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#9 Ruining Samoa Joe’s first World Title reign
Samoa Joe had cut his teeth on the indie circuit before coming to Impact Wrestling but nonetheless felt like a homegrown talent for not having risen to fame in WWE or WCW first. The company cultivated a feel-good story when, after nearly three years of getting over and performing at the highest level, Joe defeated Kurt Angle to win the company’s world title.
Joe had a reasonable reign, as the first champion to retain the TNA Championship in a King of the Mountain Match, and staving off challenges from more established stars like Booker T and Scott Steiner. The truest test, however, would come at Bound for Glory. TNA branded this show as their WrestleMania, and Joe would face WCW legend Sting. Sting had won the main events of the preceding two Bound for Glory shows over Jeff Jarrett and Kurt Angle. As Sting inched further and further from his prime, it would only be natural to put Joe over Sting to shore up his status as the company’s top player.
Sting won the match, however. He not only won but won on account of a predictable swerve when Kevin Nash hit Joe with a baseball bat. The angle reeked of a swerve for a swerve’s sake, and one could fairly argue that Joe never regained the momentum that he had established in the early stages of his first TNA Championship reign.
