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The Rise and Fall of TNA Part 2
The fall of TNA wasnít caused by one fatal incident. It was a culmination of little things that resembled an avalanche. It started slow but once the negative momentum started, there was no stopping it.
During the Fall of TNA there were many great moments, matches, and stories but they were all overshadowed by drama behind the scenes and nonsensical booking of certain performers.
The Signing of Kurt Angle
Kurt Angle was and still is one of the greatest professional wrestlers ever from an in-ring perspective. His career in the WWE included him main eventing Pay-Per-Views and being the focus of storylines due to his in-ring performances and excellent interviews.
However, 2006 was not the best of times for Kurt Angle. Despite winning the WWE Championship and being part of the co-main event of WrestleMania, Angle was battling a serious pain killer addiction due to the number of neck injuries heíd sustained over the years training for the Olympics and wrestling in WWE. His addiction was so bad that WWE released him over the summer because it was reported there were many people within WWE who thought he could die on their watch.
Even in light of the addictions and stories coming out about Angle, TNA signed him to a contract.
TNA immediately put him into a best of three match series with their hottest uncrowned star, Samoa Joe. The two had great matches but the damage to Samoa Joe was irreparable. Ever since setting foot in TNA, Samoa Joe was treated as an unstoppable monster. He ran roughshod over the X-Division and for over a year had not been pinned or submitted. That all changed in his first match against Kurt Angle.
In Kurt Angleís first TNA match he made Samoa Joe tap out clean in the middle of the ring.
This in itself would not have been a bad thing had the match been built for several months and both men had been on a collision course (think Taz vs. Sabu at ECW Barely Legal). However, this was Kurt Angleís first match in TNA against Samoa Freakiní Joe who many thought should have already been NWA Champion. Had Samoa Joe won the first match he would have been a made man. Instead, he jobbed to the WWE guy proving WWE was superior to TNA yet again.
Kurt Angle would remain with TNA for nearly a decade and would continue to have good matches but what was happening outside the ring with his addictions plagued him until he finally (and thankfully) got clean in the last few years.
Kurt Angleís constant DUIs and pill problems would stain the company from a Public Relations perspective for the rest of his run.
TNAís Inferiority Complex
TNA never viewed themselves as an alternative to WWE. They may have claimed to be the alternative but their actions proved otherwise. TNA always acted as if they wanted to be WWE and would try to out Sports Entertainment WWE at every possible opportunity.
Had TNA focused on being the younger, fast-paced wrestling product we may be writing a different story today.
Several notable instances of TNAís inferiority complex were related to storylines that got too much air time and destroyed the aura around their performers.
During the fall of 2004 fans were treated to several weeks of ìCooke Gate.î WWE was filming a Royal Rumble commercial in a nearby soundstage at Universal next to the Impact Zone so TNA sent the former Road Dogg, BG James, and Abyss over with cookies to ìwelcomeî them to Orlando. TNA hyped this video for weeks as if it was a big deal when in reality it was a waste of everyoneís time. No one cared if TNA took cookies to the WWE catering table on a soundstage but to TNA, you would have thought they were DX invading the Norfolk Scope. Instead TNA came off as a second rate promotion desperate for WWE to acknowledge them.
Secondly, when Vince Russo returned to the booking committee (more on this sad state of affairs later) the former Road Dogg and Billy Gunn became the Voodoo Kin Mafia. Thatís right, they became VKM and went around mocking the WWE and challenging DX to a match. Not only did this fail to help ratings but it also showed once again that TNA was desperate for WWE to acknowledge them. Instead of TNA spending their valuable TV time showing the differences between the WWE product and the TNA product, they recycled old, successful WWF Attitude Era storylines and looked like a cheap imitation of sports entertainment.
Third and perhaps most importantly, TNA signed as many former WWE Superstars as possible as soon as they became available and they never lost matches to TNA homegrown talent and if they did, they had already destroyed any credibility the TNA wrestlers had to where no one cared.
The first instance was with Christian Cage. Christian had joined TNA and was quickly thrust into the main event and the NWA Championship and in this case, rightfully so. He walked off WWE TV right into TNA and he was ready for the main event. However, you can count the number of times he was pinned or submitted in TNA on one hand in his entire tenure. When he lost the NWA Championship (and later TNA Heavyweight Championship), it was a convoluted process during a King of the Mountain Match where Jeff Jarrett hung the title in a reverse ladder match and in his second reign Kurt Angle made Sting submit to the ankle lock. Both times Christian was never pinned or submitted. The pattern continued for Christian and I cannot recall a match he cleanly lost in three years. After three years TNA could have made a new superstar by allowing an AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels, Samoa Joe, etc. to beat him. Instead Christian was pinned by former WWE Superstar Booker T and he quietly let his contract expire before going back to WWE where he would main even their ECW brand until it was dissolved.
The following men all came in from WWE or WCW and held either the NWA/TNA Heavyweight Championship or the newly created ìLegendsî title that eventually became the Global title and finally the King of the Mountain title: Christian, Sting, Kurt Angle, Mick Foley, Booker T, Kevin Nash, Rob Van Dam, Jeff Hardy, and Ken Anderson.
From September of 2005 when TNA started on Spike TV to the Fall of 2011, the only TNA homegrown talent to hold the NWA or TNA Heavyweight Championship were AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, and Abyss. Of the three only AJ Styles held the title when it mattered. Samoa Joe held it for several months but it was too little too late for him and he was defeated by Sting at TNAís Bound for Glory 2008. Abyssí reign lasted an entire two months as the calendar turned from 2006 to 2007.
The message was clear if you were a TNA fan from the beginning. Former WWE guys matter, the homegrown fan favorites do not.
The only reason James Storm, Bobby Roode, and others got the opportunity with the title is because all the former WWE guys either left when their deals expired or were shuffled down the card because TNA could not afford to pay them anymore.
Instead of highlighting the differences between WWE and TNA and using the established WWE guys to put over the homegrown TNA talent, TNA chose to be WWE-lite.
The Vince Russo Problem
Vince Russo has a track record. A long track record. Some of it is good but a lot of it is really bad. In WWE he ushered in the Attitude Era and helped WWE ride the wave of success. Then he went to WCW and the ìcreative geniusî was exposed as a guy who had good ideas but needed a Vince McMahon to edit him otherwise things went way off the rails.
When TNA was born, it didnít take Jeff Jarrett long to bring his friend in and things creatively went sideways. In the early days there were things like S.E.X. (Sports Entertainment Extreme), The Johnsons, The Dupp Cup, scantily clad women dancing in cages, (Insert Object Here) on a Pole matches, and other ridiculous concepts.
At a brief point in time Hulk Hogan flirted with coming in to TNA and one of the conditions of that happening was predicated on TNA getting rid of Russo because of the lawsuit that occurred because of Bash at the Beach 2000. Hogan didnít come in until much later but a positive was Russo was out of the way.
Then TNA did a smart thing and hired Jim Cornette in 2006 to be an authority figure. Immediately after hiring Jim Cornette, TNA did a stupid thing and brought Vince Russo back to help write television. His impact on the product was visible immediately. The amount of run-ins, non-finishes, and overall silliness grew overnight. As did ridiculous concepts like the Reverse Battle Royal where wrestlers had to fight outside the ring and somehow fight their way in to the ring and then stand around stupidly until seven people were in the ring. Once seven men were in the ring, it became a traditional battle royal until only two men were left. Then the final two men would have a regular match. Confused? I know most viewers were.
Besides pushing former WWE superstars, making fun of the X-Division wrestlers, and creating ìstoriesí like the Voodoo Kin Mafia, Russoís writing divided the locker room. Jim Cornette has intimated in interviews Russo had his little clique of followers and he was really good at sucking up to Dixie Carter to gain power. On the other side were people who were fed up with Russoís booking and the unprofessional ways in which he treated others that wished he would go away.
Vince Russoís writing damaged many wrestlers and itís puzzling TNA survived as long as it did under his creative direction.
The Bischoff-Hogan Regime
After maintaining their 1.2 rating for years and not growing any further, TNA and Spike TV went all in and brought in Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan to run the Creative End of TNA and help with business decisions.
Why Dixie Carter thought bringing in two of the men responsible for the downfall of WCW would be a good idea was baffling to almost everyone. Both men could be creative but were known to bring in their friends and try to get the biggest payday possible for as little work as possible. While we do not know what was happening behind closed doors with certainty, the way the Bischoff-Hogan Regime played out on television showed little had changed since 1998.
For some reason TNA and Spike TV decided to go head to head with WWE on Monday night despite their ratings showing no sign of improvement. TNA brought in Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Sean Waltman, Sean Morley (the former Val Venis), Bubba the Love Sponge, Ric Flair, The Nasty Boys, and more of Hoganís friends for the first few weeks and it was a total disaster.
TNA had their highest rated show ever that first Monday night but the ratings quickly fell into the basement forcing them back to Thursday.
There were lots of reasons for the failure of the regime but the decision to push older stars over TNA homegrown talent occurred again. In his debut match Sean Morley cleanly pinned TNA stalwart Christopher Daniels ruining any value either of them had. An extremely out of shape Nasty Boys team defeated Team 3D several times before logic finally settled in where they were soundly beaten and never seen again. The debut of RVD saw him pin Sting in seconds only for Sting to beat him with his baseball bat and cut a promo on top of him for the next ten minutes making an exciting debut extremely underwhelming. AJ Styles lost the TNA title out of nowhere to RVD weeks later only to see RVD vacate the belt because TNA had signed him to a certain number of dates and had used almost all of them by the end of the summer. They couldnít even have someone pin him to win the belt. It was simply vacated and on TNA rolled to the next heavyweight title disaster.
TNA also started spending money they didnít have all over the place. Itís safe to say Bischoff and Hoganís salaries didnít come cheap, especially since Bischoff and TNA have been embroiled in a lawsuit over money owed for years. Itís also safe to say that their ìfriendsî were also not coming in on $1500 a night deals. Combine that with the high salaries of Sting and Kurt Angle and you have a company with a lot of money going out for talent and not a lot coming in considering their house shows were drawing an average of 700 people and they werenít able to sell tickets in the Impact Zone due to their deal with Universal Studios.
So what was Bischoff and Hoganís next great idea to spend money? Letís take Impact on the road. Now, at the time it seemed like a good idea. The product felt stale in the Impact Zone. Theyíd been there forever and the only way to make it seem like TNA was still growing was to take it out on the road and film live. Well, the problem was apart from big shows like Bound for Glory and Slammiversary that could draw up to 10,000 people, TNA couldnít fill an arena. Even giving away tickets to some TNA Impact tapings drew less than 1,000 people in 10,000 seat areas. Every time TNA ran a TV taping they spent somewhere in the range of $250,000 to $500,000. All of it was paid by a combination of Spike TV and Panda Energy. Not a cent of blank ink was to be seen.
The promotion lost more money under the Hogan-Bischoff regime in two years than almost all of the years combined preceding it.
The Hogan-Bischoff regime did not 100% kill TNA but it certainly sent them in that direction.
Dixie Carterís Poor Leadership
Dixie Carter should be praised and thanked for what she did in 2002. She saved TNAís life and the jobs of a hundred wrestlers and other production staff. She helped the company grow with her parentís money. She also helped them get a TV deal with Spike TV and gave wrestlers an alternative option to make a decent living wrestling in the United states in an organization not named WWE.
For all of the things she should be praised for in helping the company grow there are equally, if not more, reasons for which she should be assigned blame in helping the company die.
Everything in this article mentioned thus far is either partially or completely her fault. As the owner of the company Dixie Carter had veto power on storylines. Instead of taking a stand and doing what was right for her company on screen, she took the advice of Vince Russo and let him do whatever he wanted to the ultimate detriment of the company. Others may have had a say in the process but sheíd never pick a horse and stick with him in terms of a creative direction. She could have listened to the fans and made the decision to push their homegrown talent and use the WWE talent to help them grow. Instead, she was star struck and let the former WWE superstars use her company as a place to make money and run rough shod over the AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels, and Samoa Joes.
There are numerous other things she did over the course of her ownership that were terrible but her biggest mistake occurred after Vince Russo was fired again during the Bischoff-Hogan regime.
It was reported that behind the scenes Spike TV wanted nothing to do with Vince Russo ever again as it related to TNA Wrestling. At some point, Dixie Carter put Vince Russo back on the payroll as a consultant but allegedly told him to keep it a secret and not tell anyone.
After this arrangement had been happening for a while, Vince Russo accidentally emailed PWInsiderís Mike Johnson instead of TNA Wrestlingís Mike Tenay with production notes. Vince Russo went public and started lying and attempting to shame Mike Johnson into a retraction before TNA hastily and reluctantly admitted PWInsiderís story was indeed correct.
When Spike TV found out, that was the beginning of the end of their relationship with Dixie Carter and TNA. Spike TV made the decision to get out of the professional wrestling business and it forced TNA to find a new home for Impact.
That new home was Destination America, a television channel that is only on upper tier packages in the United States. Suddenly, Impact lost nearly half its audience once it moved to the new network. It was harder for fans to find it and watch it and many were hesitant to add another $15 per month or more to their cable bill in order to watch Impact. So they simply quit following TNA.
Dixie Carter once again sabotaged a relationship with TNAís television partner due to what is allegedly an email that was sent out that accidentally copied Destination America employees on it. The email purportedly stated that Destination America was not a good television partner and that TNA felt as if they could do better on another network.
Destination America soon thereafter announced plans to no longer air Impact once their current contract ran out.
This forced TNA to once again find another network to air Impact. This time, TNA found an unlikely suitor in the Pop TV network. Pop TV has been a great partner for TNA creatively but monetarily it is far below what they were receiving on Spike TV and even Destination America.
Dixie Carterís business practices demoted her company from a known cable entity to two unknown networks and with each network change, more and more of Impactís audience evaporated.
The Rise of NXT
The rise of NXT within the confines of the WWE Network also contributed to the downfall of TNA. Many of TNAís homegrown talent have found themselves with opportunities within WWE that were not previously available. The moment NXT became a touring brand, WWE needed established stars to help work with their younger talent and draw money on the road. As of press time Samoa Joe, Eric Young, Bobby Roode, James Storm, AJ Styles, and Austin Aries have appeared on WWE television within the last year. Each of these names is a former NWA or TNA World Heavyweight Champion and at some point were considered the main event draws for the promotion.
All of these men made a name in TNA but are now in better positions than they ever were in TNA with the exception of James Storm who elected to return to TNA.
Where Does TNA Go from Here?
TNA is in trouble. No one can deny it. All one has to do is look at the headlines and observe that TNA is almost out of money, different parties are suing Dixie Carter and/or TNA in order to gain money owed or take control of the company, and many people are inches away from being out of a job.
It truly is sad this is the current reality for TNA. The past few months have been very good creatively for TNA and its performers. The television product is solid and I would argue that Matt Hardy is pushing the creative boundaries for all of professional wrestling around the world. The first installment of Final Deletion not only got himself, his brother, his son, his wife, Vanguard 1 (a drone camera), but even his gardener over with the audience to the point a sequel materialized soon thereafter.
Furthermore, the other MVP of Final Deletion was Jeremy Borash. His editing techniques, music cues, ideas, and willingness to think outside the box should be noted and celebrated. Matt Hardy may have had the ìbrokenî vision, but Jeremy Borash helped him make it reality. If TNA goes under, I hope WWE hires him because his outside the box ideas can only help their organization.
Ironically what could be the last piece of original content shot for TNA could be taking place at the Hardy Compound for their Total Nonstop Deletion tag team tournament.
Creatively, Impact has not been this good in a long time. For the sake of professional wrestling, the employees of TNA, and the wrestlers who have yet to wrestle there, I hope someone can take the reins and right the ship. As good as WWE has been as of late and as good as NXT is, there needs to be another nationally-based professional wrestling company. Wrestlers need the opportunity to work somewhere else and make a living and TNA can be that organization if they can get their business issues and ownership resolved.
What the fate of TNA will be is up in the air. For now, all anyone can do is wait and see what happens with the various court cases. If no television tapings are scheduled for the month of January, it will likely be the end for TNA.
As a wrestling fan, I am hoping for the best.
Trace Armstrong has been a wrestling fan since 1990. Trace would like to hear any feedback you have at trace.brooks.armstrong@gmail.com.
