[2004-05-05-NWA TNA] Raven vs A.J. Styles

Raven vs AJ Styles (NWA title match)

So, Raven & AJ Styles decide they have a WCW Saturday Night circa 92 main event, with fat Raven working like Ole Anderson if Ole was a terrific seller (the knee, the knee !) and was feeding and bumping hard. Seriously, Raven's work is excellent here, relentless on working on the arm/shoulder of AJ with crisp stuff. I never thought that he would actually peak in 2003/2004, he's just an old-school guy with strong psychology. Since he's kinda turned back heel, he tries to cheat by using powder and it backfires. Screwy finish with a fake La Parka, which was kinda lame but at the same time protected Raven (see, AJ Styles didn't kick out of his finisher like Jarrett did in 2003) and was poetic justice since it was Chris Harris under the hood. Really good match and one of the strongest Raven performance as far as pure solid work goes.