TNA Year Four

TNA YEAR FOUR:  June 20 2005-June 18 2006

 

NOW you push it?

TNA entered year 4 still without a TV contract. On June 24, 2005 they began airing Impact on their website while continuing their 3 hour PPVs as scheduled. What do you do when you have no real promotion and figure no one is watching? You have your best shows ever, of course. Thanks in most part to what would be the peak of the X division.

Let’s start with Sean Waltman. Since filling in for Jeff Hardy at Hard Justice in May, Waltman had been on a bit of a good run. He was in the King of the Mountain match at Slammiversary and was paired with AJ Styles coming out of it. They had a match at No Surrender with both men’s former enemy Jerry Lynn returning from an injury to serve as ref:

7-17-05 AJ Styles vs. Sean Waltman

 

This led to a really great match between Lynn and Waltman at Sacrifice the next month (which unfortunately I couldn’t find online). And that would be about the end of Waltman’s career resurgence as he would no show the finals of the Chris Candido memorial tournament the next month and be fired.

Since everyone who was watching the shows had to be on the internet to do so…TNA decided to let viewers vote on which indy wrestler the company should bring in for an “Internet dream match” with Christopher Daniels. The options were Matt Sydal (Evan Bourne), Jay Lethal, Roderick Strong and Austin Aries. None of them were under contract at the time (we’ll at least hope they talked to them all beforehand) so it was kind of a cool deal. Sydal done some matches in TNA before and Strong and Lethal would get in soon after (Lethal for a long sometimes great run) but the poll was won by Austin Aries.

8-14-05 Christopher Daniels vs. Austin Aries

 

Still Unbroken

And then there was Samoa Joe. Joe debuted at Slammiversary and right away it was clear TNA had something special. Joe was already a big deal when they got him (from his excellent matches and domination in Ring of Honor) and hit the ground running right out of the gate:

7-17-05 Samoa Joe vs. Chris Sabin

 

In August 2005 TNA started their second (and to date, final) Super X Cup tournament.  The first round and semi finals aired on the web only Impact shows.  Joe beat Sonjay Dutt and Alex Shelley to reach the finals at Sacrifice against AJ Styles (who had beaten Michael Shane and Petey Williams):

8-14-05 Samoa Joe vs. AJ Styles

 

This led to the match that most people regard as the best the company has ever put on (and the only match in TNA history to earn ***** in the Wrestling Observer).  It was the first (and outside of gimmicks like Joe and Angle fighting for all the belts or the Angle/Joe vs. 3D match where all the belts were on the line…only) time that the X division title was defended in the main event of a 3 hour pay per view.  Much like when AMW and Triple X got the nod at Turning Point 2004…they sure made the most of it.  Here is TNA’s Year Four Match of the Year:  AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels vs Samoa Joe at Unbreakable:

 

Controversy in Canada

While they were off TV TNA let Raven do what he did best as champion: Bloody hardcore matches. He defeated Abyss in a dog collar match at No Surrender only to be Gored by a debuting Rhino at show’s end. This was during the time when Matt Hardy was working everyone to get his job back in WWE and there was a lot of buzz that he’d show up in TNA. Jeff Jarrett mocked fans for believing it during the pre-show (in reality they were trying to get him in and had visions of a Hardy reunion dancing in their heads. Depending on who you believe there was at least a point where they believed he was going to end up in the company). We got Rhino instead and given how Hardy’s initial return to WWE went and more-so how his eventual TNA time was…Rhino didn’t really end up being the short straw.

Jarrett and Rhino teamed up to beat Raven and Sabu at Sacrifice. This led to a successful title defense for Raven against Rhino at Unbreakable. TNA would run their final Web Impact on September 9 and Unbreakable on September 11. It looked like Raven was going to be in the top position heading into a new era for the company.

But of course he wasn’t.

 

4 days after Unbreakable Raven lost the title to Jeff Jarrett at a Border City Wrestling show when America’s Most Wanted turned heel and helped him.  This had actually been built up to pretty well with Jarrett becoming increasingly paranoid that he was going to be pushed out of TNA because of all the talent that was trying to come in.  He even went so far as to tell the still babyface AMW that they should watch their backs too because TNA was looking to bring in big name tag teams…specifically (but not by name) bringing up the Dudleys.  Jarrett thought he needed the NWA title to protect his position and thanks to AMW buying in…he got it.

 

Everyone!  Back to positions!

If you’ve been following the narrative so far it should be obvious to you why Jarrett got his title back. TNA Impact debuted on Spike TV on October 1 2005 with a one hour 11 pm Saturday Night time slot. Spike in itself is a fascinating little story having been the TV home of ECW and until the week prior to Impact debuting…the home of Monday Night Raw. That means the network has had wrestling programming airing on their network since August 1999…provided by three different companies.

With AJ Styles already holding the X title (since Unbreakable) and Jarrett now back in place as NWA Champion…that just left one part of their go to trio in need of getting their belts back. It would take a whole 10 days after the first Impact for that to happen (although it wouldn’t air until the 22nd). Before they got there, however, it turned out that Jarrett was right about the Dudleys (now called Team 3D for legal reasons) coming in. They debuted on the first Impact of the Spike TV era. On the October 8 Impact Team 3D beat AMW by DQ when Gail Kim debuted as AMW’s manager and low blowed Brother Ray (He couldn’t be Bubba anymore. D-Von’s real name is Devon so there wasn’t a ton that could be done about that). Jarrett and AMW left 3D a bloody mess which led to one of the all time great TNA produced segments…the Team 3D funeral:

 

Rhino is bound for fleeting glory

You’ll recall that TNA had the idea of naming their flagship PPV “Bound for Glory” back when they thought Hulk Hogan was coming in. Well Hogan would in fact work a Bound for Glory…in 2011…but that didn’t do them much good in 2005. Jarrett was scheduled to defend the NWA title against Kevin Nash (who had he won would have become only the second person to win the WWE, NWA and WCW titles, along with Ric Flair. Kurt Angle just missed kind of doing it with a WWE title, a WWE booked WCW title and he won the title the day the NWA took their belts from TNA but it was referred to as just the World Heavyweight championship and the NWA doesn’t recognize it…and TNA stripped him due to a wonky finish anyway. After winning the vacant TNA title at the King of the Mountain that year TNA doesn’t recognize that first win anymore either). Deep breath. Anyway the day before the show Nash went to the hospital with chest pains and couldn’t go. That was a long road to nowhere.

Left with no main event for the biggest show of their year TNA decided to have a gauntlet match (like a mini royal rumble) to find a new challenger. What actually made this kind of work was watching guys who had busted their asses on the show already (all 4 members of the brutal Monster’s Ball match or AJ Styles after competing for 30 minutes) limp out to try and earn a title shot was pretty damn cool. In the end Rhino survived the Monster’s Ball, won the gauntlet and pinned Jeff Jarrett to win the NWA title. Of course he only got the title so people didn’t feel completely ripped off from getting a replacement challenger, and he’d lose the belt back 2 days later at the Impact taping…but it was a nice little story for one night.

The rest of the card had some good stuff on it. Jushin Liger was flown in to put Samoa Joe over. Petey Wlliams won an Ultimate X (where the X fell off a few times…the only time since the first Ultimate X where they had this problem. The X actually fell into Williams’ hands and since he was supposed to win anyway they just went with that finish. They’d do a “make good” on this on a November prime time special, giving a rematch with a fully secured X. Petey won that too). AMW retained their tag titles over the Naturals. Here’s the 3 best matches from the show (Alex Shelley vs. Austin Aries vs. Roderick Strong vs. Sonjay Dutt from the countdown show, AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels in Iron Man 2 and Rhino vs. Jeff Hardy vs. Sabu vs. Abyss in Monsters Ball 2):

10-23-05 – Sonjay Dutt vs. Austin Aries vs. Roderick Strong vs. Alex Shelley

 

10-23-05 – Styles/Daniels Iron Man 2

 

10-23-05 – Monsters Ball 2

 

The event ended with Team 3D returning to take out Jarrett and his troops.

Speaking of that Prime Time special…it aired on November 3 2005 (it was taped 2 days after BFG) and is where Jarrett won the NWA title back, they did the Ultimate X rematch and this fucking incredible 6 man tag stole the show:

11-3-05 AJ Styles, Austin Aries & Sonjay Dutt vs. Samoa Joe, Christopher Daniels & Alex Shelley

 

All of the Jarrett/AMW/Rhino/Team 3D stuff would come to a head at the next months ppv “Genesis” in a wild 6 man tag:

11-13-05 – Jarrett/AMW vs. Rhino/3D

 

But that wasn’t what Genesis was remembered for.

 

Now you’re really on your own

Christian became the first person to jump from WWE to TNA. Unless you count Gail Kim’s return he might still be the only one. Team 3D had been released and Kurt Angle crazied his way out of WWE and into TNA but only he thinks that was on purpose. I guess you can have Jeff Hardy’s 2010 return if you want since WWE wanted and expected him back. Either way Christian came to TNA just as it looked like his WWE career was on the rise. He had started to get massively over and seemed to be moving up the card so it was kind of surprising that he jumped. But he had saved his money and probably could do with a break from the grind of the WWE so it happened.
Christian was immediately pushed to the top, becoming the #1 contender to the NWA title in December and beating Jarrett for the belt in February of 2006.

Shit…now I have to stay a while

Christian’s big feud as NWA Champion was with Abyss. They had a good match at Lockdown that would later help Dr. House solve a medical mystery. Instead of the match here’s a videos of Abyss and Mitchell stalking Christian and his wife as shot by Alex Shelley’s Paparazzi productions.

 

Holy crap this is his eighth year in the company 

TNA announced on a New Year’s Eve special (they had more specials in their first 3 months on Spike than in all the years since combined) that Sting was coming to TNA.  You are supposed to forget that he had come in before.  So Sting teamed with Christian to beat Jeff Jarrett and Monty Brown and then promptly retired.  Jarrett was unconvinced that Sting was really gone for good so he sent Alex Shelley to investigate.

 

So Jarrett’s paranoia led to Sting’s return…but as is always the case with Sting…someone was one step ahead of him:

 

Third times the charm

When Billy Gunn showed up in TNA wanting to join with Road Dogg and party like it was 1997…that didn’t sit well with Konnan. He turned on his 3 Live Kru partners and started his own faction…the Latin American Xchange. Homicide was brought in to the company and paired with Apolo for the initial grouping. Apolo would no show an event and get himself fired so Konnan brought in a guy named Machete. He wasn’t any good so Konnan kicked him out and brought in Hernandez.

As year 4 came to a close the LAX was starting to get attention when they refused to wrestle because they felt discriminated against. They set up a border around the Spanish announce table and would beat up any gringo’s that crossed it. Konnan was cutting awesome promos playing off of the hot button illegal immigration issue and everything about the act started to fall into place. It wouldn’t be until year 5 that they really got rolling…but it bared mentioning here since it took such an odd journey before coming together.

No joke, arguably the best act TNA ever came up with

On the road again

Exciting things started to happen for the company as they marched towards the end of year 4.  They ran their first house show in Plymouth, Michigan on March 17 2006.  No matter how questionable the TV product or ppv events have been at times since…the TNA house shows almost always generate a positive response for being a fun time with a great interactive atmosphere.  Also Don West spent a lot of time on the road selling a fuck ton of merchandise and almost without a doubt drew more money than anyone in the 10 years of TNA.

Seen here trying to hitchhike to Wenatchee, Washington

On April 13 Spike TV rewarded TNA’s good showing on Saturday Nights with a better day to broadcast Impact, Thursday nights at 11.  They did something interesting with that first show and joined a Samoa Joe/Christopher Daniels match in progress so that the first thing viewers of the previous UFC show would see was Joe busting Daniels open.  The main event of the show was Sting’s first TV match since the last Nitro broadcast as he defeated Eric Young.

The rise of Joe

Samoa Joe finally got his shot at the X division title at Turning Point way back in December 2005.  He and Styles had a fucking war that I think was every bit as good as the Unbreakable 3 way:

12-22-05 AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe

 

The next month he’d defend his X division title against Christopher Daniels:

1-15-06 Christopher Daniels vs. Samoa Joe

 

Joe would continue to feud with both Styles and Daniels for the next couple of months. They had rematches of their Unbreakable 3 way but they never lived up to the original (they’d have one in 2009 that would though). After that Sabu would put Joe over at Lockdown on his way out the door to join the WWE.

As Sacrifice approached in May, Sting was looking for a partner to go against Jeff Jarrett and Scott Steiner. There were teases on Impact of Lex Luger, Buff Bagwell and Rick Steiner…but in the end Sting picked Samoa Joe to be his partner. The highlight of the match was the interaction between Joe and Steiner. The two would meet in a big singles match at Slammiversary. How much did people want to see this match?

Very much.  That’s the actual reaction to the announcement.

 

Putting the cap on a great year with a…wait what in the fuck?

TNA’s 4th Slammiversary came on June 18 2006.  Joe beat Steiner (and watch the awesome promo video while you’re at it):

 

6-18-06 – Samoa Joe vs. Scott Steiner

 

 

After months of trying to beat Joe, AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels formed a tag team and won the NWA tag titles in a great match against America’s Most Wanted:

6-18-06 – AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels vs. AMW

 

And Jeff Jarrett won the NWA title back in a King of the Mountain match.

…

Wait…what in the fuck?

People pelted the ring with garbage because we all thought we were past this. This would be the start of the Jarrett’s final NWA title reign and the start of the last stretch where Jeff Jarrett would not be completely awesome. But it was a lot to take at the time. It’s funny that by far TNA’s best year ended on such an unbelievably sour note. Or perhaps it was an omen of things to come.

It’s easy to forgive him now

Even the wrap up section for year 4 isn’t filled with garbage

There was a World X Cup in year 4 that was pretty unmemorable aside from Jushin Liger captaining team Japan. Team TNA won when Chris Sabin beat Petey Williams in a singles match on Impact when their teams ended up tied at the end of the Cup proper. Jeff Hardy got himself fired for no showing again. Team 3D feuded with the New Age Outlaws (and they’d have a shockingly fun street fight at one point). Bobby Heenan made an appearance and sat in for commentary on a baseball crossover match.

TNA did a no ropes barbed wire match between Abyss and Sabu.

 

Hiroshi Tanahashi was brought in to wrestle AJ Styles in a match between two of the best wrestlers in the world…that was decided by a run in by…Shannon Moore. Moore would get a win over Styles and then bolt for WWE.

TNA would run the ECW arena for a house show that was off the charts great.

It’s worth going out of your way to see for the atmosphere alone. Abyss throwing Spike Dudley for the crowd surf spot, Jeff Jarrett coming out and running down what a shit hole the place was, a great Joe/Daniels/Styles 3 way…and the event ended when Bubba Ray got them to redo the chair throwing incident. It’s something else.

How good was TNA year 4? I couldn’t even find a place to put this X division 4 way where Chris Sabin, Sonjay Dutt, Puma and Petey Williams tear the house down: