The Beautiful People is an alliance of professional wrestlers, consisting of Angelina Love and Velvet Sky, counting Cute Kip, Madison Rayne and Lacey Von Erich as its former members. The stable is best known for their narcissistic gimmick, and holding the TNA Women's Knockout Championship and the TNA Knockout Tag Team Championship simultaneously. Their characters are portrayed as arrogant blonde Barbie dolls, whose main goal as a team is to "cleanse" the Total Nonstop Action Wrestling roster "one ugly person at a time", based on their belief that their physical appearance is superior to all others, however its current incarnation portrays them as faces. Original members Angelina Love and Velvet Sky came up with the characters, inspired by Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie.
The Beautiful People are vain and narcissistic prima donnas. After a brief initial period without these traits, they became villainous characters who emphasised an interest in looks and created the motto "cleansing the world, one ugly person at a time." Love and Sky created the characters themselves, basing them on Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie and the movie Mean Girls.
Their fixation with physical beauty is emphasized when they use cosmetics and hair spray as weapons. They also favor placing paper bags over the heads of opponents they regard as ugly, as a way of humiliating them.
Velvet-Love Entertainment (2007–2008)
Angelina Love and Velvet Sky made their Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) debuts as fan favorites. At the Turning Point pay-per-view in 2007, Love and Sky were placed into a tag team named Velvet-Love Entertainment (although often shown in chyron and announced as simply Velvet Sky and Angelina Love). At Turning Point the newly formed tag team defeated O.D.B. and Roxxi Laveaux. In March, Roxxi had a premonition about their safety which they ignored and offered Roxxi a makeover to apologize. On the March 13 edition of Impact!, Roxxi resisted their attempt at a makeover, offending Love and Sky, causing them to react violently. Love and Sky retaliated against the resistance by using the makeover to hurt, rather than help Roxxi. During the attack they utilized their cosmetics to humiliate Roxxi by spraying her in the eyes with hairspray and smearing makeup all over her face, thus becoming villains.
Adopting the personas of superficial prima donnas, who loathe and insult anyone they consider to be physically unattractive, they dropped the Velvet-Love Entertainment moniker and became The Beautiful People. In 2008 at Lockdown, they participated in the first ever "Queen of the Cage" match, which was won by Roxxi, when she defeated Love in the finals. The following month's pay-per-view, Sacrifice, saw a Battle Royal where the last two in the ring competed in a Ladder match with the loser having their head shaved; the week before on Impact! Gail Kim won immunity in a Shears-On-A-Pole-Match. The Makeover Battle Royal-Ladder Match saw Kim and Roxxi survive the Battle Royal and with Kim having immunity this meant the third runner-up, Angelina Love, would have her head shaved if Roxxi won. Knowing this, Love interfered in the Ladder Match to ensure Kim's victory and Roxxi's head being shaved bald. While the Knockouts watched the haircut in pity, Love and Sky paraded around celebrating with Roxxi's freshly shaved hair cementing them as villains in one of TNA's most controversial moments.
The Beautiful People continued to harass the fan favorite Knockouts, including ruining Kim's chance at winning the TNA Women's Knockout Championship, injuring her, and unsuccessfully attempting to shave ODB's head after a match. This led to a Street Fight on June 5 between Sky and ODB, during which Mickie Knuckles (later re-named Moose) debuted as The Beautiful People's ally on Impact!. At Slammiversary the new trio lost in a six-woman tag team match against Roxxi, ODB and Kim when ODB pinned Moose.
On July 18, Sky won a ten-Knockout Battle Royal to earn a shot at the Knockouts Championship. However she failed to win the match, afterwards her and Love assaulted champion Taylor Wilde, putting a paper bag over her head. Their bad luck continued when The Beautiful People main evented the July 31 Impact! in a losing effort to Wilde and Kim.
On the August 14 edition of Impact!, Kip James was introduced as the team's "fashionist" under the name Cute Kip. As Sky had failed to win the title from Wilde, Love was given a chance at No Surrender. The following week on Impact!, The Beautiful People tried to intimidate Wilde before No Surrender, by attacking her backstage. Love and Wilde competed in a beauty pageant which Love lost after losing the evening gown and talent contest segments. Love also lost the title match at No Surrender. While Sky and Love had been focussing on Wilde and her title, Kip had begun a feud with Rhino. This feud ended in defeat for the Beautiful People, with them losing to ODB, Rhaka Khan and Rhino at Bound for Glory IV. Their feud with ODB spilled out into an alliance with Booker T who hired The Beautiful People to protect his wife, Sharmell, from ODB in exchange for his locker room on the December 4 episode of Impact!. This resulted in a six-woman tag team match at Final Resolution against ODB, Wilde and Roxxi, which they lost.
Also in December it was announced on TNA's website that the company had extended an invitation to United States Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin which The Beautiful People looked forward to as they considered her husband to be attractive. 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.
Wilde's rivalry with The Beautiful People continued when Wilde teamed with the recently debuted Knockout Madison Rayne on February 26. Rayne turned on 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.[41] 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 tarantulas over the next few weeks on Impact![53][54], 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.
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