2005

I remember when I first used clips of this in 2007 and some people who hadn’t had the joys of experiencing TNA couldn’t believe this was a nationally-televised PPV. Watching wrestlers of the calibre of Styles, Williams and Should-Have-Been-Bigger-Than-He-Was-Bentley deal with shoddy production was like watching Gary Oldman appear in a school play as the Lion from Wizard Of Oz with a mop over his head.

TNA realised the shortcoming and just like UFC with Ortiz and Shamrock, had another Ultimate X on the following Impact.

(Straight from Taimapedia)”When TNA landed their Spike TV deal, they decided to ignite a Kevin Nash vs. Jeff Jarrett feud for the title to main event their first version of WrestleMania, Bound for Glory. The day of the event, Nash hurt himself picking up his son’s toy chest, so he was out. TNA solved this by having a battle royal that night to determine a Number One Contender. Rhino, who had been booked mainly as a midcarder to this point (and had been already booked on the card in a hardcore match), won the battle royal and pinned Jarrett to win the belt. TNA followed up on this underdog story by having Jarrett win the title back two days later at an iMPACT taping. Rhino was back to the midcard soon after.”

2006
Actually good PPV. Zbyzko vs. Young was brief and actually had a story behind it and the Kevin Nash Invitational Series was fabulous. TNA was very good pre-December 2006.

Somewhat coincidentally, Russo was rehired in December 2006.

2007
Don’t worry, they made up for it this year.

The Steiner Brothers gave a famous-for-people-who-love-silly-things interview which was easily the most entertaining thing Rick had done since he set his dogs on Sting.

And even better, Scott’s own FAT ASS would break a table on impact during the match itself.

Reverse Battle Royal. If reading those three words in succession confuses you, congratulations! Your brain functions reasonably well. Sadly this makes you over-qualified to work at TNA, but them’s the breaks.

Amazing Kong debuts and shows her personality. Both of them, in fact.
Apparently this was purely accidental, but it worked wonders for her career. Who knew?

And finally Angle vs. Sting started off well but turned into a car wreck reminiscent of…the last time Angle went driving, to be honest.

You can watch the whole match here , in case you want to watch Angle give Sting a knees-first 450 Splash and Sting forgetting to block a bat shot and thus having to become UNDERSTINGER to no-sell it and finish the match.

2008

By this point, TNA was firmly in the ‘WCW written with crayons on toilet paper’ era it’s never been able to shake the stigma of.

After using Hardcore Legends for referees for the previous Monster’s Ball Matches, TNA decided Steve ‘Mongo’ McMichael as the guest referee. The NEVER MIND THAT SHIT intro had only been around for a few months, so either TNA thought Mongo was a reputable Legend or someone in the company was watching YouTube videos instead of working.

If you feel like watching Mongo do his best to ruin a pretty damn good hardcore match, don’t worry: TNA’s uploaded that match in full too.

The other annual BFG traditional of ‘some guy losing to Sting in the main event’ was taken by Samoa Joe…who decided to try to end his career presumably by way of ‘massive Lloyds of London insurance scam’ by executing a sit-out dropkick down some stairs.

The entire event was covered before I could get a chance to cover it pretty convincingly by SAL Studios. So fuck him watch it here.

2009

Christopher Daniels died at the hands of Suicide. People waiting for Suicide to kill someone popped out the cheap champagne and made jokes via social media. Daniels survived and returned to start his most entertaining run ever in TNA, thus proving he’s Vegeta.

Booker T was supposed to lose to Matt Morgan in his final TNA appearance. Upon hearing this, he threw a fit (not unreasonable) and instead his last appearance was being stretchered off after the ladder match.

Overall, not a bad PPV aside from Styles slipping doing a springboard-something in the main event and the usual slips and shits in Full Metal Mayhem.

That then ended with Sting trying to put Styles over with a post-match mic that didn’t work and a production crew that decided to film his back rather than his front.

2010

2011
In a pull-apart brawl between Jeff Jarrett and Jeff Hardy, the fans cheered more for road agents D’Lo Brown and Al Snow when they hit the ring (fans also cheered for fellow agent Simon Diamond and Atlas Security). While Jarrett got dragged backstage, the Philly crowd chanted for D’Lo and Head (Al Snow’s mannequin head/”partner”). Shame Simon didn’t have anything chantable. Probably why he never main-evented.

TNA held the BFG Series, resulting in the mega-push for Bobby Roode who won the series and challenged Angle for the belt at BFG. Despite Angle’s injuries (which is hardly out of the ordinary for Frankenstein’s Athlete), Roode ended up losing. Everyone on the internet that cared either laughed or expressed great disappointment for this veritable cock-tease…until Roode’s partner James Storm pinned Angle on Impact, which caused Roode to turn heel and Storm to turn 200% over than he was before and gave the remaining fans a ridiculously good feud that’s still semi-around two years later.

A blind dog sometimes sniffs the right arse after all.

2012
Joey Ryan wrestled Al Snow in a weird feud were the fans were supposed to cheer Ryan because Snow was a washed-up WWE reject and Ryan was a hard-working indy guy…who wrestled and acted like a heel. Fans responded by chanting ”Head” and going to the concession stand to buy shares in the company. Feuds were started, wrestlers wrestled well, Storm and Roode killed each other again, Austin Aries headlined. Makes sense that a company (mostly rightly) demonized for being terrible and ran by monkeys would end up turning itself around…right before it’s about to drive off the unemployment cliff in a RV made of food stamps.