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TNA, or Impact Wrestling as they are known, is having a hard time at the moment. In fact, has been having a hard time a lot in recent years, whether it be wrestlers leaving the company, bad business decisions or poor attendance, which has left the company under a lot of criticism. But now and the past, they've had one hell of a roster that have given us some of the greatest matches and moments over the last 16 years.
Not only has the Impact roster been built around many former big WWE stars, as well as homegrown talent, Knockout's and the X Division talent, but Impact has also brought in many former superstars of other company's who had been out of the limelight for sometime. And not only did Impact bring them back to TV, but relevance to as their booking, promotion and popularity from the original cult like fan atmosphere completely revived their careers after much time spent away from the ring.
This is something that Impact Wrestling have done many times throughout the years, with these being 10 of such.
#10 Rhyno
When Rhyno joined TNA Impact Wrestling in the Summer of 2005, it hadn't actually been very long since we last saw him on WWE TV.
Other than a quick cameo match with Sabu at the ECW One Night Stand, Rhyno had last been full-time with WWE just a few months earlier, having been released from the company that April. However, it had been quite a while since Rhyno was last relevant in WWE.
Rhyno had a strong push during the Invasion, and a decent one in 2003 after his return from neck surgery, but things went downhill in 2004. He mostly teamed with Tajiri, and after a few unsuccessful Tag Team Championship matches, Rhyno was relegated to Sunday Night Heat for about 6 months before he was fired.
When Rhyno joined the then TNA, he was immediately given a monster push. He was featured in the main event of 4 of the 5 remaining TNA pay-per-views of 2005, which included winning the NWA World Heavyweight Championship at Bound For Glory. He remained a prominent player in TNA for the next 4 + years, feuding with the like of Kurt Angle, Sting, AJ Styles, Rob Van Dam and others before becoming a casualty of the Hogan/Bischoff administration. After a cameo return to Impact Wrestling in 2014, he returned to WWE in 2015, where he still remains today.
#9 Mr. Anderson
Mr. Kennedy/Anderson was someone who many within WWE, including Vince McMahon himself, looked at as to be the future of WWE, but it wasn't meant to be.
Although Anderson showed The Rock level of mic skills and was a very well round performer, he was unfortunately seemingly prone to injuries, and due to suffering several, all of which were back to back and thus missing a number of months of action, Anderson's stock with the WWE seemed to dwindle.
While Vince McMahon still thought rather highly of him, it was Triple H who reportedly got in Vince's ear, convincing him that Ken wasn't 'the guy'. Anderson was released by WWE in May 2009, after being deemed unsafe to work with in the ring by John Cena and Randy Orton. Even if Anderson had not been fired, it had been over a year since WWE had actually pushed him, and when not injured, he just fell into the background.
After some months on the independent scene, Anderson resurfaced in TNA Wrestling in January 2010, being personally brought into the company by Hulk Hogan. The Hulkster put him over before he debuted as someone who could have a company built around him. During his on and off 6 year run with Impact Wrestling, Anderson would be featured prominently in the main event scene and become a 2 time TNA World Heavyweight Champion.
#8 Gail Kim
Gail Kim debuted for WWE on RAW in 2003 and won the WWE Women's Championship in her debut match. Seemed like a very promising start, however she would only hold it for one month and after a misguided heel turn, she faded into the background, showing up on RAW just every now and then.
Gail was released from her WWE contract in 2004, just days after she had a meeting with WWE officials about doing something worthwhile with the Diva's division. That goes to show the mentality each had with women's wrestling at the time. WWE were barely ready for highly skilled women's wrestlers like her.
She signed with TNA Wrestling in 2005, as a manager for Jeff Jarrett and America's Most Wanted. She would also compete in feuds with Mrs. Brooks and Jackie Moore in 2007 until the inception of the Knockout's Championship at the 2007 Bound For Glory. Gail became the inaugural Knockout's Champion when she won a battle royal to determine the first Champion. She would then participate in the greatest feud in Knockout's history, with Awesome Kong.
Gail had much of the best women's matches in history, with just about every knockout to ever compete for Impact Wrestling. Gail Kim holds the record for most reigns as Knockout Champion with seven, and also held the Knockout's Tag Team Championship. Gail was rightfully inducted into the TNA Hall of Fame in 2016, the first women to have done so.
#7 Kevin Nash
Kevin Nash was the first star to sign with TNA who had been a major name and former World Champion in every company he had previously wrestled in. Despite this, by the time he first showed up in TNA, it had bee a while since fans had last seen him, and many thought he was done.
Kevin Nash debuted at TNA's first ever live 3-hour pay-per-view, Victory Road, in November 2004. His announced debut was quickly outshined by the surprise debut of Randy Savage, but after Savage's run was short lived at just three appearances, all the attention soon went back to Big Sexy.
Prior to this, Nash was last seen in a wrestling ring at WWE SummerSlam 2003. He took some time off after the event to film his role in 'The Punisher', and while he was awa, WWE officials went from having him planned for a return feud with Goldberg, to just deciding to not renew his expiring contract in January. WWE had instead decided to offer Nash a smaller contract to work in creative and booking, but he turned it down. He then spent a majority of 2004 filming another movie, 'The Longest Yard', before signing with TNA.
The question was for many come Victory Road, would Nash have any drawing power left, having not been seen since his failed main event return in WWE over a year earlier? It turns out, he did, just a little.
During the course of his 6 year run with TNA, Nash feuded with Jeff Jarrett for the NWA World Championship in 2005, and nearly even won it at one point, had two serious injuries not kept him down. He returned in 2006 as more of a comedy character, that provided much entertainment and later had many big moments for himself and TNA with the Main Event Mafia angle, and Hulk Hogan.
Kevin Nash left TNA in late 2010.
#6 Jerry Lynn
Jerry Lynn was one of the best pure wrestlers in ECW history, never relying on ECW's typical hardcore rules to thrill the live audience.
Jerry had two of the most memorable feuds in ECW history, first with Justin Credible shortly after his arrival in 1997 and then with Rob Van Dam, which ran on and off from 1999 until the company went out of business in 2001. He also had a short one month run as ECW World Champion in 2000.
Jerry was among the first few former ECW stars to sign with WWE in 2001 following the closure of ECW. His WWE debut sounded great on paper, he was to answer an open challenge from Crash Holly for the Light Heavyweight Championship at Backlash 2001 and defeat him. And while Jerry did defeat Crash for the title, their match was demoted to Sunday Night Heat before the pay-per-view, and of course, by this point, the Light Heavyweight Championship was pretty worthless.
Jerry was noticeably absent from the Alliance angle. Although he did suffer an injury in August 2001 that would keep him off WWE TV (for good), he was not a part of the former ECW stars joining up with the WCW stars to invade the WWE.
Jerry went on to have a successful run with TNA wrestling, which included being apart of the first ever TNA match, being a 2 time TNA X Division Champion, two-time NWA Tag Team Champion and had one of the best feuds in company history with AJ Styles in 2002. He continued to wrestle for TNA on and off until 2007, with some brief cameo returns in 2011 and 2013. He would also become the Ring of Honor World Champion in 2009, at the age of 41.
To date, he is one of very few wrestlers to have wrestled for WWE, WCW, ECW, TNA, and ROH.
#5 B.G 'Road Dogg' James & Kip 'Billy Gunn' James
The Road Dogg and Billy Gunn formed one of the most successful tag teams in WWE history in the late 90's, the New Age Outlaws. The 6 time WWE Tag Team Champions popularity would go to even new heights when they joined D-Generation X and dominated much of the Attitude Era.
After some time spent battling his demons, Road Dogg was fired from WWE in 2001. He spent some time on the independent scene before joining up with TNA in their very early days. Road Dogg, now B.G James, would find great success as apart of the 3 Live Kru stable with R-Truth and Konnan, where they would become 2 time NWA Tag Team Champions, and remained with the company until 2009.
Billy Gunn was released by WE for similar reasons to Road Dogg, in 2004. 'The one' had actually planned on leaving WWE when his contract expired anyway, in hopes of joining TNA. He would join the company as Kip James, in early 2005 and remain with them also until 2009.
As expected, B.G and Kip would eventually reunite, first in the 3 Live Kru, then they returned to being a duo, the James Gang. They then controversially became the 'Voodoo Kin Mafia', an angle that saw them 'wage war' on WWE and D-Generation X. After the team broke up in 2008, B.G's appearances became sporadic until he was released, and Kip soon followed after a manager role with the Beautiful People.
Both men returned to WWE for backstage roles in 2011 and 2012, which Road Dogg still works today.
#4 Ron 'The Truth' Killings
R-Truth first joined WWE in 1999, making his TV debut in late 2000 as a new tag team partner for Road Dogg. The Dogg was released from WWE after just 2 months of the team being together, and Truth, then known as K-Kwick, was barely used on TV shortly thereafter until he was released in early 2002.
Now known as K-Krush and then Ron 'The Truth' Killings, he joined TNA on their debut show and was quickly given a strong push. Just 2 months into TNA's existence, Truth became the NWA World Heavyweight Champion, the first black superstar ever to do so. He maintained his main event status throughout 2003 and much of 2004, where he won his second NWA World title, and would later have 3 reigns as a Tag Team Champion. He remained a mainstay on TNA TV until his requested release in 2007.
Truth returned to WWE in 2008 and is still on WWE TV today.
#3 Scott Steiner
With brother Rick, Scott Steiner is one of the greatest tag team wrestlers of all time. The Steiner Brothers dominated tag team wrestling in WWE, WCW and elsewhere throughout the 90's. After having a successful singles run in WCW, including becoming the WCW World Champion and a bonafide main event player, Scott finally returned to WWE in 2002.
Scott had only wrestled a handful of matches on the independent scene before returning to WWE, and was dealing with minor injuries, which resulted in his comeback main event feud with Triple H having some piss poor awful matches. Scott spent the remainder of the year teaming and feuding with Test, with few decent matches.
While having just recovered from being out of action with a back injury, Scott was released by WWE in 2004 after they decided they had no use for him in the ring. He wrestled a few matches on the independent scene before taking a break from wrestling. After many thought he was retired, Scott Steiner returned to wrestling by joining TNA in 2006.
During his 6 + years with the company, he has had several highly entertaining matches and was generally treated as a main event star, often challenging for the TNA World Championship and participating in big angles. Scott continues to make sporadic appearances for Impact Wrestling today.
#2 Bobby Lashley
After being pushed as the next 'guy' in WWE, Bobby Lashley decided to leave the company in 2008 to pursue a career in MMA. He made a brief return to wrestling in TNA in 2009, but was gone by January 2010 after accomplishing nothing, and being more focused on MMA.
Lashley made a surprising return to Impact Wrestling in 2014. Unlike others on this list, Lashley didn't drift too far away from the spotlight as he was a force to be wreckoned with in MMA, but being a major star in MMA and wrestling are pretty different, but thanks to some excellent booking, Lashley became a star in wrestling again.
Lashley dominated Impact Wrestling for four years, where he was a 4-time Impact World Heavyweight Champion, with at one point during one of those reigns, also simultaneously holding the Impact X Division Championship and being the final King of The Mountain Champion. He also had a very impressive win/loss record, with big victories over the likes of Kurt Angle, Bobby Roode, Drew McIntyre, EC3, Jeff Hardy, James Storm, Austin Aries, Samoa Joe and fellow mixed martial artist Josh Barnett, among more.
Lashley has since returned to WWE, for what has so far been an underwhelming return. Hopefully he can replicate some of his Impact success.
#1 Raven
After a forgettable run in WWE in the early 90's as Johnny Polo, Scott Levy joined ECW in 1994 as Raven, a character to appeal to fans of grunge music and generation X. Raven had a fantastic gimmick, was a great wrestler and had some of the best matches and moments in ECW history.
Raven was a two-time ECW World Champion and four-time Tag Team Champion and was always presented as a top star. The character was damaged in WCW thanks to some colorless booking, but it was nothing that he couldn't recover from.
After a brief return to ECW in 1999, Raven returned to WWE in 2000. Many fans had hoped for a prominent run for him like he had in ECW, but Vince McMahon was not a fan of him and thus he would be forever stuck in the hardcore ranks, where he would become a 27 time WWE Hardcore Champion, according to WWE records, 39 by his count.
Raven was released by WWE in January 2003 and immediately joined TNA, just one week after his last televised appearance on WWE RAW. Raven debuted in a big angle with NWA Champion Jeff Jarrett and was treated like a megastar. He spent the next couple years, usually in big feuds and would eventually fulfill his, quote, 'destiny', as he became the NWA World Heavyweight Champion in 2005.
Raven lost the Championship 3 months later, and quietly went down the ranks in favor of new TNA hires from other company's such as Christian, Sting and Kurt Angle. Despite this, especially compared to his WWE run, Raven's career had been reborn and he spent a further 4 years with TNA, being a highly entertaining performer along the way.
