the Knockouts division.
History[]
Velvet-Love Entertaniment (2007-2008)[]
Angelina Love and Velvet Sky made their Total Nonstop Action Wrestling debuts as faces in 2007. At Turning Point, Love and Sky (originally known as Angel Williams and Talia Madison on the independent circuit, which both went by for a few weeks in TNA) were placed into a tag team (Williams and Szantyr came up with the idea and pitched it to TNA management) named Velvet-Love Entertainment (although often shown in chyron and announced as simply Velvet Sky and Angelina Love). After defeating O.D.B. and Roxxi Laveaux earlier in the show, Love and Sky did a run-in to Gail Kim's aid after her match against Awesome Kong. They assisted Kim again after another match against Kong on the December 6 edition of TNA Impact! and at Final Resolution, helping to stop a brawl post match. On the March 13 edition of Impact!, Sky and Love attacked Roxxi Laveaux during a segment when she resisted their attempts to give her a "makeover", thus turning heel. Adopting the personas of superficial Prima donnas who loathe and insult anyone they consider to be physically unattractive, they dropped the Velvet-Love Entertainment name and became The Beautiful People. The two later added another factor to their gimmick by placing brown paper bags over their opponents' heads, and often harass backstage interviewer Lauren Brooke.
The Beautiful People[]
Makeovers (2008-2009)[]
In 2008 at Lockdown, both participated in the first ever "Queen of Professional wrestling" match, which was won by Roxxi who defeated Love in the finals. The duo went on to participate in the Make Over Battle royal ladder match at Sacrifice, where the loser would have her head shaved. Gail Kim won immunity on the edition of Impact! prior to Sacrifice and made it to the final two with Laveaux. Due to Kim's immunity, the third runner up would have had her head shaved should Laveaux have won. Love came in third place, being the last eliminated from the battle royal part of the match. Love interfered in the end of a match, causing Roxxi to lose and get her head shaved, intensifying the character feud between them and the rest of the Knockouts. On the June 5 edition of Impact!, Mickie Knuckles (who was later given the name Moose) debuted as their new ally, and they participated in a 6-woman tag team match against Gail Kim, ODB and Roxxi at Slammiversary, which they lost. Moose has not been seen with them since, instead competing as a singles wrestler.
The tag team then became part of a loose collective of self-identified heels along with Kurt Angle, Tomko and Team 3D, later aligning themselves with Awesome Kong and Raisha Saeed. On the August 14 edition of Impact!, Kip James began associating with the girls as their new "fashionist", dubbed "Cute" Kip.
The trio then renewed Love's feud with O.D.B. and began a feud with Taylor Wilde, with Rhino siding with the face Knockouts to counteract Cute Kip's presence at ringside. This feud ended in defeat for the Beautiful People, with them losing to ODB, Rhaka Khan and Rhino at Bound for Glory IV.
They then began a feud with Christy Hemme. The trio attacked her backstage for the reason of "stealing" their segment time. Over the next few weeks The Beautiful People had a number of matches with Hemme. They then began a campaign to recruit Governor Sarah Palin to come to the Final Resolution pay-per-view and join The Beautiful People. Palin has yet to respond. A Governor Palin parody character, often referred to simply as The Governor, appeared on December 4 played by Shannon Spruill. Love and Sky were oblivious to The Governor being an imposter, resulting in some comedy skits where Kip tried to convince them they were being fooled while others mocked their stupidity. The Governor, meanwhile, convinced the duo that they would have a makeover that would make them worthy of her cabinet; the makeover involved frumpy clothes, no make-up and unstyled hair. On January 15, Taylor Wilde and Roxxi revealed that it had all been a ruse to humiliate The Beautiful People who, in Wilde's opinion, were making a mockery of TNA's women's division. After this they had mud dropped on them from the ceiling. The following week, The Beautiful People brutally attacked Spruill backstage until Kip stopped them after a sufficient beating. On February 5, The Beautiful People exacted revenge on Roxxi and Wilde in a tag match and put paper bags over their heads; however, their revenge was cut short when The Governor made the save.
Mi Pi Sexy (2009)[]
Wilde's rivalry with The Beautiful People continued when Wilde teamed with the recently debuted Knockout Madison Rayne on February 26. Rayne turned heel against Wilde in the tag team match giving The Beautiful People the win. With Rayne's help, The Beautiful People won a Four Corners Tag Team match against Awesome Kong and Raisha Saeed, Rhaka Khan and Sojourner Bolt, and Wilde and Roxxi. On the March 12 edition of Impact!, Madison Rayne was formally revealed as an initiate to Mi Pi Sexy (Mi∇⦵) (the newly formed sorority of the group). However, Rayne lost her initiation match to Taylor Wilde. Love and Sky continued to be referred to as "The Beautiful People", but when Rayne accompanied them, they were referred to as "Mi Pi Sexy". Some time later, the term "Mi Pi Sexy" became a nickname, thus being used occasionally on television.
The Beautiful People began the hazing of Madison Rayne on March 19's Impact, which began with her helping them clip The Governor's hair after Rayne lost her match. Mi Pi Sexy would fight against Wilde, Roxxi, and The Governor at Destination X. Despite the numbers being even with the acquisition of Rayne, The Beautiful People failed to defeat their opponents. Monty Sopp, who played Cute Kip, was removed from television prior to Destination X to become a road agent, meaning his departure from the stable. This was explained on-screen by Sky, who stated that Kip was on probation before declaring he would be spoken about no more.
Rayne's hazing continued after The Beautiful People won an Impact! tag team match against Kong and Saeed, after which Rayne tried to cut the braided hair of the Knockout Champion Kong. With Sky in her corner, Angelina Love faced Kong and perennial nemesis Taylor Wilde in a three-way cage match for the Knockout Championship at Lockdown. Love narrowly escaped a somersault leg drop from Kong, and as she was recovering Love pushed her towards the cage while Sky pulled her frayed hair through the holes in the cage and tied her to it. With Kong unable to move from the cage, Wilde dove onto Love with a cross body press and legitimately knocked her unconscious with her knee. As she recovered, Wilde attacked Kong, allowing Love to roll-up Wilde for the pin and win the Knockout Championship. The following week on Impact!, Mi Pi Sexy had a celebration with male dancers and named Madison Rayne an official member of the Beautiful People. However the celebration was cut short by Kong. Kong continued her attack on Mi Pi Sexy and proved her dominance by making her way through Rayne, Sky and Kip, who Love brought back to stop her, in stretcher matches on the following weeks of Impact!. Despite this, at Sacrifice Love retained her title against Kong.
On May 28, Love defended her title again against Sojourner Bolt with all of her associates at ringside. After quickly defeating Bolt, Love questioned why Cute Kip was still appearing with them and officially fired him from the group. After this Love made a speech about the dominance of The Beautiful People and mocked the lack of competition in TNA. This led to the debut of Tara who laid out both Sky and Rayne and used her Widow's Peak finisher on Love, before accepting the challenge. At Slammiversary, Tara had her chance at the title but with the help of some hairspray from Sky and Rayne, Love retained the championship. Tara, whose name alludes to the tarantula spider, began taunting the group with a tarantula over the next few weeks on Impact!, which resulted in Sky voicing her frustration about Love leaving her alone with the tarantula and threatening to leave the group, if Love didn't back her up.
Consequently, when Tara defeated Sky and threatened to place a tarantula on her, Love agreed to put her Knockout Championship on the line immediately afterwards, and without Rayne for support, Love lost the championship. The following week Love demanded, and gained a rematch but was laid out with the Widow's Peak from Tara. At Victory Road, Love almost lost her match when she was accidentally blinded with hairspray, but kicked out and later pinned Tara despite her foot being under the bottom rope, to win back the Knockout Championship. Later in the evening, the referee was seen leaving Rayne's shower, with the implication she had seduced him to officiate the match in Love's favor.
After all three failed to win a Battle Royal to become a member of Main Event Mafia, the group were seen mocking ODB and her associate Cody Deaner. A six-woman tag team match between all of Mi Pi Sexy against Tara, Kong and ODB turned into a three-on-one handicap match when Tara and Kong began to brawl between themselves. After a kiss from Deaner at ringside, Love was stunned and lost the match. It was later announced that at Hard Justice, the Knockout Championship would be on the line in a tag team contest between The Beautiful People against ODB and Deaner. After more mistimed hairspraying from Rayne, ODB won the title by virtue of Deaner pinning Sky. On the August 20 edition of Impact!, Madison Rayne was kicked out of Mi Pi Sexy for costing Love the title, being assaulted and paper bagged by them
The Meanest Girls (2009-2010)[]
On September 3, Love — a Canadian national — was released from her contract with TNA due to problems with her visa. She, however, appeared on two more weeks of Impact! due to tapings being held before her release. During these episodes, Love and Sky took part in the tournament to crown the inaugural Knockouts Tag Team Champions. The Beautiful People defeated Madison Rayne and the returning Roxxi in the first round. The following week, they defeated the team of Tara and Christy Hemme to advance to the finals of the tournament, after Hemme was hair sprayed in the eyes by Rayne. After the match, Rayne joined Love and Sky in the ring and extended an apology to them, written on her brown paper bag. They accepted Rayne's apology and hugged in the ring. At No Surrender, the announcers explained Love's departure due to "business issues." Rayne replaced Love and teamed with Sky in the tournament finals where they lost their championship match to the team of Sarita and Taylor Wilde.
On the October 1 episode of Impact!, The Beautiful People apologized to the TNA fans and Knockouts for their behavior, blaming their past actions on Love. They invited the Knockouts Tag Team Champions, Wilde and Sarita, down to the ring to prove their apology was genuine and expressed their desire for a competitive match at Bound for Glory. The Beautiful People shook their hands, but then attacked them. As they began to lose the advantage in the assault, the evil Lacey Von Erich debuted and took out Wilde and Sarita. The three then posed in the ring, welcoming Von Erich into The Beautiful People. The three then won their first match as a team, defeating ODB, Tara and Kong, but lost their Tag Team title rematch at Bound For Glory. On the October 22 episode of Impact!, The Beautiful People began appearing in backstage segments they dubbed as their reality show "The Meanest Girls", an allusion to the 2004 teen comedy Mean Girls. In the pilot episode, The Beautiful People attacked Wilde and Sarita at catering, and engaged in a food fight with The Beautiful People coming out on top. In the sequel, which aired on the November 5 edition of Impact!, the Beautiful People attacked ODB, setting up a six knockout tag team match at Turning Point for both the Women's Knockout Championship and the Knockouts Tag Team Championship. At the Pay-Per-View the Beautiful People were unsuccessful, as ODB pinned Rayne to win the match for the reigning champions. Around this time they also began using a new weapon named Lacey's Ugly Stick, a pink baton used to attack opponents.
Going into 2010, the group were met with a familiar face on the January 14 edition of Impact! when Angelina Love made her return, observing Sky and Rayne in a tag team match from the crowd. After the match, Love turned face and attacked Sky and Von Erich, telling Sky it was a mistake to replace her. On the March 8 Monday night edition of Impact! Rayne and Sky defeated the teams of Love and Tara and Sarita and Wilde in a three-way match to win the vacant TNA Knockouts Tag Team Championship, after interference from Daffney. The three members of the Beautiful People then defended the title under the Freebird Rule. At Lockdown, Rayne pinned Tara in a tag team steel cage match, where she teamed with Velvet Sky against Tara and TNA Women's Knockout Champion Angelina Love, to win Love's title and become the first person to hold both Knockout Championships simultaneously. Tara turned heel by attacking Love after the match ended. At Sacrifice, Rayne successfully defended the Knockouts Championship against Tara in a Title vs. Career match, ending her TNA career in the process. Rayne once again successfully defended the Knockout Championship against Roxxi at Slammiversary VIII, ending another TNA career in the process.
Implosion (2010)[]
After returning from an injury in June, former member Angelina Love set her sights on the Beautiful People and regaining the Women's Knockout Championship from Rayne. Three weeks before Victory Road, Love was defeated by Von Erich via disqualification when she dropped Von Erich with a DDT on a steel chair. The following week in a match featuring Love and Sky, Sky suffered the same fate. Following this match, Love stared at Sky and said, "One more", meaning that she just had Rayne left to deal with. On July 11 at Victory Road, Rayne lost the Women's Knockout Championship to Angelina Love via disqualification due to outside interference from a person incognito in a motorcycle helmet. Prior to the match it was announced that the title would change hands via disqualification, if either Velvet Sky or Lacey Von Erich interfered in the match. On the following edition of Impact!, The Beautiful People imploded as Sky said she didn't approve of Rayne's recent attitude, behavior, and apparent affiliation with the mystery woman at the pay-per-view, to which Rayne responded by saying that she didn't need Sky anymore. Sky then walked out on Rayne as she and the mystery woman ganged up on Love. On the July 22 edition of Impact!, the Women's Knockout Championship was returned to Rayne, when it was declared that there was no proof that the person who had interfered in the match was either Sky or Von Erich. On the July 29 edition of Impact!, Rayne apologized to Sky and the three Beautiful People agreed to a truce. However, on the following edition of Impact!, Sky and Von Erich lost the TNA Knockouts Tag Team Championship to Hamada and Taylor Wilde, when Rayne and the mystery woman's interference backfired. Later in the night, Sky and Rayne were seen fighting backstage, during which Sky vented her frustrations to Rayne, proclaiming their truce and friendship over and then shoved Von Erich, who tried to make peace between her teammates, inadvertently knocking her unconscious. The following week Rayne lost the Women's Knockout Championship to Love. During the match the mystery woman tried to distract Love; however, Velvet Sky stopped her. Love countered the Rayne Drop and executed the Lights Out for the victory. On the August 19 episode of Impact!, Sky reunited with Angelina Love, accompanying her to the ring and helping her successfully defend the Women's Knockout Championship against Rayne, who was with the mysterious biker woman. After the match, Sky and Love were beaten down by Rayne and the mystery woman. The following week, the mystery woman was unmasked as Tara. That night, Tara and Rayne defeated the reunited Beautiful People in a tag match when Tara hit Sky with the motorcycle helmet.
Storyline With Winter; Split (2010-2011)[]
The following week, Love and Sky were featured on Impact! and were announced as The Beautiful People, whilst using the stable's signature entrance music, clarifying that the stable now consists of its original members and for the first time since 2007, is a babyface group. Rayne's mysterious ally was finally unmasked as Tara on the September 2 edition of Impact!, when the two of them defeated the Beautiful People in their first match together in a year. At No Surrender, Sky defeated her former Beautiful People partner Rayne in a singles match. On the September 16 edition of Impact!, Love and Sky saved Lacey Von Erich, who was making a return from her injury, from a beating at the hands of Rayne and Tara and accepted her back into The Beautiful People. During the feud Rayne had claimed to own the rights to the name the Beautiful People, but on the October 7 live edition of Impact!, Love and Sky defeated her and Tara in a tag team match to officially earn the right to call themselves the Beautiful People. At Bound for Glory, Love lost the Women's Knockout Championship to Tara in a Four Corners match, which also included Velvet Sky and Madison Rayne and was refereed by Mickie James. On November 11, 2010, Lacey Von Erich announced that she had left TNA earlier that day.On the December 9 edition of Impact!, Love and Sky entered a four–team tournament for the vacated Knockouts Tag Team Championship and defeated Sarita and Daffney in their first round match. Two weeks later, Sarita attacked Sky and took her out of the final match, which led to Winter, who had been stalking Love for the past months, replacing her and teaming with Love to defeat Madison Rayne and Tara for the Knockouts Tag Team Championship.
On March 13, 2011, at Victory Road, Sky, who had grown jealous of Winter's relationship with Love, inadvertently cost them the Knockouts Tag Team Championship in a match against Sarita and Rosita. On the March 24 edition of Impact!, Winter, seemingly having control over Love's actions, prevented her from saving Sky from a beatdown at the hands of Sarita and Rosita. On the April 7 edition of Impact!, Love, still under Winter's spell, turned heel on Sky during a Knockouts Tag Team Championship match against Sarita and Rosita and left her to be pinned by the champions. On the April 28 edition of Impact!, Love defeated Sky via submission in a singles match, no-selling all of her opponent's offense during the match. The following week, Sky declared the Beautiful People dead and announced her intention of going for the TNA Women's Knockout Championship
Reunion and Various Feuds (2014–2016)[]
On the March 13 episode of Impact Wrestling, Angelina Love returned to the company and called out Sky, wanting to reunite the group. The following week, Sky agreed to reunite with Love, but when Madison Rayne was called out by Love, she refused the offer due to Love's snobbish attitude towards her. In a locker room segment, Love turned villainous and attacked Rayne after feigning an apology to her. On March 27, Love defeated Rayne in a singles match after Sky turned heel and attacked Rayne during the match, officially reuniting the original incarnation. Love and Sky defeated Rayne and Brittany in tag team action on the April 3 edition of Impact Wrestling.
Love defeated Gail Kim, Brittany, and ODB on April 10 to become the #1 Contender for Rayne's Knockouts Championship. She would go on to defeat Rayne to win the title for the record-setting sixth time at Sacrifice with interference from Sky. The Beautiful People's championship celebration on May 1 was interrupted by Kim, Brittany, and Rayne, which led to an evening gown elimination tag team match on the following week, which was won by Sky and Love over Rayne and Brittany. On the May 29 edition of Impact Wrestling, The Beautiful People defeated Kim and Brittany in tag team action. Love defeated Kim at Slammiversary to retain the Knockouts Championship, but she would lose the title to Kim on the July 3 edition of Impact Wrestling.
On the following week, Love was defeated by Kim in a Knockouts Championship four-way match that also included Rayne and the heel-turned Brittany. The Beautiful People attacked both Kim and Taryn Terrell during their Knockouts Championship match on July 24, which led to a four way title match two weeks later, which Kim won. On the August 20 edition of Impact Wrestling, Love lost again to Kim in a Last Knockout Standing Match for the Knockouts Championship. On September 10 episode of Impact Wrestling, Sky was announced that she is the winner of the 2015 Knockouts Calendar, after the celebration, The Beautiful People pushed Brittany towards Havok. The Beautiful People defeated Madison Rayne and Taryn Terrell in a tag team match on the October 29 edition of Impact Wrestling, with the win coming after Rayne turned heel and attacked Terrell during the match.
On January 23 edition of Impact Wrestling, Sky assisted Robbie E by grabbing a Feast or Fired brief case. Robbie turned this around on Sky claiming that she should open the case since she was the one who originally retrieved it. Sky opened the brief case to find the "Pink" slip, ending Sky's TNA tenure as well as The Beautiful People in the process.
Second Reunion and feud with The Dollhouse (2015-2016)[]
On the September 2 episode of Impact Wrestling, Love and Rayne both turned face when they came to the aid of Velvet Sky and attacked The Dollhouse (Jade, Marti Bell, and Rebel), reuniting The Beautiful People once again. The Beautiful People would team up against The Dollhouse in a losing battle after Rebel distracted Rayne and threw powder in her face. Bell pinned Rayne for the win. On the January 5 tapings, Sky and Rayne would team up with Gail Kim to defeat The Dollhouse only after being attacked by Awesome Kong and The Dollhouse.
On the March 27, 2016, Love announced her Twitter account that her contract with TNA had expired. On April 22, 2016, Sky left the company.
Wrestling facts[]
- Finishing and signature moves
- Russian legsweep (Sky) / Bicycle kick (Love) combination
- Hollering Elbow (Double elbow drop, with theatrics)
- Managers
