AJ Styles' TNA career as a whole holds a Crowning Record of Awesome -- starting with Victory Road 2004 (November 2004; the first monthly pay-per-view from the promotion) and ending with Genesis 2009 (January 2009), "The Phenomenal One" had a match at every monthly pay-per-view in between (and including) those two events -- if you do the math, he wrestled on 51 straight pay-per-views. It's a streak that is virtually unheard of in the pay-per-view era of pro wrestling, and will likely never be topped.
For the record, he wrestled 52 matches (he wrestled twice on a single PPV) during this streak, with a win-loss record of 26 wins, 25 losses, and 1 no-contest. During this period, he won the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, the X-Division Championship twice, and Tag Team championships three times (the NWA Tag Team titles twice with Christopher Daniels, and the TNA Tag Team titles once with Tomko).
And counting Against All Odds 2009, he at least appeared on every monthly PPV the promotion put on up through Victory Road 2009 (he didn't appear at Hard Justice 2009 the next month, ending his incredible streak).
One of Elix Skipper's most well-known moves is to walk the ring ropes from one turnbuckle to another and deliver a Rana to the man sitting on the turnbuckle. At Turning Point 2004, he would pull this move off while both he and his opponent were on top of a steel cage. It has to be seen to be believed. (And this feat was matched - if not outright topped - by America's Most Wanted performing their finishing maneuver, the Death Sentence, from the top of the cage.) You can watch the full match here.
Gail Kim made history in the promotion when she was crowned the first TNA Women's Champion (or Knockouts Champion, if you prefer). She would be the standardbearer for the division (which garnered praise from both critics and fans of the promotion) for months, feuding with the top talent in the division - most infamously with Awesome Kong.
Kurt Angle's debut video. Not so much because of its content, but because in an era where every little thing gets leaked online and five or six journalists (including Dave Meltzer) are dedicated to being backstage reporters on the business, everyone was caught off-guard by it...including just about the entire TNA locker room.
And then there's his initial confrontation with then-reigning company badass Samoa Joe, where Kurt walks up to him and headbutts him right in the middle of the ring. What makes it even crazier is that, in wrestling, everybody knows that you just don't headbutt a Samoan, as you're likely to end up on the worse end of the deal. Kurt actually ended up getting the better of Joe.
And he'd get the better of Joe again in their first match together, when Angle handed Joe his first official loss in TNA after a staggering 16 month undefeated streak. Not only did he beat him, he beat him by making him tap out to the ankle lock.
The X-Division has had its fair share of "holy s** t" moments and good matches, but the division's Crowning Moment is undoubtedly the "Unbreakable Triple Threat" -- the main event match from the 2005 pay-per-view Unbreakable between AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, and Christopher Daniels for the X-Division Championship. It's still considered both the best X-Division match and the best match ever in the history of the promotion.
Four years later, this match would play out again as the main event of Turning Point 2009, with AJ defending the TNA World Championship against Daniels and Joe. The match, heavily anticipated by fans and smarks alike, ended up exceeding expectations; it's now considered one of the best matches of the year, and one of the best TNA matches in a loooooooong time.
Hulk Hogan signed on to TNA just a few weeks prior to Turning Point, and the popular opinion amongst smarks is that he'll end up destroying TNA. The fans at the Impact Zone made their feelings known on what they wanted to see during the Triple Threat Match by chanting "SCREW HULK HOGAN!" * clap, clap, clap-clap-clap*
Rhino had a CMoA at the inaugural Bound for Glory pay-per-view in 2005. Originally, he was only booked in the Monster's Ball no-disqualification match against Jeff Hardy, Sabu, and Abyss. Problem was, Kevin Nash had complained of chest pains the night before, taking him out of the main event. It was decided at the last minute that Rhino would step up as the number one contender for Jeff Jarrett's NWA heavyweight title. Not only did Rhino win the Monster's Ball match, he also won a ten-man gauntlet to determine Jarrett's challenger, then defeated Jarrett himself immediately after to win the title and close the show.
Bound for Glory was seen, in itself, as a CMoA for the entire company, as TNA weathered the loss of Kevin Nash from the main event quite well, and produced its most ambitiously booked (up to that point) and arguably best show to date. From top to bottom, the entire roster stepped up and delivered several CMoAs. For example:
In the pre-show match (an X-Division four-way match), Austin Aries, Roderick Strong, Sonjay Dutt, and Alex Shelley caught one another in one big simultaneous submission.
Samoa Joe versus Jushin Liger. While the match itself ultimately wasn't as great as expected (given Joe's indy cred and Liger's status as a puroresu legend), Joe's ring entrance, complete with Samoan dancers, was memorable in and of itself.
The aformentioned Monster's Ball match; not only was it the first of Rhino's three wins of the night, but Jeff Hardy damn near killed himself when he leaped off the top of the ring entrance tunnel for a Swanton Bomb and narrowly missed the edge of the stage. (It's also worth mentioning that the match was as violent as advertised. You can watch the full match here.)
AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels also held a classic 30-minute Iron Man match that went to the last second, where Styles nailed Daniels with the Styles Clash to snatch the only pinfall of the match.
Taylor Wilde is full of this trope. At Victory Road 2008, she gave the gargantuan Awesome Kong a freaking armdrag from the top rope, sending her across the ring. At Sacrifice 2009, she gave Daffney a Death Valley Driver headfirst onto a trash can. And at Slammiversary 2009, she dove at Daffney through a table, and threw Daffney onto a pile of thumbtacks!
Victory Road 2008 was the stage for a Crowning Moment of Awesome for Japanese wrestler Masato Yoshino during the opening match. It was the World X-Cup Elimination Match: a 12-man elimination tag match between the four teams competing in the World X-Cup tournament that was pretty much 20-plus minutes of nonstop action. The underlying story of the match was that Team Japan suffered early loses of two of its members, forcing Yoshino to go the rest of the match alone. Yoshino would make it down to the final two, where he would go down in defeat to Team TNA's Alex Shelley, but not before trading many near falls despite the fact that Team TNA was the dominant team in the match (two of the final four competitors were Team TNA's Shelley and Chris Sabin, better known as the Motor City Machineguns).
In a non-kayfabe ascept, this match was a CMoA for all twelve wrestlers in the match. It pretty much stole the entire show, as it was undoubtedly the match of the night in spite of the fact that both a Full Metal Mayhem match (TNA's version of TLC) and an Ultimate X match were on the card, and it did this despite the fact that nine of the twelve wrestlers in the match (including the aforementioned Yoshino) were virtual unknowns to 90% of the audience.
Destination X 2008 had several for both Kaz and Eric Young. Kaz's gimmick was an extremely acrobatic and skilled guy with no fear whatsoever. Eric's gimick was that of a coward scared of his own entrance pyro. They had to face Black Reign and Rellik, two very strong and very scary monster heels. A few minutes in, Eric ran to the back, leaving Kaz all alone. For several minutes, Kaz to fight. When all seemed lost, Superman-like music started to play, and Eric came back, in a superhero costume! Ignoring his second entrance pyro, he stormed the ring and pwned the two monsters, winning the match by getting both of them on his shoulders and delivering a Death Valley Driver.
Backstage interviewer Lauren Brooke got one at Victory Road 2009, when she assisted Abyss by taking down Daffney, a very strong and scary woman, then warning Abyss about Dr. Stevie's stun gun. Her seeming to finally accept him as her boyfriend was icing on the cake.
Earl Hebner got one during a match involving The Beautiful People when he proved he was Not Distracted by the Sexy, but was smart enough to make out with Lacey Von Erich anyway before ejecting her from ringside.
January 4th, 2010. The entire episode. From Hogan (and Bischoff's!) debuts to the reformation of the Wolfpac to the appearance of Ric Flair to AJ Styles and Kurt Angle's 25-minute main event with more near-falls than any match in a long time. They outclassed WWE big time.
Only if you ignore the absolutely AWFUL Asylum Match that kicked off the show with a domed cage painted bright red that made it impossible to see into and a DQ finish that had even the usually positive TNA crowd screaming "THIS IS BULLSHIT!", the fact that despite all of Hogan's speeches about TNA being about the new generation almost no time was spent with the new generation instead having random cameos from guys like Val Venis, Orlando Jordan, and the Nasty Boys, among others, to the fact that despite the first hour of the special showing Hogan coming by limo (and hyping it EVERY. FIVE. MINUTES.) Hogan stated he'd been in the back of the arena all day. But yeah other than that, TNA definately outclassed the Hart/Michaels/McMahon confrontation that's been over a decade in the making.
The Monday Night Impact special is a definitely Your Mileage May Vary as far as quality goes, but the 1.5 rating the show got is factual basis for a CMoA and TNA's presence most certainly hurt RAW's rating that week as they scored an average rating even with the presence of Bret Hart.
Unless you look closer and realize the rating dropped like a brick once RAW came on and ended as a 1.3 at the end of the show (TNA's usual rating) and RAW's rating only went up. And the fact that competed against the Fiesta Bowl didn't help matters.
After Bubba the Love Sponge crossed the line by putting "Fuck Haiti" on his Twitter page, Awesome Kong punched him out. Granted, it ended up costing Kong her job, but karma works in mysterious ways: a couple of months later, after ambushing Kong on a radio show and went on a racially-tinged tirade, Bubba himself was fired from TNA.
Even better: Bubba's last real appearance on TNA ended with Mick Foleypunching Bubba in the face.
Lockdown 2010 got TNA an early contender for Match of the Year with the "escape-only" Steel Cage Match between Kurt Angle and Mr. Anderson. It's considered to be Anderson's best match to date, and one of Kurt's finest performances (in a career filled to the brim with outstanding performances).
If anyone ever needs proof that tag team wrestling is capable of putting on certifiable Match of the Year-worthy contests, they should look no further than the Best of 5 series between the Motor City Machineguns (Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin) and Beer Money (Robert Roode and James Storm) for the TNA World Tag Team Championship:
To begin with, the whole feud started at Victory Road 2010, when Beer Money and the Guns fought over the vacant tag titles. After a double-pinfall counted by two refs, the match was restarted and the Guns won. But the dispute concerning the pinfalls would set up the series itself, which played out over the next month on Impact.
Beer Money would start the series strong. The first match in the series, a ladder match, would determine who would set the stipulation for the next match in the series (each successive match in the series would carry this stipulation as well). Beer Money trounced the Guns thanks to a shot from a beer bottle, taking the match and getting the Guns in a Street Fight the next week. Roode and Storm pulled off the same shenanigans and picked up the second match, choosing to face Shelley and Sabin in a Cage Match the next week.
The Guns were now in the ultimate pressure situation: they needed to win three successive matches to retain their titles. In the cage match, the Guns saw the beer bottle trick coming and let Beer Money screw themselves over by ducking out of the way, picking up the win. The next match was right up the Guns' alley: an Ultimate X Match. Beer Money fought hard, but the Guns had the edge and took the match, evening the situation up. The final match would decide who had the right to call themselves the tag champs. Initially, the final match was scheduled for Hard Justice 2010, but the PPV was changed to Hardcore Justice and the match was moved to the Impact following the PPV...
And that final match was a contest of sheer awesome: a Two Out of Three Falls Match that saw some amazing high-flying offense by both teams (though the Guns doled out more), as well as many dramatic near falls. In the end, the Guns picked up the final fall and retained their titles, legitimizing themselves in many fans' eyes after years of seemingly being ignored and held back from the top by TNA management. After the match, Mike Tenay asked Taz which one of the five matches in the series was worthy of Match of the Year candidacy. Taz's response? "Pick one. Any one." Match of the Year chants did break out after the 2-out-of-3-Falls match, so it's pretty clear which one the fans approve of most. But the whole series was an amazing testament to both teams' abilities and chemistry together, and is absolutely worth watching in its entirety.
Dec 9, 2010. Velvet Sky Took a Level In Badass. Before their tag team match, Sarita gave her a Hannibal Lecture on how Velvet is dependent on her partner Angelina Love to win anything, until Velvet spears her so fast that it's like she did a Flash Step, then mercilessly beats her down. However, because Angelina got the pinfall, Sarita gloated that she proved her point.
The steel cage match between Mickie James and Tara, which ended with Mickie pinning Tara after hitting a Thesz Press from the top of the cage.
Against All Odds 2010 was D'Angelo Dinero's CMOA (Sadly among his few in the company) when he competed in the Eight Card Stud Tournament to become the number one contender to the TNA World Championship. Through the evening, Dinero had three excellent matches against Desmond Wolfe, Matt Morgan and Mr. Anderson (ANDERSON!) with him putting on a great performance in each match that culminated in Pope winning the tournament after overcoming a beating from the Band and Anderson himself. A great night for the Pope in general.
On February 3rd 2011, after Kevin Nash and Booker T jumped ship to WWE (and thus thwarted TNA's attempt to reunite the Main Event Mafia), TNA pulls an Author's Saving Throw and finally give the fans what they've been asking for since Immortal's first night of existence, that actually made a lot more sense than their original plan would've. Jeff Hardy is in a rematch for the TNA World Championship with new champ Mr. Anderson, and the ref gets knocked out; Jeff uses the opportunity to call down Immortal and have them wail on Anderson. Per usual, AJ Styles and the rest of Fortune came out to assist in the beating - but just before AJ lays a hand on Anderson, he pulls his punch and throws up the Fortune handsign. With that signal, Beer Money and Kazarian turn the tables on Immortal and eject them from the ring, then Robert Roode clotheslines Hardy and AJ nails the Styles Clash, effectively turning Fortune face and costing Hardy the match. AJ then spent the next segment putting his Ric Flair-taught mic skills to work, firing up the crowd in a pretty decent Flairesque promo. The best part is that Ric was gone that night, leaving AJ to sell the angle almost entirely on his own - which he did like a champ.
The following week, it got even better. When Immortal came out to address the fans, Jeff Jarrett demanded Fortune to come out. Once they did, Jarrett proceeded to browbeat them about being "ungrateful nobodies", since he gave them the opportunity they needed by signing them to TNA. Beer Money's Robert Roode (someone not really known for his mic skills) snatched the mic after a minute of this and flat-out told Jarrett to shut up and cut the horseshit. Roode then launched into an epic speech of his own, reminding everyone in Immortal that Fortune is the backbone that built TNA, yet all four of them kept on getting overlooked by the next "savior" to be brought in every few months by TNA management. This time around, they weren't about to stand by and watch their opportunity to build TNA up into something better pass them by. Essentially, the same character purpose that led Fortune to come together as heels (and administer bloody assaults to EV2.0) was carried over perfectly into the group's face turn against Immortal. Better yet, not one fan didn't go with it.
It would appear the entire Fortune vs. Immortal angle is just spawning one Crowning Moment after another. After Ric Flair betrays Fortune, despite his support of the group earlier, he comes out to the ring and gives a A God Am I speech before calling AJ Styles down to the ring. AJ responds to Flair's Hannibal Lecture with an EPICShut UP, Hannibal, followed by a beatdown that left Flair near-naked and beaten half to death. Immortal's newest hired gun, Hernandez, tried to help, but AJ kept turning the tables, treating Hernandez like a mere nuisance. Yeah, Immortal eventually got the upper hand...for all of five seconds; Fortune quickly rushed the ring and chased them all off. The capper to this? Hernandez, while retreating, walks right into another beatdown - this one from a pissed-off Matt Morgan!
More impressive is that Flair's normal mic skills, despite being top notch as they always were, were overshadowed by AJ's. AJ Styles outdid the "stylin' and profilin'" Nature Boy at his own game!
Yet another on the March 17th episode. AJ is doing a promo on his upcoming #1 contender match when Ric comes in to try and start another Hannibal Lecture. AJ doesn't even let Flair finish his sentence and decks him to the ground, having gotten fed up with Flair's lectures. Crosses over into Crowning Moment of Funny when he states how good it felt to do so and just walks off.
If this keeps up, Fourtune is going to need its own page! At the end of the March 31 edition of TNA, Immortal has lured Fortune into a beatdown locked in a steel cage. Just when it seems the episode will end in Immortal's favor, Christopher Danielsrushes out of the crowd, climbs the steel cage and takes out all of Immortal in one move! He caps it off by pulling out his best friend AJ Styles (who was recently taken out by Bubba) signature pose, as if saying "This is for AJ!" (which he then cuts a promo with Fortune saying exactly that). Its hard to tell which is more awesome, the fact Daniels is back or the fact he's with Fortune!
Another one the next week. Daniels comes out and demands to be put into Lockdown in AJ's place. Flair and Immortal come out to the ring and Flair begins another Hannibal Lecture and states there's no way Daniels can be in TNA because Eric and Hogan wouldn't dream of letting him. Daniels reveals he's already one step ahead of Immortal and went over their heads to the network in order to get himself a contract and inserted into the match. To cap it off, he leads Fortune in an attack on Immortal and drives them out of the ring.
When AJ returns to Impact!, he calls out Bully Ray. Being the Dirty Coward he is, Bully Ray tries to talk big and not enter the steel cage that AJ has prepared. So Daniels rushes the ring and locks Bully Ray in with AJ. Cue an extremely well deserved No-Holds-Barred Beatdown. If Ray hadn't got out of dodge, he'd have been put through a table by a flying attack from the top of the cage.
The opening segment of the May 5, 2011 episode of Impact saw Hulk Hogan and Immortal beat on three TNA officials only to come out on the back end of a brawl against Sting, Rob Van Dam, and Fortune. While Immortal was backing up the ramp, Bobby Roode called Hogan out and made sure he listened by ceaselessly calling him a coward, then finally said what everyone in TNA had been thinking about him, particularly over the firing of Jay Lethal, a personal friend of Roode's. Yep. Fortune is definitely going to need its own section by the time this is over.
The Fortune vs. Immortal match at Lethal Lockdown had it's fair share, including Daniels hitting a crossbody from the top of the cage to Matt Hardy and Abyss. However, the crowner has to be AJ Styles returning to help Fortune pull out the win and taking a measure of revenge on Bully Ray for taking him out. Bully Ray reacting like he just saw a ghost is the best part.
May 19th begins with Immortal in the ring, bragging, but are then interupted by Brain Kendrick leading the X Division, who have been royally ticked off at Immortal for overlooking them. After Eric gives each a match with stacked odds, they respond with a resounding "Bring It On". Afterwards, Immortal ends up on the short end of a major beatdown from both the X Division and Fortune. The sight of these two groups uniting to beat up Immortal is as great as one would expect.
After a couple months off as the show focused on Slammiversary and Destination X, the campaign for Fortune to get its own "Awesome" page went springing back in full. Sting had a rematch against Mr. Anderson for the World Heavyweight Championship set for July 14 after Anderson had beat him at Slammiversary, but Anderson had made a Deal with the Devil by joining Immortal the week before the rematch. So during Anderson's welcoming party at the start of the show on the 14th, Sting reveals that he's got a group of friends that are going to have his back tonight to ensure he gets Anderson by himself, in the form of four Monster Clowns. Each of the evil clowns goes beating up an Immortal member, which continues throughout the night until Bully Ray and Gunner are the only ones left. Gunner goes looking for a fight with the clowns in the parking lot (Bully Ray chickened out) and gets summarily beaten down. Then they finally unmask themselves, discuss Bully Ray, and say he's taken care of. Who are the four evil clowns? You guessed it. Fortune.
As for Bully Ray being taken care of? He tried to interfere in the Sting-Anderson title match after a ref bump, only to find himself cleared from the scene by lighting games and a fifth evil clown, which allowed Sting to get the clean win on Ken to take the title. That fifth clown? Number one contender Kurt Angle. Who, let's remember, was the main guy that kept Bischoff off of Fortune's trail when they originally turned on Immortalby making the entire "anti!Them" operation look like a Main Event Mafia revival. Between this, the parking lot comment, the clown suit worn by Angle, and the fact that there were lighting games and a fifth clown suit in the first place, it's heavily implied Fortune got Kurt in on the big plan and/or Sting anticipated his and Bully Ray's run-ins and timed it perfectly. At the same time, he doesn't look like a hypocrite for saying earlier that night that he was interested in facing and beating either Sting or Anderson, primarily because he never touched Anderson.
The following week on July 28, Beer Money finally shut up MexicanAmerica. After Anarquia called out Beer Money in his usual grating voice from Latin hell, they came out to the ring. He continued to drone on in Spanglish, being booed all the while, until finally James Storm took the mic and told him to "SHUT. UP." And the crowd couldn't have been happier. After a bit of would-be racist hypocritical humor about Mexican America cutting grass ("would-be" because they really are that bad), Storm decided to "reintroduce" Beer Money by putting Roode over as a money-making take-no-nonsense ass-kicker and listing every country American thing about himself in the long-winded catchphrase style made famous by Ric Flair and The Rock. He then promises to kick their ass not only for the fans in the Impact Zone and at home, but also the great luchadores (like the Guerreros) and all the other Hispanics effectively disgraced by Mexican America. After a bit of green card Red Forman humor (again appropriate in this case because of the targets' character bents), Storm turns it over to Roode, who puts the cap on it with Storm's catchphrase before Beer Money's music comes back on. Mexican America was just effectively silenced in a promo AT LONG LAST.
Even better, Beer Money defeated Mexican America and lived up to their talk!
Arguably the best match at Hardcore Justice was the Fortune vs. Immortal six-man tag, but the real moment that could be classified as awesome was the finish. Gunner tried to throw AJ over the top rope through a table set up at ringside, but Daniels (who over the past few weeks had been trying to talk to AJ about…something, to the point it even cost him a match once) got on the apron, pushed AJ back in the ring, and fought Gunner, taking the table bump in AJ's stead as Gunner grabbed him and dove through it with him. Aside from being a refreshing twist in the usually-predictable "trouble in paradise" storyline, this self-sacrifice led to AJ hitting Abyss with a springboard Pelé kick in order to get the pin.
In a meta sort of way, AJ Styles and James Storm's World Heavyweight Championship main events matches against Bobby Roode in November achieve this status as well. Because even though Roode turned selfish in order to take the title from Storm, the fact that Roode is main eventing against Styles and Storm in title matches essentially means that the entire mission of Fortune is a success - they are the top of the card now.
Mr. Anderson gets one on the April 7th edition of Impact!. He apparently makes a Deal with the Devil with Hulk Hogan to be made special ref of a match between Sting and RVD. After using his position to take revenge on them both, he seemingly joins Immortal, getting paraded around by two of their members and getting boos from the crowd...then smashes one of them in the ribs with a steel pipe and gives them both a Mic Check and rubs it in Hogan's face that he played him like a fiddle. Though then again, what do you expect from making a deal with a self proclaimed Asshole?
Mickie James got one on the April 14th episode. While Madison Rayne was arguing with her Dragon, Mickie, despite having been run over by a motorcycle and having her shoulder dislocated, comes out and delivers a very convincing World of Cardboard Speech, swearing to tear every hair out of Rayne's head and beat her within an inch of her life. The real Crowning Moment of Awesome here comes from her delivery of the speech, which made her seem to be an absolute Badass despite having her arm in a sling.
Sting got one on the April 14th episode. After Eric and Hogan tried to Hannibal Lecture him, he replied by giving a Groin Attack to Eric and dropping him with the Scorpion Death Drop, giving Hogan a truly freaky Slasher Smile as he did so. He then backed Hogan into a corner and gave an Ironic Echo of Hogan's statement to Anderson earlier in the night, that he'd attack Hogan on his terms. Knowing Sting, that's pure Paranoia Fuel for Hogan, who is already in the midst of a paranoia induced Villainous Breakdown as it is.
The Network Executive that's been making Immortal's life miserable was finally revealed on May 12. Who was it? Mick Foley! And he came out to put Immortal in their place and reveal he'd been the one screwing over Immortal this whole time. He also changes the show's name from TNA Impact to Impact Wrestling, with the new catch slogan of "Wrestling matters again" specifically targeting WWE's insistent de-emphasis on wrestling as well as Immortal's politics in TNA. But, the icing on the cake, he introduces Kurt Angle's "mistress", who Angle had been saying for weeks ago would be taking Karen out. Who is it? Chyna. The reaction of Immortal was absolutely priceless!
Sacrifice 2011 clinched it when Angle and Chyna put Jeff and Karen Jarrett in the ankle lock at the same time and they both tap out.
Foley continues to prove himself a perfect Chessmaster on the May 26th edition. Hogan leaves the meeting with the Network, thinking he'd won and gotten full control of TNA while Eric thinks he's destroyed the X Division. Then, on the actual episode of Impact Wrestling, Foley interupts them by coming out and revealing that was exactly what he wanted Hogan to think. After Hogan left, Foley changed the Network's minds completely and regained their favor, allowing him to revive the X Division and get the Network furious at Immortal at the same time.
June 2, 2011: Eric Young as The "Not So Great" Muta pwning Mr. Anderson with Muta's classic moves, including the green mist.
June 9, 2011: Velvet Sky beating ODB, and her Take That promo before the match. Sting attacking Mr. Anderson in his trailer and choking him out: "You will never mock me again!"
Slammiversary 2011: The Last Man Standing Match between AJ Styles and Bully Ray. Kurt Angle beating Jeff Jarrett to defend his gold medals.
June 16, 2011: The return of Jimmy Rave, Kid Kash, and Austen Aries. Sting assaulting Hulk Hogan in his office. Gunner pinning Mr. Anderson cleanly. Kurt Angle announcing that he will compete in the Olympics again at age 43 and beating Jeff Jarrett in a Parking Lot Brawl to force him to move to Mexico.
Destination X 2011: All of it. From Brian Kendrick finally winning the X-Division title from Abyss, to Alex Shelly winning the Ultimate X match (doubles as a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming since he specifically stated he was fighting for his injured tag partner, Chris Sabin, in that match), to Austin Aries beating Low Ki, Zema Ion, and Jack Evans and returning to the X-Division, to the intense RVD/Jerry Lynn match, and, of course, AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels putting on a near-30 minute clinic to close out the show.
July 28, 2011: Sting's entire plan. He spends the entire night playing Immortal like puppets, saying he was a Network rep, giving him complete control of Impact. By the time Eric finds out, it's far too late to do anything and Sting locks him in his office with an angry bird he scared the crap out of him with. All the while acting like The Dark Knight version of The Joker.
Velvet Sky giving a World of Cardboard Speech against ODB and Jackie Moore and calling them out on their hypocrisy. She actually earned some undisputed babyface points that night.
October 6, 2011: Sting's Dangerously Genre Savvy quest to get Hulk Hogan to face him at Bound for Glory and/or turn the company back over to Dixie Carter has produced several terrific moments, but none quite as gratifying as the night he finally got it done. Hogan, a week ago, had announced his "retirement", and on this night was making his formal "final address", giving personal tribute to Hulkamania and to the fans "on the way out". Sting never bought it for a second; he'd seen thisplay out before. So instead of leaving it be, he came out in a red suit and Hulkamania shirt to call question to the whole thing and then to expose it as a lie through video footage of Hulk and Eric laughing about their elaborate hoax. Hogan finally had his meltdown and got so pissed off he agreed to everything Sting had been asking for this whole time on the double. The Open Mouth, Insert Foot look on Hollywood's face...the crowd rejoicing at the fact that Hulk's reign is finally really about to come to an end after he tried to play them for fools...Sting laughing at Hogan as he walked up the ramp with his music on to end the show. All freakin' priceless.
October 20, 2011: Even if was marred by a lousy setup and a short, worthless match, "Cowboy" James Storm winning the TNA World Heavyweight Championship is still a great moment for him and for TNA fans.
Against All Odds 2012 featured at least three moments.
The awesome X-Division title match between Austin Aries and Alex Shelley that harkened back to the older days of the division with high impact athleticism and technical wrestling.
Magnus and Samoa Joe finally ascending up the card by winning the tag team titles from Matt Morgan and Crimson.
Bobby Roode pulling the Summer Slam'97Bret HartBatman Gambit on Sting and Jeff Hardy to retain the World Heavyweight Championship, except more obviously on purpose.