LadySports ::: BRIT TAG TEAM CHALLENGE

The Smiling Assassins Battle the Maidens of Doom

By Shiai Mata

By all rights, the Smiling Assassins should be the British Tag Team Champions. At least, many fans seem to think so. They were certainly heavily favored to walk away with the newly established title when the North Manchester Women’s Wrestling Club put it on the line this past November. But Fate has a funny way of turning “sure things” into :might have been’s….”

The Smiling Assassins are Awesome Anne and Charisma, quite possibly the only Mother/Daughter tag team in Europe. And they’ve earned their team name because they’re so often smiling broadly in the ring, usually as they’re driving opponents into submission. Anne, in fact, is undefeated in singles competition. Being as close as they are, naturally enough, the two move with a precision in the ring that’s almost supernatural. Which also made them the favorites to be the first team to wear the new tag crowns.

What they hadn’t counted on were the Maidens of Doom.

Louise Lockwood is the teenaged sensation of British wrestling, at 15 already the UK Champion. She very much enjoys being the champ, and she very much dislikes Anne and Charisma, so the opportunity to deny them the coveted tag team belts was too tempting to pass up. She found a willing accomplice in Samantha Wilde, a relative newcomer to wrestling but already the possessor of one of the most enviable records in the sport.

Each team’s strengths and weaknesses paired off as mirror opposites: Anne has the superiority in size and experience, but rookie Samantha isn’t far behind her in terms of sheer raw power. And for all of young Charisma’s enthusiasm, her skills are not yet up to par with those on Louise; in an earlier submission-style confrontation, Louise beat her effectively.

In this Best-of-Three Falls battle, Anne knew that the key to success for the Smiling Assassins would be to finish off their opponents as quickly as possible, and not give them the chance to secure a fall for themselves. She had confidence that she and Charisma could get the job done. But what she hadn’t counted on was that the Maidens would be willing to bend…or break…every rule in order to win.

The Assassins appeared to be on their way to winning the first fall when disaster struck. Samantha snared Charisma in a scissors, and before the feisty teen could escape, Louise illegally entered the ring and fixed a Figure Four Leglock on her, with the referee apparently daydreaming. It was all Charisma could do to hold out for as long as she did, but her verbal submission was inevitable. For her part, Louise almost seemed disappointed that her rival gave up as soon as she did; she no doubt wanted to see if she could break Charisma’s leg with her hold!

For the first time in this match, the Assassins weren’t smiling….

For Round Two, Awesome Anne pulled out all of the stops! She dished out some payback to Louise, who took the first opportunity to tag her partner and escape from the ring. Samantha’s confidence that she could take down the big blond quickly dissolved as Anne pounded her from pillar to post, before finally catching her hapless opponent in a Boston Crab. For long moments, it looked as if Samantha might do the impossible and escape the crippling hold, but it was not to be. With her submission, the match was tied at one fall apiece.

Everything hung on the third and final round.

Charisma was eager to mix it up again with the Maidens and tilt things back in her team’s favor. And she was doing well for herself, until the Maidens resorted once again to double-teaming, overwhelming the young blond and setting her up for the finish. Samantha took a special delight in taunting a seething Anne at ringside by saying, “What you did to me, I will do to your daughter!” She then subjected Charisma to a devastating Boston Crab, applied with the sort of pressure one would use to snap their victim’s spine! The spectators heaved a collective sigh of relief when Charisma surrendered, knowing that they wouldn’t have to witness her being crippled by prolonged exposure to the Crab hold.

In an upset which rocked Europe, the Maidens of Doom were now the British Tag Team Champions! The question now is, can a team brought together largely just to thwart another duo’s dream of championship gold continue to work together and keep the titles for themselves? The Smiling Assassins don’t think so, which is why they’ve been demanding a rematch.

And perhaps the Maidens weren’t so certain themselves, given the fact that they had steadfastly refused to grant the Assassins a return match…until now, that is. Louise and Samantha have, reportedly, been training together almost daily, and now appear to be confident that they can function as a true team. In fact, their self-confidence now seems to border on sheer egotism. Says Samantha: “We just want out fans to know that we have decided to give those two no-hopper’s a chance this summer to try and take the tag team title from us! Just as before, the fans will see us destroy those two laughing hyenas!” And, adds Louise, “They certainly weren’t smiling when they left the ring last time, were they? Nothing is going to stand in our way of keeping our belts and achieving our ultimate goal, the World Tag Team Championship! Especially not a pair of so-called ‘Smiling Assassins’.”

But Anne and Charisma are undaunted by the threats of their rivals. “We know that we are better than they are,” asserts Anne. “It took two of them at once to get Charisma down. They’re too afraid to face us one against one.” And Charisma, smile intact, is quick to add, “We’ve been trying to get a rematch with them for months, but they can’t hide forever. Once we get them in the ring, the Maidens of Doom will quickly become the ‘Damsels in Distress’!”

No other rivalry has so riveted British wrestling fans these past months as this one has. And no match will be so closely watched as the winner-take-all confrontation tentatively set for this summer. And the tam that emerges victorious will surely be the stuff of legends. All that remains to be seen is if that team is all smiles, or if they are harbingers of doom….

(2004 follow up: The rematch between the Maidens and the Assassins, disappointingly, never occurred, as it was postponed several times, until Anne, Charisma and Samantha all went into semi-retirement. Still, who knows…the four of them may yet one day find themselves back in the ring and ready to solve this matter once and for all as Charisma and Anne have just announced their return to the ring!)