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The Magnificent Seven: The Top 7 TNA Moments

May 3, 2015 | Posted by Mike Chin

While I am not now, nor have I ever been a hardcore TNA fan, the company has had its moments that have captured my imagination, and forced me to recognize its potential to thrive as a legit major wrestling promotion. From great matches to compelling storylines to captivating business moves, TNA has done its share of things right. This week, I’m taking a look at my top seven TNA moments.

#7 The Dawn of the New Monday Night War

In January 2010, TNA decided to launch a new incarnation of the Monday Night War when the company teamed with SpikeTV to place Impact head to head with Monday Night Raw. Whether it was a counterstrike or pure happenstance we may never know for sure, but WWE opted to use the very same night for Bret Hart’s first appearance on Raw in over twelve years.

The Hitman is my all-time favorite wrestler, but just the same, my curiosity got the better of me and I couldn’t help but flip between stations to see just what TNA was up to. That broadcast saw the TNA return of Jeff Hardy, as well as the debuts of stars including Ric Flair, Rob Van Dam, Sean Morley, and Orlando Bloom, as well as Scott Hall and Sean Waltman resurfacing alongside Kevin Nash as “The Band” to tempt newly arrived Hulk Hogan toward the powers of darkness. All that, plus a very good main event bout between AJ Styles and Kurt Angle.

Hindsight tells us that TNA had no business picking a fight with WWE—they got spanked in the ratings not only for Impact’s Monday night debut, but for all the weeks to follow before they tucked tail and retreated. I may be the minority, but I’ve always admired the fact that TNA took its shot and tried to spark a new era of competition, electricity, and creativity. Moreover, all of the familiar faces on the show made TNA feel like about as big of a deal as it ever had.Thus, although the new Monday Night War amounted to little more than a minor massacre, the dawn of it, in and of itself, marked one of TNA’s most unlikely, boldest bright spots.

#6. Elix Skipper Hurricanranas Chris Harris Off the Top of a Cage at Turning Point 2004

In the early years of TNA, the promotion achieved a degree of notoriety by thinking differently, and celebrating types of performers who had gone under-utilized in WWE and WCW. There was the Knockouts division, which celebrated women’s wrestling as more than eye candy. There was the X-Division, which, despite not being about weight limits (it’s about no limits) tended to cast a spotlight on high-flying lightweight wrestlers. And there was the tag team division, in which TNA may have been most successful at cultivating new stars, including several guys who would mature into main event talents for the promotion.

Combine the high-risk elements of the X-Division with a solid tag team feud and you get America’s Most Wanted (Chris Harris and James Storm) vs. Triple X (Christopher Daniels and Elix Skipper)—the main event bout for Turning Point 2004, with the stipulation that the pair to lose the match would never team again. The match to follow was very good, if a bit of a spotfest. But it’s best remembered for its ultimate spot—a highlight reel moment that TNA milked for years to follow.

The moment: Elix Skipper tight-rope walked his way along the top of a steel cage en route to hurricanrana-ing Chris Harris off the top of the cage to the mat below. It was a legitimately high risk maneuver that required precision, athleticism, and more than a little luck on the part of Skipper, in addition to Harris doing his part to make the maneuver a success and take a sick bump. There’s a hint of irony, of course, to the fact that Skipper and Daniels went on to lose the match despite achieving such an iconic spot.

With varying degrees of success, TNA has long promoted itself as an alternative to WWE. This moment–for all of its risk, athleticism, and creativity–embodied that impulse like none other.

#5. Austin Aries Defeats Bobby Roode for the TNA Championsihp at Destination X 2012

Austin Aries returned to TNA and won the X-Division Championship in 2011. By 2012, he had held the title for a year and was on fire as an in-ring performer and as a personality. Thus, the wheels were in motion for Aries to state his case that he deserved a shot at the TNA Championship. Hulk Hogan—the authority figure of the day—gave Aries the shot, on the condition that he sacrifice his X-Division title in order to get it. Thus, “Option C” was born, by which every X-Division champ would have the choice to relinquish his title for a world title shot at the annual Destination X show.

Aries went on to win the title in a very good match. More important than the match itself, however, was the choice to push Aries to the top of the company. This was a key moment in TNA bucking its long-term plans, and honoring the tradition of the X-Division as a foundational piece of the company.Yes, you can argue that Roode should have retained the title until he could drop it to James Storm at Bound for Glory and tie up their year-long program. But TNA opted to move the strap to Aries instead and, in doing so, capitalized on the organic momentum of a special talent. They did what so few bookers—and the WWE in particular—can be oddly reticent to do, when they listened to their fans and pushed the guy with the company’s biggest reaction all the way to the top. In doing so, there was the added benefit of spreading the wealth come autumn—setting up Roode-Storm as a top grudge match at the biggest show of the year, and having Aries defend the title against Jeff Hardy as the Bound for Glory main event.

#4. AJ Styles Retains the TNA Championship at Bound for Glory 2009

It might seem strange to put a title retention rather than a title win on a countdown like this, and all the more strange when I’ll be the first to admit that Styles-Sting was not a particularly great match. Moreover, this wasn ‘t even AJ Styles’s first world title reign in TNA (thought it was his first TNA Championship run, after TNA had ended its affiliation with the NWA).

So here’s the thing—despite being a TNA star from the onset of the promotion, and rising to the top of the card early on, Styles was the victim of rollercoaster booking. He went from the top face of the company to extended runs in the tag team ranks, to playing a second-banana comedic heel who backed Christian, and many points in between.

But come fall 2009, Styles was back on track. He had won a five-way match at No Surrender to take the TNA Championship off of Kurt Angle and headed into Bound for Glory to face off with Sting. On paper, this might seem like a fun inter-generational passing the torch bout. The trouble was that it was far from a foregone conclusion that Sting would lose—up to that point, he was undefeated at Bound for Glory and coming in off three consecutive world title, main event wins in which he beat Jeff Jarrett (fair enough), Kurt Angle (a somewhat questionablebooking call), and Samoa Joe (a momentum killer that I’ll contend ruined The Samon Submission Machine for good in TNA when he should have been cemented as the promotion’s top guy).

So would Styles fall to TNA’s default world champ as well? I’m pleased to say he did not, retaining the title in a good match that marked a paradigm shift—while there have been lapses, this marked the point at which we no longer had to assume TNA would always choose big-name imports over homegrown talents, and there was the suggestion that Styles might finally, truly get an extended run as the biggest name in the company. That didn’t necessarily pan out the way it should have, but the moment was still a great one, and suggested great potential for TNA’s future at the time—a vision that the promotion has done a better job of subsequently realizing with champs like Eric Young and Bobby Roode.

#3. Kurt Angle Debuts

TNA has seen its share of major stars come and go, many of whom had previously made their names in WWE or WCW—names including Randy Savage, Sting, DDP, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Booker T, Hulk Hogan, and Ric Flair. Things were different, however, when Kurt Angle made his surprise debut at the conlusion of No Surrender 2006. Yes, he was already a big name and not a homegrown talent. And sure, injuries had probably set him a step past his prime as an athlete. Just the same, Angle showed up as a legit in-ring main event talent, still more than capable of producing MOTYCs with startling regularity.

Between marquee value and in-ring talent, I’d argue Angle was far and away TNA’s single most significant acquisition, who immediately reshaped the main event scene of the company. To that point, TNA immediately thrust him into a stellar rivalry with Samoa Joe, before he went on to strong programs with talents like AJ Styles, Sting, Jeff Hardy, and a host of others.

#2. Samoa Joe Defeats Kurt Angle for the TNA Championship

By Lockdown 2008, Angle was firmly established as the man in TNA, in no small part thanks to getting the better of Samoa Joe on his way up. Joe was an irresistible homegrown talent, though, and the time came when he would get his shot at the top spot in the company. The feud between the two came to a head in a steel cage match, with the build centered on each man training in an MMA style.

The result was a unique and excellent world title match, in which the two worked arguably the greatest worked MMA-style pro wrestling match ever put on in the US, before the action flowed into a more traditional professional wrestling model for a hot finish that saw Joe pin Angle clean. The moment paid off two years of storyline. Joe, a superior and unique talent got his just desserts as TNA’s golden boy, and Angle put him over like a true professional, in a sense, not so dissimilar from the way he cemented Brock Lesnar as a top WWE star at WrestleMania 19.

TNA stripped this moment of a little bit of its luster when it failed to capitalize on Joe’s momentum with a lackluster title run in which he struggled to overcome Booker T and ultimately dropped the strap to Sting at Bound for Glory. Just the same, if just for one night, TNA really did think differently and offered up a special match with the right finish.

#1. AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, and Christopher Daniels Redefine Triple Threat Matches at Unbreakable 2005

As I wrote earlier, in its early days, TNA gathered momentum and built an audience by presenting a different product from WWE, most notably focusing on the fast-paced action of the X-Division. The division made a big deal out of not operating based on weight limits, and this match may have marked the single best utilization of that concept, pitting three exceptional talents against each other—each man talented in a variety of areas, but just the same each offering a distinctive talent to differentiate him from his opponents: AJ Styles as the high-flyer, Christopher Daniels as the technician, Samoa Joe as the powerhouse.

The three men worked together to assemble a tremendously fast-paced match that may have been most remarkable for so rarely falling into the cliché pattern of one guy getting knocked out of action for the other two to duke it out, instead, creatively constructing spot after spot in which all three men were critical to the action. Daniels played his desperate heel champion part to a tee, Joe looked like a monster, and Styles was every bit the conquering hero that anyone would hope for him to be, ultimately picking up the pinfall victory after over twenty minutes of constant, explosive action. This was not only the greatest match in TNA history, but, I would go so far as to say, one of the greatest wrestling matches any wrestling promotion has ever put on. For that, it Styles, Joe, and Daniel get the nod for assembling TNA’s greatest moment.

What are your favorite TNA moments? Awesome Kong beating Gail Kim in the main event of Impact? The reveal of Immortal? Bully Ray powerbombing Dixie Carter through a table? Let us know what you think in the comments section. See you in seven.

Read more from Mike Chin at miketchin.com and follow him on Twitter @miketchin

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The Magnificent Seven, TNA, Mike Chin