07/17/2002 TNA: X Division Title Match: AJ Styles (C) def. Low Ki in 10:42

If this match had been in the Northeast, it would have killed with the crowd, but it took a while for them to get going in Nashville. Hell, this would have killed in the Impact Zone in just about any era. There was some bullshit going on in the crowd that also got everyone’s attention early, but there were long periods where the reaction was underwhelming. The work itself was very good, and Ki’s work seemed to get him over more with the crowd than the Southerner, especially when he was laying in vicious kicks. Kicking the shit out of someone, as entertainment, knows no geographic boundaries. Each guy did a few things that didn’t look good, as Styles in particular had a couple of things he wasn’t consistent with that he could take out of matches. He did what looked like some kind of standing spiral tap, and thankfully, I don’t remember much after this. The match went back and forth, feeling like a condensed version of what they would do in ROH. I laughed when Don West said, “These are highly trained professionals, don’t try this at home,” because now Randy Orton retweets fans giving their buddies RKOs. The finish looked awesome, with Styles catching Ki when he went for a twisting hurricanrana from the top and turning it into a Styles Clash. It was a very good match, but probably not the right one for this crowd.***1/2 

It should be noted that Styles’ partner, Jerry Lynn, attacked Styles and beat the ever-loving shit out of him after the match, including a suplex into a ladder. The bloodthirsty crowd was chanting Lynn’s name. It’s incredible how not over as a babyface, AJ was on this show.

06/18/2003 TNA: X Division Title Match: Chris Sabin (C) def. Paul London in 7:52: This match came across as about a ten on the indyriffic scale, and I thought it was very messy. So many of the spots didn’t look good, including a London shooting star bodyblock on Sabin that looked like he almost completely missed and landed short of Sabin. Sabin did a corkscrew pescado that he didn’t fully rotate on, and there were not only a few other big spots, but even a lazy Irish whip into the corner. Oddly, the crowd was up for this match (unlike the Styles/Low Ki match), and you could see them morphing into a more modern indy wrestling audience for the time. CM Punk got in the fucking ring and sat in the corner, imitating Raven. Neither of the two wrestlers nor the referee paid him any attention whatsoever, not even a polite request by the referee to exit the playing field. Jesus. London hit a beautiful shooting star for what looked like the finish, but the ref got distracted, and Punk DDT’d London to literally zero reaction. As in, I’m fairly certain not even the janitor coughed when it happened. In the definition of appropeau, Sabin fell backwards, giving London the cradle shock finish. Oof. And I really like both of these guys as wrestlers, but this was a bad match. * 

10/20/2004 IWAMS:  TNA X Division Title Match: Petey Williams (C) def. Alex Shelley in 10:45: This was when TNA was friendly with the indys, so we have the X Division title being defended in front of fifty people in Bloomington, IN. Dave Prazak, Nate Webb, and CM Punk did commentary, and Punk in particular just buried the fuck out of TNA, but Webb got in his shots as well. Shelley was just so smooth in his mat wrestling, and he kept the crowd entertained early. Punk and Prazak were also consistently ripping Shelley for his hair, and it was particularly douchy. Williams got in his “Oh Canada” standing on his opponent’s nuts spot, regardless of all the people dressed up like empty seats. To their credit, the people there were into the march. I’ve never been a big Williams fan, and I thought you could tell Shelley was much better here. They traded big moves in the end as you’d expect, but Petey never got the Canadian Destroyer. Instead, he won with a kind of clunky Styles Clash because he was feuding with AJ Styles in TNA. It’s wild that Shelley never won an X Division title until 2009, while Petey won it twice, including a record-setting first time. ***1/2