It is September of 2005 in a bedroom somewhere in the Havering borough of London, England. A young man struggling in school because of his ADHD and dyslexia puts on Sky Channel 429, also known as the Wrestling Channel, to watch a match that had taken the wrestling world by storm. It was Christopher Daniels vs. Samoa Joe. vs AJ Styles for the X Division Championship in the main event of TNA Unbreakable 2005.
It was a rare main event spotlight on TNA’s X-Division, which became a major selling point for the promotion when trying to attract new fans. The division and its respective title typically featured some of, if not the best matches on the entire show and becoming a foundational piece of the promotion in the 2000s. It became the platform young talents like AJ Style, Samoa Joe, Frankie Kazarian, Jay Lethal, Alex Shelley, Chris Sabin, and many others were able to springboard into even bigger careers in professional wrestling, many of whom are still wrestling in 2026.
The Unbreakable 2005 main event cemented this as Daniels, Joe, and Styles put on a match that earned a then-rare five-star rating from wrestling and combat sports journalist Dave Meltzer. Fans and critics praised the match for the fast pace all three managed to keep up for over 20-minutes with plenty of jaw-dropping offense that, for as flashy as it was, all felt like moves done with purpose.
Every dive, every forearm strike, every flip somehow didn’t feel out of place. Joe, Daniels, and Styles made what could have easily been written off by harsh critics as an “indie-rific spot-fest” where they were just doing moves for the sake of doing moves with no real reason and turned that on its head. Something as spectacular as Daniels’ Best Moonsault Ever felt like it was done with reason and intent to win.
It was widely considered on of the matches of the year in 2005 and is still celebrated in 2026 as one of the greatest matches in professional wrestling history.
It was after the legendary 22-minute match concluded that the young Londoner decided he was going to become a professional wrestler.
That young man – Will Ospreay.
Cut to May 24, 2026, at the Louis Armstrong Stadium in Flushing, Queens, New York for AEW Double or Nothing 2026. Along with multiple title matches, the pay-per-view would also kick-off the 2026 Owen Hart Foundation Tournament with three matches. One of those matches would pit Samoa Joe, just over 20-years since the Unbreakable match, and Will Ospreay in his second pay-per-view match since returning from neck surgery in March.
In the lead-up to the match, Joe didn’t bother hiding his disdain for Ospreay accepting help from Jon Moxley and the Death Riders instead of his own group, The Opps, despite the Death Riders attempting to end Ospreay’s career, in kayfabe.
Ospreay, however, made no attempt to hide what the match against Joe was going to mean to him. The London-native said the quarterfinal match was a dream for him, hinting back to the Unbreakable 2005 match, but that wasn’t going to stop Ospreay from doing what he needed to so he could win the tournament and go on to challenge for the AEW Men’s World Championship at London’s Wembley Stadium.
The match would be the fifth on Double or Nothing’s main card, placing it right in the middle of the pay-per-view.
Ospreay wouldn’t waste time, hitting an Oscutter on Joe as his music was still playing. This pace continued through the match, with Joe and Ospreay trading hard strikes and submission attempts to reach the tournament’s semifinal round.
If this sound’s familiar, that’s because it is the same pace and intent that can be seen in the Unbreakable 2005 match. Ospreay and Joe’s every action had winning intent as they went back-and-forth over the course of the match. Nothing was done “just to do it,” whether it was a simple rear-choke or a hand-spring tope, it was all done to try and score a win.
The near-14 sprint would end with Ospreay escaping a Muscle-Buster attempt by Joe and hitting two Hidden Blades in quick succession to score the winning pin to advance to the semifinals.
But perhaps more importantly to Ospreay, he got to write his love-letter to the match that led him to Louis Armstrong Stadium over 20-years after watching the match that changed his life. He got to do what most people can only hope to do, live his dream, but also may have inspired another young fan the way he was inspired in his youth watching Unbreakable 2005.
Minimum Wage Nerd 