10 Best TNA Wrestling Moments

5. Going head-to-head with WWE Raw

So the decision for IMPACT to go head-to-head with WWE Raw might not have been such a success – and that’s putting it mildly – but you’d be a liar if you didn’t admit there wasn’t a strong sense of excitement when they first went up against each other on Monday, January 4, 2010. 

The move came about following the arrivals of Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff, who believed the best way to compete with Vince McMahon was to try and take him on directly. 

The Monday Night Wars of the 1990s would not be re-ignited off the back of it, but this live edition of IMPACT showed they were serious about making some noise by presenting the return of Jeff Hardy and the debut of Ric Flair, along with star power heavy angles featuring the likes of Hogan, Bischoff, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash and Sean Waltman.

The Nasty Boys and Sean Morley also made their first IMPACT appearances, but the less said about those, the better. 

The episode – the in-ring highlight of which was provided by Kurt Angle and AJ Styles – drew the highest rating in the show’s history. They ended up doing around half those numbers by the time they threw in the white flag, however.