Well it’s certainly been an interesting several weeks for TNA Wrestling; Not only have several behind the scenes figures departured as part of the company’s new restructuring strategy, but the amount of tickets for this year’s Slammiversary event are getting bought and faster than usual…Turns out PCO is indeed a draw, along with Mike Bailey.
Elsewhere Jordynne Grace has been busy fighting for both TNA and NXT, plus the sort of forgotten partnership TNA had with WWE this year has resurfaced and on top of that we gotta another TNA Plus Special right around the corner.
Against All Odds is set to take place in Chicago Illinois this year, which can only mean thing and that’s an energetic crowd filling the Cicero Stadium. So in honor of this upcoming event, let’s take a look back at some of most memorable if not best matches that occurred at this often overlooked PPV.
Honorable Mentions
Sting vs. Abyss (2007)
Chris Sabin vs. Jerry Lynn (2005)
Rhino vs. Abyss (2006)
Madison Rayne vs. Mickie James (2011)
Kurt Angle vs. Sting vs. Brother Ray vs. Brother Devon (2009)
Josh Alexander vs. Joe Doering (2022)
Mr. Anderson vs. D’Angelo Dinero (2010)
Abyss vs. Jeff Hardy (2005)
Moose vs. Sami Callihan (2022)
ABC vs. The Good Hands (2023)
AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe vs. Christopher Daniels (2006)
10. Bully Ray vs. Bobby Roode vs. James Storm vs. Jeff Hardy (2012)
While some might remember this show for that match were wrestler Jesse Sorenson suffered an (at the time) career ending injury caused by the future Joaquin Wilde, the show itself was pretty good: Aries vs. Shelley, Kazarian vs. Styles, Samoa Joe and Magnus winning the tag team titles all that was solid, but arguably the match of the night has to go to the main event.
After weeks of alliances and animosity between Bobby Roode, Bully Ray, Jeff Hardy and James Storm, Sting (who was the authority figure at the time) decided to put all four men in a title match where he would be the special guest enforcer in case things went hayware…Which they often do.
The match is great from an in-ring standpoint but the few character moments that happen are truly something; From Bobby trying to convince Bully help him team up on Storm and Hardy only for Bully to vacate the ring and leave Roode to get beaten up, the tease of a Beer Money reunion which quickly turns into a fist fight between the former partners and then the finish.
Roode dares Sting to hit him and even spitting on ‘The Icon’ leads to him unintentionally hitting Hardy with the belt and forcing Sting to make the three count much to the utter joy of ‘The It Factor’. A great main event for what would be the final Against All Odds event to officially be recongized as a pay-per-view.
9. Abyss vs. Judas Mesias (2008)
Now this might be a bit low on the list for some of you, but believe me the rest of this list is filled with absolute gems.
So back in the day TNA would be accused of copying gimmicks or storylines from WWE, you know despite the fact that WWE would do that exact same thing with many of TNA’s ideas even going so far as to make the color of Hell in a Cell red which made it look like TNA’s old Steel Asylum.
Anyway, one of those storylines that TNA copied was the Undertaker vs. Kane feud with Abyss fighting his kayfabe stepbrother, Judas Mesias aka Lucha Underground’s Mil Muertes from 2007 to early 2008; While the matches between the two were infinity better than the ones Taker and Kane had, their best and most memorable would have to be the Barbed Wire Massacre Match.
At Against All Odds 2008, both wrestlers competed the match with all of the ring ropes replaced in barbed wire and all of the weapons were also covered in the razaor sharp wiring. The action was brutal and bloody because of course it was and it ended with Abyss putting his family issues with Mesias and Father James Mitchell to rest…Unless you count that One Night Only eventin the mid 2010’s where Judas and Mitchell fought Joseph Parks, but moving on.
8. Jeff Jarrett vs. Christian Cage (2006)
Again much like the last entry, this one feels really low and to be fair the overbooking that happens throughout does take you out of the match, but the ending does save it overall.
In early 2005, Christian Cage made his wait to TNA after refusing to re-sign with the WWE, and he would go on the run of his life having great matches with the likes of Sting, Abyss, Samoa Joe, Kurt Angle etc.
Christian’s biggest moment came at Against All Odds 2006 where he fought Jeff Jarrett in the main event for the NWA World Championship. For those that don’t remember, Double J had a on and off strangle hold on the world title from 2002-06 which is the kind of booking that the WWE would do with Triple H and the World Heavyweight title around the same time except Triple H won more times than he lost especially when the belt was at stake.
Both Cage and Jarrett were even matched in this contest, so Jeff decided to incorporate both his valet, Gail Kim but also throw in the possibility of Earl Herbner screwing over another Canadian wrestler during an important world title match, thankfully that last part didn’t come into play with Cage able to reverse his way out of Jarrett’s finisher to hit his own in order to score the three count at become a world champion for the first time in his career.
7. Beer Money Inc. vs. Lethal Consequences (2009)
Beer Money Inc (or Beer Money for short) was one of the best tag teams TNA ever produced in the 2000’s with the team of James Storm and Robert/Bobby Roode becoming five TNA World Tag Team Champions from 2008-2011 and had a number of fanastic matches with teams like LAX, Team 3D and the Motor City Machine Guns.
At Against All Odds 2009, the duo defended their tag straps against the team they beat to regain titles in the form of Consequences Creed aka Xavier Woods and Black Machismo aka Jay Lethal or more fittingly titled: ‘Lethal Consequences’.
For almost 16 minutes, both teams put on a great performance in front of the Orlando crowd with frequent tags, close calls and well paced action peppered throughout; It’s an underrated classic and a prime example of how TNA in the 2000’s was the king of tag team wrestling in North America.
6. Kenny Omega vs. Moose (2021)
While the previous matches we’ve already discussed deserve to be on this list, from here on out we are getting into some really great stuff as any of the matches going forward could feasible be considered the best match of year for TNA, never mind at Against All Odds.
The AEW/IMPACT partnership from late 2020 to october 2021 could best be described as a mixed bag looking back, but one of the best things to come out this would have be Kenny Omega’s run as world champion and the close second is Christian Cage’s return to TNA.
For roughly months, Omega stpped the ring with some of the best competitors TNA has to offer with this match at Against All Odds 2021 seeing the former New Japan star defend his TNA World Heavyweight Championship against Moose in AEW’s favorite location: Daily’s Place.
Moose comes off as a geniue monster in this match as he no sells Kenny’s offensive and demonsrates his dominance as well as his quickness throughout with Omega using every oppertunity to ware down the big man, but he just can’t put him away.
Thankfully for Omega, his buddies: Max and Jeremy Buck aka Generation Me came out and attacked Moose with a number of Superkicks following a ref bump moments earlier and this allows Kenny to get the assistance he needs to hit the One Winged Angel in order to get the pinfall over ‘The Wrestling God’.
While fans may have been annoyed that Omega never lost the belt to someone on the IMPACT roster and instead lost it to a former TNA wrestler in the aforementioned Christian Cage, the match was still a phenomenal showing from two men who have come to define the best of modern pro wrestling.
5. Kurt Angle vs. Christian Cage (2007 & 2008)
The only double entry to make it onto this top ten, ‘The Instant Classic’ had the chance to wrestle ‘The Wrestling Machine’ at Against All Odds two years in a row and in the main event no less.
In 2007, Kurt Angle fought Cage for the NWA World Championship in a great match that’s notably for Kurt hitting seven consecutive German Suplexes on Christian before the involvement of Scott Steiner, Tomko, and AJ Styles who were all dealt with by Samoa Joe, but alas Christian retained the gold thanks to Steiner bringing out a lead pipe that Cage used as a weapon while the referee wasn’t watching.
Fast forward a year later and the roles were reversed, Cage was the challenger and Kurt was the champion with the TNA World Championship on the line this time.
As to be expected the match was entertaining and also say outside interference but this time on Angle’s behalf and it culminated in Tomko turning on his long time associate and costing Cage the title thus allowing Kurt to avenge his loss to the future AEW star the year before.
4. Chris Sabin vs. Trey Miguel (2023)
2023 was a tremendous year for the company for a multitude of reasons but by far was the X Division, as the matches and rivarlies during this time were some of the best in recent memory thanks in large part to names like Trey Miguel and Chris Sabin.
A few weeks before this event, Miguel and Sabin fought for the X Division Championship at Under Siege which saw Miguel cheat his way to victory via spray can to Sabin’s face; At Against All Odds both men continued where they left off. Sabin more than proved he still had what it took to be a worthy champion during this time and Miguel was starting to call himself a “Generational Champion” so you knew their matches were going to be awesome which they were.
Unfortunately for Trey, his cheat ways weren’t enought to get the win this time and Chris Sabin was able to defeat Miguel to become a nine time X Division Champion and holding the record for the most X Division title wins in company history…But he wasn’t the only Michigan native win gold on that night.
3. Alex Shelley vs. Steve Maclin (2023)
Almost 50 minutes after Sabin became X Division Champion once again his tag team partner, Alex Shelley was set to take on Steve Maclin in the main event for the IMPACT World Championship.
While no could the deny the action in this match was great, it’s story and events going into this match that make all the more fascinating: At Rebellion, Maclin became the new world champion and was confronted by a returning Nick Aldis thus setting up a potential world title match presumably at Slammiversary.
Then at Under Siege, Maclin retained the title in a gory No DQ match while Alex Shelley won a six way number one contender’s match to earn his shot; Bully Ray and Steve Maclin questioned if Shelley actually thought if he could really win to which he responded with the word ‘Yup’ which got so over that TNA turned it into a t-shirt.
Considering this was Shelley’s second attempt at the world title since Emergence 2022 and the company were looking to go for an Aldis vs. Maclin main event at Slammiverary, most of the fans didn’t think that Shelley was going to win…Well much like Christian Cage did back in 2005, Shelley finally became a world champion thus kicking off a 218 day title reign that saw a steady increase in TV viewership along with Sabin’s run as X Division Champion in a brief period fans refer to as ‘The Machine Gun Era‘.
2. Mike Bailey vs. Trey Miguel (2022)
Hello Trey, Nice to see you again…
For his second outing on this list, we go one year earlier to Against All Odds 2022 where Miguel was once again wrestling for the X Division Championship but this time as the challenger against ‘Speedball’ Mike Bailey.
Both men targeted each others left legs to try and slow down their opponents high speed offense but that was much easier said then down with Bailey and Miguel delivering so many kicks to each other that it probably broke the world record for the most kicks in a match for a non indie wrestling company.
Miguel’s running hurricanrana on Speeball from the ring all the way to the floor was truly a Holy S##t moment, but much like his bout with Sabin it wasn’t enough escape with the gold.
1. Christopher Daniels vs. AJ Styles (2005)
Mike Bailey and Trey Miguel’s wildly exciting X Division Title match was a throwback to the haydays of cruiserweight wrestling that TNA excelled at in the early to mid 2000’s and while their match nearly made it as number one, I have give this spot to another X Division Championship bout which took place at Against All Odds and involved two of the company’s best representatives of that style of wrestling.
AJ Styles defended his X Division Title in the semi-main event against his sometimes friend, sometimes enemy and sometimes tag team partner, Christopher Daniels in a 30 minute iron man match at Against All Odds 2005….And honestly, me explaining the action in this match wouldn’t do this bout justice as you should go out and what it yourself.
What I can say is that these men were able to have contrasting styles that really made this match special with AJ being the high flying daredevil and Daniels using more power moves in order to ground ‘The Face that Ran the Place’. It’s not until the near half way mark of the match that we finally got our first pinfall before we get another pin this time by AJ Styles by the 24 minute mark.
The last few minutes saw both men trying to beat each other to get the upper hand and we even see some blood on AJ’s part in final strech, but the match ends in a draw which leads to Daniels asking for the match to go over time, which he gets only for Styles to pull a last minute Styles Clash to retain his title in front a white hot crowd inside the IMPACT Zone.
A fantastic match between two bonafide legends and apparently those in charge felt the same way as we’d get another 30 minute iron man match between Styles and Daniels at the very first Bound For Glory pay per view but that’s a story for another day.
And that’s my list, what you do think was the best match at Against All Odds and what match from 2024 event are you looking forward?
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