Diamonds Are Forever
"Undeniable... Forever..."
Tessa Blanchard (born July 26, 1995) is a track star, actress and stunt woman turned professional wrestler, trained by George South. She is from Charlotte, North Carolina and descended from Joe and Tully Blanchard, making her a third generation wrestler. She was trained by George South, debuted in 2013, though she'd prefer if you count 2014 as her official start in the business, and has wrestled for numerous promotions all over the world. Along with her reign as Impact Knockouts Champion
, she is a former EWA Heavyweight Champion, a former ECWA Women's Champion, a former APWA (Florida) World Ladies Champion, a former EWA Florida Heavyweight Champion, a former Remix Pro Fury Champion, a former SHIMMER Tag Team Champion with "The Mountain" Vanessa Kraven as Mount Tessa, a former WC (WrestleCircus) Sideshow Champion, a former Phoenix of RISE Champion, a former Zelo Pro Women's Champion, a former The Crash (Mexico) Feminil Champion, a former WC Lady of the Ring Champion, and is the WW (Warrior Wrestling) Women's Champion, the PCW ULTRA Women's Champion, a former WOW Champion, The Impact Wrestling World Heavyweight Champion, the WSU Champion, Rings Of Europe GLAM! Champion and Gulf Coast Wrestling Alliance Women's Champion.
"TESSA B'S TROPES AIN'T NUTHIN' TA FUCK WIT!":
- The Ace: Became Knockouts Champion within her first six months, defeating the surging Allie and the demonic scourge Su Yung to achieve this. Don Callis often describes her abilities in the ring as being second to none amongst pretty much all female wrestlers. With her victory over the retired Gail Kim at Rebellion in Gail's hometown of Toronto, she's officially taken Gail's torch as the company's elite Knockout.
- Action Girl: Absolutely. She's defeated both women and men.
- Actually Pretty Funny: At the start of her match with Sonya Strong at WWR Adios Aurora on September 9, 2017, Sonya noticed that the fans were cheering for Tessa and said that she knew Tessa had two daddies, and that she was going to be her third. Tessa couldn't help but laugh at that.
- Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: One of her most notable physical traits is her jet black hair. Another huge part of her appeal is her intriguing demeanor.
- Alternate Company Equivalent: Being the daughter of a member of The Four Horsemen, she is inevitably compared to WWE's Charlotte Flair.
- Asshole Victim: Allysin Kay pretended to accept Blanchard's offer of friendship, kicked Blanchard's ass as her guard was down and then mentioned in an interview that she would continue to destroy "innocent girls" until SHINE's management met her demands. Anyone who actually paid attention to Blanchard in SHINE would know she was not innocent. Blanchard herself mentioned that she and Kay had been part of the same stable. Kay was simply too obsessed with the singles championship belt to pay attention to such trivial details.
- Batter Up!: Has carried a gold baseball bat to the ring in Impact Wrestling.
- Battle Couple: She and Daga entered the mixed tag team division of KAOZ Lucha.
- Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Yes, you read correctly about her holding Heavyweight Championships. She was the only woman to hold the EWA Heavyweight Title and the EWA Florida Heavyweight Title. The EWA Heavyweight Title was also held by legends including Ricky Morton, The Barbarian, Ivan Koloff, Jake "The Snake" Roberts, Buddy Landel and Jimmy Valiant. The EWA Florida Heavyweight Title was also held by Blackjack Mulligan. Her match with Sami Callihan at Impact's Slammiversary XVII was the first intergender match to main event a national PPV. She didn't win that one, but she has her place in history. She later won the Impact World Championship from him in a rematch too.note
- The Comically Serious: This picture from Ruby Riott (formerly Heidi Lovelace)'s Instagram shows Evie (WWE's Dakota Kai) pushing Heidi into Vanessa Kraven's chest, while Tessa just poses like normal, albeit seemingly in abject confusion at the situation she's involved in.
- Cool Shades: A regular part of her outfit for her entrances.
- Early-Bird Cameo: She played one of Adam Rose's "Rosebuds" once on WWE Raw.
- Establishing Character Moment: Made her debut in Impact forcing her way into being a guest commentator while Taya Valkyrie and Kiera Hogan were competing in the ring, and wasted no time describing them both as being "good, but no Diamond". Within weeks she started antagonizing Kiera, saying she's better than her.
- Fat and Skinny: Blanchard was around her slimmest in World Wonder Ring ST★RDOM while then Tag Team partner Jessicka Havok was coming off of a "Chris Hero" phase.
- Finishing Move: Slingshot Suplex, a front double knee facebreaker called Magnum.
- Hammy Herald: You have NO idea. She teamed with David Starr against Janelope (Joey Janela and Penelope Ford) at WWR Five Year Plan, and their intro has to be heard to be believed.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: Depending on the Writer or where she is wrestling at the time. As described elsewhere on this page, she debuted as a heel in Impact Wrestling. She came in as a face for her match with Hania The Howling Huntress at QOC 5 and turned heel. However, when she does work face, the crowds are absolutely behind her.
- Jerkass: Has been this in Impact Wrestling ever since she first walked through the door until she did a Heel–Face Turn. To listen to her impressions of the other Knockouts, Kiera Hogan is a little girl in over her head, Allie is a deceiver who only cares about the Knockouts Championship, Taya is an opportunist picking the best spots possible for her own glory, and none of them are as good as Tessa. Of course, given what a huge heel her father was, this is just a case of Like Father Like Daughter.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: Not only is Su Yung the one Knockout she's never disrespected, she's deathly afraid of getting caught in any scuffle where Su arrives uninvited with her Undead Bridesmaids. That said, it doesn't stop her from facing down Su without the bridesmaids if the championship is involved.
- Ms. Fanservice: Her usual entrance routine includes her standing with her back to the camera and Shaking the Rump. She posts many sexy pictures on her Instagram.
- Power Stable: She was a hanger-on for the second incarnation of Valkyrie in SHINE, and when the group was renamed VALkyrie.
- Perky Female Minion: To Your Girlfriend's Favorite Wrestler, Kameron Kade.
- Prejudiced For Pecs: The notoriously slim Blanchard bulked up considerably in Impact Wrestling for the long term goal of winning the World Championship belt from Sami Callihan. Even with "heavyweight" removed from the official title everyone involved agreed she'd need as much mass as possible to sell the fans on it.
- Pretender Diss: Her antagonism of Rachael Ellering was over the fact Blanchard's lineage was longer and the belief Paul Ellering, Rachael's father, was only a manager and thus unworthy of recognition.note
- Red Baron: "Diamond," "Undeniable," "The Queen of the Carolinas"
- Sampling: She has a theme song that starts by quoting the opening of the theme to the James Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever. Doubles as a Mythology Gag, since the Horsemen used "Diamonds are forever and so are the Four Horsemen" as a Catchphrase.
- Squash Match: She defeated Glenn Gilbertti on the May 31 (taped May 4), 2019 TNA Impact in fifteen seconds!
- Tag Team: Mount Tessa with Vanessa Kraven then Undeniably Impressive with Indi Hartwell when that fell apart
- Tournament Arc: She won the ECWA Super 8 ChickFight Tournament in 2014, she and Anthony Greene won Lucky Pro Wrestling's Kings And Queens Tournament in 2015, and she and Sami Callihan won the TNA Mash-Up Tournament on July 19, 2019.
- Use Your Head: She would sometimes employ headbutts during her matches, usually to knock opponents such as Kairi Sane down from the top rope. At some point, she used one in tandem with Taeler Hendrix to successfully knock Jessicka Havok out.
- The Worf Effect
- Even though she was a rookie, even though they were largely phasing out independent circuit wrestlers and giving up on live shows, Ring Divas wasn't going let anyone overlook the fact a horseman's daughter had failed to beat their champions if they could help it(they couldn't, and eventually almost all traces of Blanchard were removed from their records).
- Blanchard debuted in SHIMMER with victory over Athena. One Athena would quickly avenge, but a win nonetheless. She soon paired up with Kraven to defeat the Lucha Sisters and become serious players in the tag team division. She them went on a winning streak halted only after challenging singles champion Madison Eagles and won the tag belts with Kraven. Blanchard's luck in sister promotion SHINE was nowhere near as good. Despite having a similar giant in Andrea to do her bidding, joining Valkyrie only temporarily halted Blanchard's losing streak. Other sister RISE was more inline with SHIMMER, where Mercedes Martinez, eventually won the championship belt from Blanchard in an iron woman match.
- Worthy Opponent: Gail Kim came out of retirement to wrestle Tessa after months of antagonism between the two surrounding Tessa's heel antics, only for Tessa to beat Gail clean by submission at Rebellion and then embrace her in respect after the match.
- Wrestling Family: Is the daughter of the legendary Tully Blanchard of The Four Horsemen, and her late grandfather Joe was also a pro wrestler. Her stepfather is former wrestler (and her dad's former Arch-Enemy) Magnum T.A.. As she describes it, she was in the business before she was even born.
