Line #3 YMMV/GailKim


1	* BrokenBase:
2	** Her final match with WWE. Gail Kim was in a Diva's Battle Royale, and she decided to eliminate herself and walk out the match. She later stated that she did this to see if anyone in the back actually cared. Fans were divided over whether this was a well deserved TakeThat at management or if Gail Kim was being unprofessional. Given that, according to her, nobody ''did'' care, she can make a pretty good case that professionalism was wasted on the WWE back then.
3	** Gail's pushes when she returned to TNA are very divisive. Her fans loved that she was getting pushed after being completely wasted in WWE, and that the resulting matches were usually of a high quality. Her feud with Wrestling/TarynTerrell, for example, resulted in some of the most physically intense Knockouts matches to date, giving Taryn's transition from referee to wrestler major credibility, and she's also had quality matches with the likes of Wrestling/MickieJames, Jessicka Havok, Jade, one encounter with Wrestling/{{Rosemary}}, and even revisited her classic rivalry with [[Wrestling/KiaStevens Awesome Kong]]. On the other hand, others felt that the push at times tended to be overblown on several instances, turning her into something of a CreatorsPet (see below on that one).
4	** Her retirement match. Gail reportedly booked the match, and in it she won it and the Knockouts title for the last time. On one hand, this isn't really any different from how Wrestling/TrishStratus went out, and like Trish, Gail was a well-beloved member and mainstay of the company she worked for, so one could view it as a well-deserved honor for TNA's most popular and tenured Knockout. On the other hand, it is a time-honored tradition for wrestlers to lose their last match and put over another talent. Doing otherwise was considered selfish -- part of why Trish's retirement match doesn't get a lot of flak these days for having her win is because her opponent for the match, her RealLife best friend, Wrestling/{{Lita}}, would retire herself not long after and was already an established star. Gail put herself over a depleted and struggling Knockouts division, which rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. When she came back for one more match and finally ate the pin to put over Tessa Blanchard as the future ace of the Knockouts, it was much better received as a final match.
5	* CreatorsPet: In TNA during her second run. She immediately came back and won the Knockouts Tag Team titles within three weeks (with no storyline behind it). Two weeks later she held the Knockouts title again, cutting short the reign of Wrestling/VelvetSky who had been built up to be TNA's next big face (her reign lasted five weeks and she was missing from two weeks of TV). Even after losing the title, she was rarely beaten cleanly when TNA usually has no problem getting tenured Knockouts to put others over. She continued to dominate storylines to the degree where a program for the title was relegated to a ''subplot'' — so Gail's feud with the referee could take centre stage. This has lessened considerably in recent years, with Gail not being continually at the top of the division and putting over other Knockouts; however, her continued prominence in storylines caused Wrestling/MariaKanellis to become UnintentionallySympathetic in 2016 with a small pocket of the fanbase who felt that longtime prominent mainstays such as Gail and Velvet Sky were holding back the progression of several talented new Knockouts at a time when the division needed fresh blood. More than once, Gail has been called the "Wrestling/JohnCena" of the Knockouts division, and it isn't exactly an inaccurate description.
6	* CriticalBacklash: Her initial matches in WWE are viewed poorly by smarks, Gail herself even saying she was "awful". As the years have gone by, some people don't find the matches to have been that bad. Especially considering how women's wrestling would deteriorate in the years that followed.
7	* GrowingTheBeard: Her feud with Wrestling/{{Jacqueline}} in 2007 is viewed as when Gail really came into her own as a worker. TNA built the Knockouts' division around her as a result.
8	* SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments: In her retirement promo on November 5th, after winning her last Knockouts title, Gail thanked all the women who had paved the way for her and walked the road with her - Trish Stratus, Lita, Wrestling/MollyHolly, Awesome Kong, and Taryn Terrell.
9	* HilariousInHindsight:
10	** In one early 2003 match, Jonathan Coachman used an interestingly worded sentence "Gail Kim has yet to taste defeat here in WWE". Funny considering she would eventually name her finisher "Eat Defeat".
11	** During a throwaway segment in which [[Wrestling/BryanDanielson Daniel Bryan]] danced with all the face Divas. He was dancing with one of the Bella Twins and then moved on to dancing with Gail. Accidental Foreshadowing perhaps…
12	* [[HoYay Les Yay]]: With Wrestling/MadisonRayne though it kind of came out of nowhere.
13	* MinorityShowGhetto: In WWE at least. She was the first Women's Champion to be of Korean descent - but she held the title for five weeks, got DemotedToExtra and never achieved that kind of prominence again. But averted with a vengeance in TNA - where she was pushed as the figurehead of the Knockouts division and her feud with Awesome Kong proved to be a huge ratings draw for the company.
14	* {{Narm}}: The match where Velvet Sky won her second Knockouts title. It was a Fatal 4 Way, so Gail kept breaking up every pin. Except it was an ''Elimination'' match as well, so Gail's logic of breaking up pins was that she had to be the one to eliminate everyone. [[TooDumbToLive No wonder she ended up losing to Velvet]].
15	* NeverLiveItDown:
16	** That infamous match with Gail Kim and Mickie James where Gail botched the finish (to be fair, she had been legitimately knocked for a loop after a bump). It's rumored that was the reason WWE never really pushed her again.
17	** She's also not likely to live down her famous exit from WWE where she eliminated herself from a battle royal. Although she has gone onto better things upon her TNA return, it's one thing that's always brought up if she's mentioned.
18	** Gail's comments that she wouldn't return to WWE are often taken out of context and she's attacked for perceived bitterness. While there is some merit to this (see below), Twitter threads usually include her saying that she simply answered the questions honestly.
19	* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: Around the time of her feud with Taryn Terrell, she stopped getting pushed to the moon and stayed away from the title picture for a while. She also put over other Knockouts like Jessicka Havok and Taryn again, de-emphasising her InvincibleHero schtick. Respect has grown for her as she has continued to stay with TNA over the years while many other company regulars have departed.
20	* StrangledByTheRedString: A non-romantic example. When she returned to TNA, she and Madison Rayne were suddenly best friends complete with [[HoYay Les Yay]] tendencies. The two had no history and Madison hadn't even been in the company the last time Gail was. Granted, this was likely due to Karen Jarrett's influence more than anything else, but still...
21	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: This trope sums up her second WWE run. Stellar matches on Raw, [=SmackDown=] and Superstars but was never pushed in any meaningful way.

Context YMMV / GailKim