The Beautiful People are one of the most iconic and successful tag teams in TNA history, but their formation was anything but a sure thing. In a candid interview on “The Velvet Ropes with SoCal Val,” Velvet Sky revealed that when she and Angelina Love first pitched the idea of teaming up, they were shot down by a TNA official who told them it would be “career suicide.”
Sky detailed the organic friendship that formed between herself and Love when they both arrived in TNA as part of the original Knockouts division in 2007. Despite only knowing each other in passing from the independent circuit, they immediately gravitated toward one another. “It’s like we were like moths to a flame, like coming together, just so organically,” Sky said. This natural chemistry led them to pitch a tag team idea to the office.
Inspired by the WWE Divas era of Sable and Torrie Wilson, they pitched a “glitz and glamor” team. They even had a name ready: “Velvet Love Entertainment,” a play on their own newly assigned ring names. “My heart initially sunk,” Sky admitted about being named Velvet Sky. “I’m like, that sounds like a porn star name. How am I going to be taken seriously?” After deciding to embrace the over-the-top names, they pitched their tag team, but the idea was immediately rejected.
“One of the officials, I’m not gonna say who… He’s like, ‘We can’t put you two together. That’ll be career suicide,'” Sky revealed. She clarified that the official was not Vince Russo. The idea was temporarily shelved, with Sky speculating that the male-dominated office at the time wasn’t sure what to do with the sudden influx of female talent.
However, not long after, the creative team came back to them with a proposal. “They came back and they’re like, ‘Yeah, we want to put you guys together as a tag team. We’re gonna call you The Beautiful People,'” Sky recalled. “And we were like, ‘Hmm, okay, yeah. Like, here we go.’… Okay, now we know we have the foundation for what our team is gonna embrace and be like.”
That decision ultimately proved to be the opposite of career suicide, as The Beautiful People became one of the most popular and highest-rated acts in the company, proving their initial instincts right and winning over any doubters in the process. Click below to watch the entire interview. The Beautiful People will be inducted into the TNA Hall of Fame this Sunday at Bound For Glory. The event will stream on TNA+.
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