On September 11th 2005 TNA Wrestling presented Unbreakable from Orlando Florida. TNA now known as Impact had a rough year in 2005, losing their TV deal with Fox Sports Net in Spring, they ran their Impact show online for months until a deal was eventually made with Spike TV. Impact would imminently debut on Spike on October 1st, and big changes for the company would come along with it, but TNA still had to produce its monthly pay per views to stay alive. On this night, TNA earned its to date one and only five star rated match by Dave Meltzer, a triple threat match for the X Division championship, between three of TNA's greatest wrestlers ever.
During the Summer of 2005 as I've covered on this channel before in more detail, Impact had no TV deal, and was airing on TNA's own website. At this time TNA decided to book a champion that the online fans liked, and they went with Raven, who would lose the title title back to Jeff Jarrett right before Impact reached its new home on Spike TV in October. Ravens title reign didn't exactly set the world on fire, but it wasn't there to. It was there to give the fans a fresh champion to tune into tnawrestling.com to see. As a result, the world title scene often had some unusual matches for a while. At Unbreakable, Raven would defend the NWA world title against Rhino in the semi main event. Rhino had entered TNA in July by attacking Raven following another hardcore battle over the World title, defeating Abyss. By October Rhino would luck into a short NWA title reign himself when Jeff Jarrett's original opponent Kevin Nash was not medically cleared. In the main event on this night Christopher Daniels would defend the X division championship against two men he had a lot of history with, Samoa Joe and AJ Styles.
At various points in TNA's history the X division had main evented their weekly pay per views. Some of the early Ultimate X matches were main events, as well as entire pay per views were themed around X division tournaments like the World X cup. In fact on TNA's second ever show, AJ Styles became the first ever X Division champion in the main event slot.
AJ Styles participated in NWA TNA's first ever televised match, in a losing effort teaming with Jerry Lynn and Low-Ki against the Flying Elvis's. I will take any opportunity given to me to remind you that TNA had a trio of Elvis impersonators... Styles would soon after become the first ever X Division champion, and went to to pioneer the style, the same way WCW had with the cruiserweight division in the 90's. Styles had already been world champion, but the move from weekly pay per view to television in 2004 had Styles re-inserted in the X-Division. At that time especially the X-Division is what set TNA apart from WWE, and so Styles became one of the figureheads of that distinction. He wasn't like anyone you would see in WWE at the time, and that was played to TNA's advantage, but Styles wasn't alone in being an alternative trend setter.
In the early 2000's wrestlers would occasionally find an opponent that they had amazing chemistry with. In the early days of the internet these matches wouldn't be as widely available as they would be today, so these wrestlers would sometimes tour their match, sometimes even internationally. Feuds would sometimes transcend the promotions they began in. As a result some pairings would be as much of an attraction as the individual wrestlers themselves, as everyone wanted to see the hot match they had heard about come to their town. This became known as the 'touring indie match'. The concept still works a little today, with promoters wanting to book their version of Will Ospreay vs Ricochet for example, but not like it used to. One of the most famous touring indie matches in the early 2000's was the feud between CM Punk vs Raven. The feud originally began in Ring of Honor, but would heat up in TNA and MLW, even continuing in the FWA based in England. This doesn't even include all the smaller indies they worked together at. Rumour has it that Raven would often get annoyed at Punk for not listening to his advice. Imagine that, CM Punk not taking advice from a veteran...
Another famous touring match around this time was AJ Styles vs Christopher Daniels. Unlike Punk and Raven, Styles and Daniels were said to be close friends, with Daniels naming one of his children after AJ. Styles and Daniels wrestled all over the United States, but would also wrestle in Canada, Italy, England, Ireland, Australia and even South Korea. Cagematch lists 37 singles matches between the two, and again that might not be an exhaustive list, just the indies that are documented on that site.
Christopher Daniels at the time had vastly more experience than either of his opponents. Styles made his in ring debut in 1998, and Joe did in 99, but Daniels had been wrestling since 1993. Comparatively though it took Daniels a lit longer to find his feet, maybe due to the indie scene of the 90's not being what it would eventually become. Daniels did wrestle for ECW several times, and much like Styles, was wrestling for WCW at the time that it closed its doors, but both men were very low on the card at that point. He had also done several tours with New Japan as Curry Man, a colourful character that he would eventually bring to TNA, and likely couldn't be done in 2022.
At face value, one of the three X Division wrestlers at Unbreakable was not like the others. Samoa Joe had arrived in TNA at Slammiversary, TNA's three year anniversary show. He remained dominant over every opponent, going into Unbreakable undefeated. He would remain unbeaten for another 14 months, where he would be defeated by the debuting Kurt Angle. TNA's tag line for the X Division was that it wasn't about weight limits, but no limits, meaning anyone would be part of it. Occasionally TNA would remind us of that by booking a larger wrestler in the division to mixed results. The man known today as PCO had a brief X Division run in 2003 as the masked man known only as 'X'. Joe would be the latest of these wrestlers, and maybe the best of all the X Division big men. His in ring style seemed to mesh with the smaller guys, maybe because of his Ring of Honor roots.
Just because Joe was undefeated himself, that didn't mean he hadn't lost, just that he hadn't been pinned or submitted. On this night AJ Styles would recapture the X Division championship for the fifth time. A running pattern for TNA at this time was that during any major change for the company Jeff Jarrett would usually be the NWA world champion, and Styles would claim the X Division prize. On this night AJ would win in a 23 minute classic that would earn TNA its first ever, and to date only ever five star rating from Dave Meltzer.
There are several moments from this match that are still etched in my mind to this day, with my favourite being the springboard shooting star press AJ performs on his two opponents. The reason this match is so famous though is how the three came up with intricate three man spots. Three way matches of the time and since have developed a reputation, perhaps unfairly, of just being a series of singles spots with one man sitting out until another is ready to leave the ring. Styles, Daniels and Joe clearly tried to avoid this, leading to it being one of the fondest held matches in TNA or Impact's history.
The three would go on to have rematches in TNA, eventually culminating in an ultimate X match between the three, but that is not as well loved, as the story became more about could Samoa Joe scale the above the ring cables like the smaller wrestlers can. Of all the three way matches these three had, their match at Unbreakable still holds a special place for all TNA fans of the time.
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