Awesome / Fortune

• As far as bloody heel beatdowns go, the ending of the "Whole F'n Show" edition of Impact had to count as this. During the Hardcore Originals' celebration following Rob Van Dam's successful title defense over Abyss, the lights suddenly went out and came back to reveal not Sting or The Sandman, but the members of Fourtune standing in the ring with weapons. With a vocal section of the crowd immediately breaking into a "TNA!" chant, Fortune proceeded to take the guys with the reputation for beating the living crap out of people with anything that's not nailed down and beat the ever-loving crap out of them with anything that wasn't nailed down. The beating even continued when guys like Raven and the aforementioned Sandman, who weren't initially in the ring for the celebration, came down to help their extreme compatriots, as they just became more victims. By the time Flair came down to join the party and to berate Dixie Carter saying this was her fault, the crowd present at the Impact Zone was even going as far as chanting "This is awesome!". Both for fans who simply thought this was brilliant as far as making them as dastardly as possible and for those who, like the crowd, felt Fortune were the justified ones and thus were rooting for them, much enjoyment could be drawn from that segment.
• At No Surrender 2010, AJ Styles defeats Tommy Dreamer. In an "I Quit" match. By himself, armed with nothing but a fork to the eye.
• On October 14, 2010, Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff celebrate their successful takeover of TNA, having introduced Jeff Jarrett and Abyss as part of their conspiracy. Before they can get to bringing out new champion Jeff Hardy, however, the rap version of the "Dawn" section starts up, and out come Ric Flair and Fortune to confront Hogan and Imnortal. Flair finishes his first sentence by saying that "This company is run by Fortune." The crowd immediately breaks into a "Fortune" chant, speaking to their Popularity Power with the TNA fans and to how much they really want to see Flair's soldiers throw down against Hogan's conspiracy more than anything. Would be immediately subverted what with this all being a ruse and Fortune being in cahoots with Immortal, but still.
• On February 3rd 2011, after Kevin Nash and Booker T jumped ship to WWE (and thus thwarted TNA's attempt to reunite the Main Event Mafia), TNA pulls an Author's Saving Throw and finally give the fans what they've been asking for since Immortal's first night of existence, that actually made a lot more sense than their original plan would've. Jeff Hardy is in a rematch for the TNA World Championship with new champ Mr. Anderson, and the ref gets knocked out; Jeff uses the opportunity to call down Immortal and have them whale on Anderson. Per usual, AJ Styles and the rest of Fortune came out to assist in the beating - but just before AJ lays a hand on Anderson, he pulls his punch and throws up the Fortune handsign. With that signal, Beer Money and Kazarian turn the tables on Immortal and eject them from the ring, then Robert Roode clotheslines Hardy and AJ nails the Styles Clash, effectively turning Fortune face and costing Hardy the match. AJ then spent the next segment putting his Ric Flair-taught mic skills to work, firing up the crowd in a pretty decent Flairesque promo. The best part is that Ric was gone that night, leaving AJ to sell the angle almost entirely on his own - which he did like a champ.
  • During said promo, AJ proceeded to call Eric Bischoff and Immortal out on damn near everything that fans had been complaining about during the entire Immortal angle.
• The following week, it got even better. When Immortal came out to address the fans, Jeff Jarrett demanded Fortune to come out. Once they did, Jarrett proceeded to browbeat them about being "ungrateful nobodies", since he gave them the opportunity they needed by signing them to TNA. Beer Money's Robert Roode (someone not really known for his mic skills) snatched the mic after a minute of this and flat-out told Jarrett to shut up and cut the horseshit. Roode then launched into an epic speech of his own, reminding everyone in Immortal that Fortune is the backbone that built TNA, yet all four of them kept on getting overlooked by the next "savior" to be brought in every few months by TNA management. This time around, they weren't about to stand by and watch their opportunity to build TNA up into something better pass them by. Essentially, the same character purpose that led Fortune to come together as heels (and administer bloody assaults to EV2.0) was carried over perfectly into the group's face turn against Immortal. Better yet, not one fan didn't go with it.
• It would appear the entire Fortune vs. Immortal angle is just spawning one Crowning Moment after another. After Ric Flair betrays Fortune, despite his support of the group earlier, he comes out to the ring and gives a A God Am I speech before calling AJ Styles down to the ring. AJ responds to Flair's attempt to break him by talking with an EPIC Kirk Summation, followed by a beatdown that left Flair near-naked and beaten half to death. Immortal's newest hired gun, Hernandez, tried to help, but AJ kept turning the tables, treating Hernandez like a mere nuisance. Yeah, Immortal eventually got the upper hand...for all of five seconds; Fortune quickly rushed the ring and chased them all off. The capper to this? Hernandez, while retreating, walks right into another beatdown - this one from a pissed-off Matt Morgan!
  • More impressive is that Flair's normal mic skills, despite being top notch as they always were, were overshadowed by AJ's. AJ Styles outdid the "stylin' and profilin'" Nature Boy at his own game!
• Yet another on the March 17th episode. AJ is doing a promo on his upcoming #1 contender match when Ric comes in to try and start another Breaking Speech. AJ doesn't even let Flair finish his sentence and decks him to the ground, having gotten fed up with Flair's lectures. Crosses over into Crowning Moment of Funny when he states how good it felt to do so and just walks off.
• Here's where people first decided Fourtune was going to need its own page! At the end of the March 31 edition of TNA, Immortal has lured Fortune into a beatdown locked in a steel cage. Just when it seems the episode will end in Immortal's favor, Christopher Daniels rushes out of the crowd, climbs the steel cage and takes out all of Immortal in one move! He caps it off by pulling out his best friend AJ Styles (who was recently taken out by Bubba) signature pose, as if saying "This is for AJ!" (which he then cuts a promo with Fortune saying exactly that). Its hard to tell which is more awesome, the fact Daniels is back or the fact he's with Fortune!
• Another one the next week. Daniels comes out and demands to be put into Lockdown in AJ's place. Flair and Immortal come out to the ring and Flair starts demanding answers, stating there's no way Daniels can be in TNA because Eric and Hogan wouldn't dream of letting him. Daniels reveals he's already one step ahead of Immortal and went over their heads to the network in order to get himself a contract and inserted into the match. To cap it off, he leads Fortune in an attack on Immortal and drives them out of the ring.
• The Fortune vs. Immortal match at Lethal Lockdown had its fair share, including Daniels hitting a crossbody from the top of the cage to Matt Hardy and Abyss. However, the crowner has to be AJ Styles returning to help Fortune pull out the win and taking a measure of revenge on Bully Ray for taking him out. Bully Ray reacting like he just saw a ghost is the best part.
• When AJ returns to Impact!, he calls out Bully Ray. Being the Dirty Coward he is, Bully Ray tries to talk big and not enter the steel cage that AJ has prepared. So Daniels rushes the ring and locks Bully Ray in with AJ. Cue an extremely well deserved No-Holds-Barred Beatdown. If Ray hadn't got out of dodge, he'd have been put through a table by a flying attack from the top of the cage.
• The opening segment of the May 5, 2011 episode of Impact saw Hulk Hogan and Immortal beat on three TNA officials only to come out on the back end of a brawl against Sting, Rob Van Dam, and Fortune. While Immortal was backing up the ramp, Bobby Roode called Hogan out and made sure he listened by ceaselessly calling him a coward, then finally said what everyone in TNA had been thinking about him, particularly over the firing of Jay Lethal, a personal friend of Roode's. Yep. Fortune definitely needed its own section by the time this was over.
• May 19th begins with Immortal in the ring, bragging, but are then interrupted by Brain Kendrick leading the X Division, who have been royally ticked off at Immortal for overlooking them. After Eric gives each a match with stacked odds, they respond with a resounding "Bring It On". Afterwards, Immortal ends up on the short end of a major beatdown from both the X Division and Fortune. The sight of these two groups uniting to beat up Immortal is as great as one would expect.
• After a couple months off as the show focused on Slammiversary and Destination X, the campaign for Fortune to get its own "Awesome" page went springing back in full. Sting had a rematch against Mr. Anderson for the World Heavyweight Championship set for July 14 after Anderson had beat him at Slammiversary, but Anderson had made a Deal with the Devil by joining Immortal the week before the rematch. So during Anderson's welcoming party at the start of the show on the 14th, Sting reveals that he's got a group of friends that are going to have his back tonight to ensure he gets Anderson by himself, in the form of four Monster Clowns. Each of the evil clowns goes beating up an Immortal member, which continues throughout the night until Bully Ray and Gunner are the only ones left. Gunner goes looking for a fight with the clowns in the parking lot (Bully Ray chickened out) and gets summarily beaten down. Then they finally unmask themselves, discuss Bully Ray, and say he's taken care of. Who are the four evil clowns? You guessed it. Fortune.
  • As for Bully Ray being taken care of? He tried to interfere in the Sting-Anderson title match after a ref bump, only to find himself cleared from the scene by lighting games and a fifth evil clown, which allowed Sting to get the clean win on Ken to take the title. That fifth clown? Number one contender Kurt Angle. Who, let's remember, was the main guy that kept Bischoff off of Fortune's trail when they originally turned on Immortal by making the entire "anti!Them" operation look like a Main Event Mafia revival. Between this, the parking lot comment, the clown suit worn by Angle, and the fact that there were lighting games and a fifth clown suit in the first place, it's heavily implied Fortune got Kurt in on the big plan and/or Sting anticipated his and Bully Ray's run-ins and timed it perfectly. At the same time, he doesn't look like a hypocrite for saying earlier that night that he was interested in facing and beating either Sting or Anderson, primarily because he never touched Anderson.
• The following week on July 28, Beer Money finally shut up Mexican America. After Anarquia called out Beer Money in his usual grating voice from Latin hell, they came out to the ring. He continued to drone on in Spanglish, being booed all the while, until finally James Storm took the mic and told him to "SHUT. UP." The crowd couldn't have been happier. After a bit of would-be racist hypocritical humor about Mexican America cutting grass ("would-be" because they really are that bad), Storm decided to "reintroduce" Beer Money by putting Roode over as a money-making take-no-nonsense ass-kicker and listing every country American thing about himself in the long-winded catchphrase style made famous by Ric Flair and The Rock. He then promises to kick their ass not only for the fans in the Impact Zone and at home, but also the great luchadores (like the Guerreros) and all the other Hispanics effectively disgraced by Mexican America. After a bit of green card Red Forman humor (again appropriate in this case because of the targets' character bents), Storm turns it over to Roode, who puts the cap on it with Storm's catchphrase before Beer Money's music comes back on. Mexican America was just effectively silenced in a promo AT LONG LAST.
  • Even better, Beer Money defeated Mexican America and lived up to their talk!
• Arguably the best match at Hardcore Justice was the Fortune vs. Immortal six-man tag, but the real moment that could be classified as awesome was the finish. Gunner tried to throw AJ over the top rope through a table set up at ringside, but Daniels (who over the past few weeks had been trying to talk to AJ about…something, to the point it even cost him a match once) got on the apron, pushed AJ back in the ring, and fought Gunner, taking the table bump in AJ's stead as Gunner grabbed him and dove through it with him. Aside from being a refreshing twist in the usually-predictable "trouble in paradise" storyline, this self-sacrifice led to AJ hitting Abyss with a springboard Pelé kick in order to get the pin.