Gail Kim

[Grimmas]

El-P said: "Because she spent most of her career in TNA, she's one of the most overlooked great worker of the last 20 years. In 2007 TNA made her their first woman champion, and she had a bunch of great matches against Awesome Kong, which were basically the first time women's pro-wrestling was taken and treated seriously in the US in decades. That was the real women's revolution, if you will. Gail Kim is great at everything she does. She's an *incredible* bumper, a quality that is less talked about now that most pro-wrestler do much more big athletic stuff, but Gail still is striking in how she would bump in really brutal and explosive ways (without looking like she would kill herself like Sasha Banks). She can take a beating like no one else and at the same time showcase that attitude of always fighting back. Great seller. But she's also a great bitchy heel with tons of details in her game in term of character work, hell, she's probably a better heel actually even though her most famous matches were as a babyface. She can make a spectacle of a match if necessary against a super green worker, as showed by the Taryn Terell match at Slammiversary, and basically always made everyone around her look better than they were. I'm not done with exploring her second TNA stint yet (in which the context was much less favorable as the first one, at least for a while), but to me she was clearly a great worker whom, transferred into current WWE or AEW, is right up there with the best women. Her last match at 41 years old in 2018 against Tessa Blanchard showed that she was still excellent by this point."

 

Gail Kim vs Awesome Kong (12/02/07 - TNA)

Gail Kim vs Awesome Kong (01/06/08 - TNA)

Gail Kim vs Taryn Terrell (06/02/13- TNA)

Gail Kim vs Tessa Blanchard (04/28/2019 - IMPACT)

[CurtainJerker]

TNA and Gail Kim do deserve full credit for modern women's wrestling empowerment.

Gail Kim is indeed overlooked. She was a top woman in North America during her time, including Trish Stratus who got all the attention and whom people overrate on a sliding scale. Gail was athletic and ambitious enough to adapt to any era. She told stories in the ring and wanted to get the other women over. Let's face it, many of her opponents would be on AEW Elevation or NXT today, so her body of work for great matches isn't as high as some others. But she has perhaps a dozen exciting matches on video compared other men and women who are lucky to have 2 great matches, but skate on their longevity, reputation, or being booked all the time on big shows.

We set our own criteria for voting. Perhaps we ought to consider how Gail was discriminated against in WWE and the business wasn't into U.S. women for her era. She carved her own niche in TNA which forced its fans to respect women's wrestling on TV.

[TonyPulis'Cap]

On 11/7/2021 at 3:17 PM, Grimmas said:

She can take a beating like no one else and at the same time showcase that attitude of always fighting back

This is a spot on description, highlighted in her series of matches against Awesome Kong - she is a great seller, generating sympathy and getting over her opponent as a monster, however at the same time she shows constant fire, keeping herself over by not feeling like a jobber that has no chance and timing her comebacks beautifully. Those matches have a real Sting vs. Vader quality to them and they absolutely hold up. 

It can feel overstated, but I think as others above have said, she was a real trailblazer for the women's wrestling scene we currently have. She suffered initially from being put on TV in WWE when she was still green and with the matrix character that meant she was doing moves which she probably wasn't capable of at that point, but by the end of her first WWE run she had turned into a more than solid worker (there's a really fun tag at Unforgiven 2003 with her and Molly Holly against Trish and Lita that is worth checking out). When she goes to TNA they don't actually have a women's division, although from everything you hear she was the one that fought for it, and she was also great in her role as the bitchy heel valet for AMW. As discussed above, she then helps put the Knockouts Division on the map with the series against Kong and then is the real glue in that division having good matches against a variety of opponents. When she went back to WWE I was hoping she would get the Christian run of showing what he could do in TNA and then being pushed more than if he had just stayed, but ultimately she just wasn't the right fit at that time and it never worked out. Ultimately, it was in TNA where she got the opportunity to showcase what she could do. 

Gail also had that ability to carry less polished opponents to compelling matches - the Taryn Terrell is a great example. I remember at the time thinking, holy s**t, how has she just had this amazing and brutal last woman standing match with the former Tiffany who was the general manager of ECW?? I have no idea how much of it is down to the agent, but that's a fantastically structured match and Gail is a real ring general in it, connecting the more explosive spots together.

For me, she has a definite lull in the TNA down years when they were bouncing around worse and worse TV networks, but then it was hard for anyone to shine at that time. I think part of that was booking - she got a bit exposed and stale by being constantly pushed on top - and while trying to separate that from the matches she was having, I seem to recall her matches at that time while solid, being on the dull side.  But her ability, and how much of a great wrestler she could be can be shown by the match against Tessa in 2019 which is an easy **** match in my books, and where she gives a great performance as veteran trying to hang in with young upstart that has called her out.