Against All Odds returns to Impact Wrestling for the first time in years on Saturday, June 12th at 8 pm eastern time on the Impact Plus App. So in honour of the impending event, here are the Top 5 Against All Odds Moments In Impact Wrestling.
Before I begin, I should mention that I wouldn’t be including any title changes for this list, so don’t expect to see Christian Cage’s world title win from Against All Odds 2006 on this list.
Tomko Turns On Christian Cage (Against All Odds 2008)
The history between Christian and Tomko goes all the way back to their days in the WWE when Tomko made his debut interfering in a match between ‘Captain Charisma’ and Chris Jericho back in 2004, with the big man being the enforcer for Christian whenever things got too out of hand or he needed someone to back him up.
This partnership would continue when Tomko headed to TNA in November of 2006 and once again aligned himself with Christian as a member of what would eventually be the ‘Christian Coalition’.
In the main event at Against All Odds 2008, Christian Cage was scheduled to take on Kurt Angle for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship and towards the end of that match, Angle was beating down Christian with a steel chair until Tomko came into the ring and grabbed the chair away from Kurt only to then hoist Christian high up on his shoulders and hit him with an Argentine Neckbreaker before walking out of the ring and allowing Kurt Angle to pick up the win.
Tomko’s shocking betrayal onto Christian Cage not only ended a four year partnership but would also set the seeds for impressive lethal lockdown match at Lockdown 2008 with both men captaining their own teams.
Mr. Anderson Spits On The Dog Tags (Against All Odds 2010)
One of the great highlights in the first year of the Hulk Hogan/Eric Bischoff regime in TNA was the feud between the Olympic Gold Medalist, Kurt Angle and the former WWE United States Champion, Mr Anderson but in order to find the origins of this feud, we’d have to go all the way back to 2010.
At against all Odds 2010 Mr. Anderson took on Kurt Angle for the first time ever as part of the 8 card stud tournament to crown a new number one contender for the TNA World Championship at Lockdown.
At one point in the match, Anderson takes Kurt Angle’s dog tags that given to him by a soldier serving in the military and cuts the Olympic Gold medalist right on his forehead; After scoring the three count on Kurt to advance in the tournament, Mr. Anderson takes the dog tags and places them on the prone body of Angle before spitting on both the tags and Angle himself as a sign of disrespect by the Wisconsin native.
While Anderson would be unsuccessful in winning the tournament at Against All Odds, his actions following his bout with Kurt Angle would lead to one of the best feuds in TNA Wrestling which continued not just on Impact television but also on pay per view with the rivalry culminating at that year’s Lockdown event.
Jesse Sorensen’s Neck Injury (Against All Odds 2012)
One of the more tragic moments to make this list involves then TNA wrestlers: Zema Ion and Jesse Sorensen, two guys who became the newest additions to the company’s X Division and were set to compete against each other in a number one contender’s match for the X Division Championship in the opening contest for Against All Odds 2012.
As soon as the match began, both men were putting on a very competitive contest however once the match began to go outside of the ring, that’s when things would sudden take a turn for the worse.
After Zema hit a moonsault from the top onto the outside where Sorensen was standing, the referee immediately through up the arm signal which basically means that there’s a serious emergency and we need medical attention.
Security and medics head to the ring and put Jesse on a stretcher and take him out of the building with the match ending earlier than expect and Zema Ion scoring a victory in the end.
As it turns out Jesse Sorensen suffered a fracture to his C1 Vertebra after one of Zema’s knees landed right onto of his head during the moonsault outside of the ring; The injury would take Sorensen for about a year and despite making a number of appearances for the company after recovering from the injury, Sorensen would soon end his wrestling career after his time in TNA came to an end.
Jeff Hardy’s Swanton (Against All Odds 2005)
At the inaugural Against All Odds pay per view in 2005, ‘The Charismatic Enigma’ Jeff Hardy took on ‘The Monster’ Abyss in the first-ever Full Metal Mayhem match for a future title shot for the NWA World Championship.
While the match itself was filled with a lot of impressive moments one of the biggest has to when Jeff Hardy hits the Swanton Bomb on Abyss; moments earlier in the match, Hardy was sent to the outside of ring by Abyss leaving Jeff’s lower back injured after hitting the concrete floor and part of the wooden table that was set up outside of the ring.
From there both men would brawl towards the entrance ramp and after landing onto a table that was previously set up, Jeff Hardy would go through the crowd and head to the top of stage; For there, it’s all classic Hardy as ‘The Charismatic Enigma’ would leap from the stage and hit his signature Swanton Bomb maneuver onto Abyss through the table.
Jeff Hardy would go on to do a far more memorable Swanton Bomb off the stage onto Abyss at that year’s Bound For Glory event, but this one from 2005’s Against All Odds is simply awesome.
Allie’s Death (Against All Odds 2019)
To explain all of the madness that is “The Undead Realm Storyline” early 2018 until 2019 would take way too much time but for the purposes of this entry all you need to know is that Allie sold her soul to the devil aka James Mitchell in order to rescue her friend, Rosemary but she ends up becoming a more darker, soulless version of the happy go lucky wrestler that many fans have come to know.
In attempt to get her back, Rosemary and Allie’s friend at the time Kiera Hogan go into the undead realm in order to get Allie’s soul back and make her whole again.
Both Kiera and Rosemary are met with animosity from Father James Mitchell, Su Yung, her undead bridesmaids and a dark hooded figure later revealed to be Kevin Sullivan who also happen to be Rosemary’s father.
Kiera gets captured by James Mitchell leaving Rosemary all by herself; Su Yung, seizing her opportunity attempts to kill Rosemary after turning her filthy blood soaked glove into Freddy Kruger’s razor sharped glove…How Impact didn’t get sued over that is a mystery.
Anyhow, she charges at Rosemary only for Dark Allie to shove the demon assassin out of the way and get stabbed in the neck by the razor glove instead.
To the shock of almost everyone including the fans, Rosemary grabs her friends bleeding body in angry and saddest as soft music begins to play. Allie tells both Kiera and Rosemary in a softly spoken voice that’s it’s okay and that she’s whole again before vanishing into thin air and becoming one with the force (before eventually resurfacing in AEW).
While wrestling purists will most certainly have a problem with this entire segment never mind the whole story, Allie’s death was emotional, tear-jerking and one heck of a way to the right to write off a wrestler from the company and that’s why it takes the number one spot on this list.
