Top 5 Reasons for TNA (Impact) Wrestling's Failure

Last week a friend texted me with the message “Eric Young is on NXT. TNA is officially dead.” In a way I have to agree. I mean, no, TNA or Impact Wrestling is still going, but it seems like a wounded animal not long for this world. Eric Young seemed like the Tommy Dreamer of TNA; a loyal mid-carder and beloved underdog. Him jumping ship makes me hope the remaining roster have life-jackets!

Most of the big names from the promotion, those synonymous with the very brand itself have left. Jeff Jarrett, the founder of TNA, left years ago to start yet another promotion. The aforementioned Eric Young, Robert Roode, Austin Aries, and former heavyweight champions Samoa Joe and AJ Styles (whom I might add had been with TNA since the very beginning) are all in WWE.

I want to make clear that I am not an insider in the professional wrestling business. I am a fan and casual viewer.  This list is compiled based on what I, as a viewer, observed. While that may not seem like anything substantial and it is likely that I don't have all the facts necessary to paint a truly accurate picture of what happened in the company, I think the perspective of a viewer is important. The show is, after all, for us the viewers. At one point I was a fan of TNA Wrestling and now I don't watch. These are the problems as I see them and help explain why this viewer stopped watching.

Too much reliance on WWE's (or WCW’s) scraps - Okay, so just because Vince McMahon doesn't want you anymore doesn't mean that you can't be successful elsewhere. What I am talking about are the wrestlers who are past their prime or never popular with fans or in some cases had a bad history that ended with termination.

I'm not talking about Christian, who chose to sign with TNA as Christian Cage. I'm not talking about Jeff Hardy (at least his first run in TNA) who was still a big name. I'm not even talking about Kurt Angle, who while having been let go over drug dependency problems, still had enough gas in his tank to be a big star.

What I am talking about is Kevin Nash and Scott Hall showing up with gray hair and beer guts and instantly being in the main event. I am talking about bringing out Sean “Val Venus” Morley in his old "porn star" gimmick. I am talking about making Bobby Lashley a main event star after he never really got over in WWE. Hell, their first champion was Ken Shamrock at age 38!  From the start they built their company around a past his prime glorified mid-carder! (No disrespect to Ken Shamrock, a true MMA legend.) I'm just saying compare that to Lucha Underground, whose first champion was Prince Puma, a younger guy whose name and talent they established to help build their company around.

At some point TNA starting looking like an 80’s and 90’s wrestling reunion convention. Beyond Hall and Nash, they had Booker T, Scott Steiner, Sting (still using his “Crow” gimmick), Ric Flair, Macho Man Randy Savage and (of course) Hulk Hogan! A lot of those guys shared the spotlight together, taking a lot of valuable screen time from young up and comers. That is a problem.

Look, I mean no disrespect to these wrestling legends; their contributions to the industry have been huge. The problem is their time had ended. These weren’t one time appearances (like a surprise entrant in the Royal Rumble). These weren’t just on air personalities like commentators or even managers (yes, I know Nash acted as a manager, but that was later). At a time when TNA needed to establish new names to set themselves apart and create buzz, they instead relied on past their prime talent to be their main eventers and primary draws. That is a huge problem. You can’t hope to beat Vince McMahon by hiring his cast-offs.

Lack of home grown talent - I am not an expert on this, it's more of a suspicion really. My understanding is that most of TNA's talent came from Ring of Honor, Border City Wrestling, WCW or ECW wrestlers that Vince McMahon didn't sign and released WWF wrestlers. Outside of working with Ohio Valley Wrestling from 2011-2013, TNA didn't really have their own developmental territory. (I could be wrong, but I found nothing about it online.) The most TNA seemed to do was sign another wrestler, which more or less means they are pushing what was already established by the wrestler or previous organization. What I am getting at is that TNA needed to do a better job establishing their own talent to make a name for themselves.

I'm not saying that TNA didn't contribute to some wrestlers becoming big names. If not for their time in TNA I doubt AJ Styles and Samoa Joe would have WWE contracts right now. But they were signed from big name independent companies like Ring of Honor. WCW's "Power Plant" saw many big names emerge including Goldberg, Diamond Dallas Page and The Giant (known in WWE as Big Show). WWE has had lots of luck in the developmental department, generating stars that literally became the future of their company such as Randy Orton, Brock Lesnar and John Cena. The most TNA seemed to have going for them was rebranding certain talent that signed with them long term, such as Eric Young, Abyss and Jeff Hardy.

This isn't a damning problem for TNA. Obviously not every wrestling promotion can have a developmental territory. However, after existing for a decade, having a television deal, a toy line and being the closest contender to WWE in the United States, I expected some level of talent production, names to replace the old guard. TNA has no future in that regard. Since they never really had enough money to buy everyone's big name talent like Ted Turner did in the mid-90’s, they needed to make their own and overall, they haven't.

Weak main event roster - There were times when I genuinely thought that Jeff Jarrett started TNA so that he could be the face of the company that he could never be in the WWF. He always felt to me like a glorified mid-card wrestler. I didn't dislike him based on his great skills at being a heel, I just really didn't want to see him every damn week on my TV! He wasn't terrible as a main event wrestler, but had nowhere near the talent and presence of bigger main event heels of that era such as HHH, Randy Orton or even JBL... and his matches were as good as taking Ambien!

This was only the start of my issues with the main event scene in TNA. The initial problem as far as I could see was that their X-Division was so good, it made their main events look boring by comparison. Not being able to buy WWE's big names like WCW did back in the halcyon days of the Monday Night Wars, TNA was left with scraps and has-beens (which I have already brought up).

If it hadn't been for their early use of the NWA heavyweight title and Jeff Jarrett's involvement, I would honestly have suggested that TNA had treated their X-Division title as their heavyweight championship. Think about it, the X-Division matches were far and away the most popular and exciting. The X-Division stars not only became some of the biggest names in TNA but also were some of the most respected wrestlers from independent companies like Ring of Honor and Dragon Gate; names like AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels, Low Ki and Austin Aries.

For the first few years of TNA's partnership with NWA, allowing them to use the NWA Heavyweight Championship, the only champions were Ken Shamrock, Jeff Jarrett, Ron Killings and AJ Styles. Yes, there were other challengers that never won such as Malice and Curt Hennig but those four were the only ones considered as viable for the championship (based on possible factors as popularity and length of contract). That's a pretty narrow field for the first 4 years of a wrestling promotion's main event scene. Compare that to the holders of the X-Division championship during that time: AJ Styles, Low Ki, Syxx Pac, Jerry Lynn, Kid Kash, Sonny Siaki, Michael Shane, Amazing Red, Chris Sabin, Kazarian and Petey Williams.

I looked up something very telling of TNA’s main event situation that also plays into my preceding reasons for the company’s issues. I found that out of the 26 wrestlers that held their heavyweight championship (both NWA and TNA) only 9 were not previously established in WCW, ECW or WWE. They were AJ Styles, Abyss, Samoa Joe, James Storm, Robert Roode, Austin Aries, Chris Sabin, Magnus and Eric Young. The majority of them held the title in only the last five years! You can make an argument that Ethan Carter III should count as number 10 as his character seems to be different than his persona in NXT/WWE. Even with him added, that’s a measly 38%! For a company in existence for almost fifteen years, that is terrible!

Trying to become WCW - I didn't feel like this started until Kevin Nash and Scott Hall showed up and instantly inserted themselves into the main event picture with (surprise!) Jeff Jarrett by forming the Kings of Wrestling. An influx of veteran, often over the hill, former champions from WCW and WWE continued to show up and that eventually became the Main Event Mafia, another 3 letter acronym group that took over the spotlight much like the New World Order. I also think it's worth mentioning that while many had left WWE, only Kurt Angle was purely from that promotion. Kevin Nash, Scott Steiner, Booker T, Sting and Jarrett all made their biggest names for themselves in WCW with only Nash first winning the heavyweight championship in WWF as Diesel.

Then came the big change, the point where the people behind TNA Wrestling were sure they would finally be able to go head to head with Vince McMahon. They hired Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan to run their creative department. Suddenly Hogan became an on-air personality as well as part time wrestler. He got rid of the six-sided ring, one of the most iconic aspects of TNA Wrestling that helped set that promotion apart from its rivals. They brought back Nash and Hall along with Sean "Syxx-Pac" Waltman. They brought in Sean Morley. They even brought in the recently "retired" Ric Flair.

The obvious problem here, beyond what I’ve already covered, is that you can’t hope to build a skyscraper using blueprints for one that collapsed. If Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan really had such amazing ideas, then WCW would still exist or at the very least Hogan and Bischoff would have made their own successful wrestling promotion.

Samoa Joe destroys the X-Division - I am conflicted as to whether or not this should be number one, but in the end I feel like this was the beginning of the end for me as a fan of TNA. I'll start by saying that I think Samoa Joe is overrated. I can see why TNA wanted to push him. He has a unique look; he’s quick, agile and can do some good high risk moves for a guy his size. However, I also think he is deliberately stiff and very sloppy with his moves. My friend and I had predicted that at some point Samoa Joe would either paralyze or kill an opponent by being so careless. That very nearly happened in WWE against Tyson Kidd, who suffered a possibly career ending broken neck and is lucky to be walking let alone breathing. (Note: This apparently was an isolated incident and Samoa Joe appears to have a decent track record when it comes to safety in matches.)

Let me back up a second and say that this, while likely not intentional, was also taking a page from the WCW playbook. The powers that be in TNA probably felt like they were building Samoa Joe the same way WCW did Goldberg, by having him wreck a long succession of opponents to create "The Streak." But that isn't the page of the playbook I am talking about. Samoa Joe running through the X-Division absolutely had shades of Kevin Nash steamrolling their cruiserweight division back in the day.

It was a bad idea for WCW but a far worse idea for TNA. While it was a massive waste of amazing talent, WCW didn't need their cruiserweight division as they had a lot of big name talent for their mid cards and main events. TNA didn't have those big names. In fact, for a long time all TNA really had as a draw was their X-Division. Back before they had a TV deal, when all they had were weekly ten dollar pay-per-views, what got people talking was the X-Division. What got people paying for those pay-per-views every week was the X-Division.

To feed all that talent to a guy to build him as a main eventer was foolish and disastrous. The X-division was always billed as being “not about weight limits, but about no limits.” By being so entertaining, the X-division didn’t feel like a mid-card; it felt more like one of the rings in a three ring circus, a co-headliner that often outdid what was supposed to be the main event. By having Samoa Joe crush each and every wrestler, going undefeated the entire time, it made the X-division look weak. It debased them to mid-card status and lessened the value of the belt. It took much of the thrill out of watching. Honestly, it killed TNA for me. I kept watching for a little bit. Angle losing clean to Austin Aries helped restore some of the X-division’s clout, but the damage had already been done.

Maybe you agree with this, maybe you don’t. Like I said, I don’t know all the facts. I am speaking purely from the perspective of a former fan and the problems that I saw with the product.

Why I've Stopped Watching WWE

In the late 90’s I got into watching the World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment). It was a good time to get into professional wrestling as it was in the prime of the Monday Night Wars against World Championship Wrestling (though I seldom watched WCW) and just after the start of the “Attitude Era” which saw the rise of such legendary names as Stone Cold Steve Austin, the Rock, Triple H and Mankind (a personal favorite).  Within a few years I was reading spoiler sites with behind the scenes information. I gradually came to appreciate technical wrestlers as well as high flyers and high risk performers such as luchadors and hardcore wrestlers. I had become what industry insiders call a “smark,” which basically means a fan who follows the behind the scenes action and leans toward the technical side of wrestling (such as Bret Hart and CM Punk) above the showy character side (such as Hulk Hogan and John Cena).

Fast forward to today and it has been over a year since I have watched any wrestling programming. What brought about this change? There are a lot of reasons that really speak to the overall state of professional wrestling in the United States as a whole and why I really see no improvement in the near future.

Reason #1: Lack of Competition

In 2001, WWE owner Vince McMahon bought out WCW and ECW (Extreme Championship Wrestling), the number two and three companies and effectively eliminated his competition. While this allowed for many dream matches to occur such as Jeff Hardy vs. Rob Van Dam or Hulk Hogan vs. The Rock, the move caused stagnation to the product. The Monday Night Wars brought out the best in both WWE and WCW, as competition often does. In a way, by eliminating the competition McMahon came to believe that he “won” this ratings war and was able to consider himself “right” in terms of his vision of professional wrestling as “what the fans want.”

Reason #1.5: The Almost Competition

So you say “Toaster, there is competition!” Okay, it isn’t entirely accurate to say there is nobody to compete with McMahon’s empire. It’s just they’re barely worth mentioning. You have Dragon’s Gate and Ring of Honor, which are the smark dream promotions featuring truly great wrestling… but with little storyline, production values and especially next to no exposure. NWA (not the rap group! It stands for National Wrestling Alliance) probably still exists in some form. This of course leads me to Impact! Wrestling (formerly Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, formerly NWA: TNA in its inception).   

NWA: TNA formed about a year or two after the buyout of WCW by disgruntled WWE wrestler Jeff Jarrett. Not only was his intention to build a company to rival Vince’s but to give himself a platform to be the heavyweight superstar centerpiece that WWE never saw in him. For a while, it looked like TNA would gradually become that company. However, somebody decided that in order to succeed, TNA needed to emulate what WCW did (as they beat WWE for like a year or two in ratings) without seeing the obvious fact that WCW died for a reason (well, many reasons, actually).  This strategy is akin to deciding to reuse Germany’s World War II plan of invading Russia, focusing on the fact that for a while it worked very well and ignoring the overall colossal failure of the military maneuver and how it essentially lost the war for Germany.

I could (and probably will in a future rant) explain the many problems and failures with Impact, but for now I will say that a combination of lack of money and various egos are really holding that company back. It’s a shame since there is a great deal of talented wrestlers that are or have been affiliated with TNA, many of whom would never get a fair shake in WWE for one reason or another.

Reason #2: What Vince Wants

Since Vince McMahon has crowned himself the messiah of all things professional wrestling, I have seen a trend develop. Vince doesn’t so much evolve as he looks to the past for the future. A great example of this is his turning the WWE programming into PG ratings to try to convince everyone that it’s family friendly (as family friendly as a show can get featuring people who beat the holy hell out of each other). Vince is trying to return to the late 80’s era of wrestling.

Now to be fair, I can see a few reasons for this. First, I have a theory that Vince may have noticed that the kids who watched WWF in the 80’s grew to be violence loving teenagers in the late 90’s but now have children of their own. So Vinnie Mac has decided that by making the show kid friendly again (complete with the modern Hulk Hogan in John Cena) he can draw in the old fans and create new ones under the pretense of ‘family time’ entertainment. If this theory is true I have to hand it to the man, that’s not a terrible idea. Second, a disturbing trend developed in the 90’s. Wrestlers were developing major injuries that would put them out for months at a time, namely neck injuries that required spinal fusion surgery. This wasn’t something that really plagued the 80’s stars, but high risk and hardcore wrestlers were extremely prone to serious injuries. This leads me to the third point… Chris Benoit. If ever there was a cautionary tale of wrestling injuries gone wrong, this is it. Everyone knows the story and Vince’s company and reputation suffered a lot because of it. I imagine the PG thing was made in part to shed the image of brutality and go back to the more traditional professional wrestling of the 80’s.

However, I think Vince has made a few mistakes here. Thirty years later, the world isn’t the same place that once embraced Hulkamania. To believe lightning will strike twice is naïve. McMahon should look to make change, give us something new that will excite us. I see very little of this in the current WWE product and where I do see it is with those who represent the unorthodox methods that usually get them held down in terms of success. (Yes, CM Punk is at the top of this list.)

Truth be told, the guys I would love to watch are almost always underutilized and eventually released. Established TNA talent Frankie Kazarian came to WWE, but you never would have known it; I’m not sure he ever even appeared on television. Most ECW stars like Raven, Taz, Sandman, Rhino and Sabu were never pushed. Paul London and Brian Kendrick had a decent tag team championship run, but when the team was broken up (an all too common practice in WWE as they hope to find a new Bret Hart or Shawn Michaels from the split) London was almost immediately released and Kendrick had a half-ass push that really only served to put over his “bodyguard” Ezekiel Jackson, the typical ‘big man’ that Vince loves.

You see, Vince McMahon was spoiled by Andre the Giant, a huge man who could actually wrestle and as such could really draw a crowd. Since those days, McMahon’s been chasing Andre. In speaking of trying to find a new Andre the Giant, I’ve watched the slow, lumbering, untalented Great Khali get massive pushes because he is over seven feet tall, even so far as to win the heavyweight championship, while a highly talented technical wrestler like Nick Dinsmore gets saddled with a mentally challenged gimmick that left him with nowhere to advance. While I am amazed that talented wrestlers that don’t fit Vince’s big man mold such as Rey Mysterio, Bryan Danielson and the Miz have gotten the occasional heavyweight pushes it’s the more boring in-ring performers like Batista, Sheamus, Randy Orton and John Cena that stay on top with long title runs that frankly don’t interest me.

Reason # 3: Wrestlemania 23

I have to admit, this reason is very selfish, but it really made me lose a lot of interest in the product. Wrestlemania 23 was my Wrestlemania. It was the first time the huge show had been in Detroit in I don’t know how long. I managed to score great seats and was looking forward to a cool show. Now for those who don’t know, Wrestlemania tickets are like Superbowl tickets in that they go on sale long before you know who is playing or in this case wrestling. I just assumed that the show would be awesome. Instead, the big draw of the show was Vince McMahon vs Donald Trump in a hair vs hair match with the wrestlers Umaga and Bobby Lashley representing them in the ring and Stone Cold Steve Austin as the special guest referee. I’m getting pissed just typing that! I can’t stand Donald Trump… I never could. To pit him as the “good guy” against Vince was just obscene to me. The match was terrible. There was nothing good about it that I can remember. Perhaps my personal hatred of Trump has tainted my perspective of the match, but I would have rather seen a couple of talented wrestlers put on a good match, even if nothing was on the line.

Truthfully there were only 2 positives of the show I remember. The Money in the Bank match was cool as always, with Mr. Kennedy winning. (Unfortunately he would “lose” the suitcase to Edge a couple of weeks later.) The other plus was Undertaker beating Batista. The match itself was so-so, Taker carried his opponent in what seemed like an average match and not a Wrestlemania match. I was really just happy Taker kept the streak alive.

The rest of the show was not Wrestlemania worthy. The Ashley versus Melina match has gone down in history as being one of the worst ever. The ECW originals beat the New Breed… in an ordinary wrestling match. Why not let them tear it up hardcore? No, that match took place at the next ECW taping. I would have loved to see a long hardcore match featuring legendary ECW names like Rob Van Dam, Sandman, Sabu and Tommy Dreamer, but no… I had to watch Vince get shaved… like we thought that Trump was really going to get his head shaved.

Then there’s the main event… John Cena versus Shawn Michaels. It was nothing more than any other Cena match. Michaels dominates the match until Cena pulls out the “5 Moves of Doom” and wins. It was nice to hear him get booed so loud though. What really angers me about that main event is that they had a rematch on Raw a week or two later that was awesome… so awesome it should have been the match at ‘Mania. But no, not at my Wrestlemania. My Wrestlemania had to suck. It had to be a massive waste of money and leave me with an everlasting bad taste in my mouth. Honestly my interest in WWE has never been the same since.

Reason #4: Pay-Per-Views Are Way Too Expensive!

For a while there was a theater near me that would play WWE Pay-per-views for the admission price of $7. That is a hell of a lot cheaper than paying $40 to watch it at home, plus you’re in the company of other wrestling fans. It was great! Then WWE put a stop to it. As a result I almost never watch their PPV’s. I cannot bring myself to pay $40-$60 for a WWE pay-per-view, especially when many of the shows I saw at the theater left me thinking I overpaid for what I saw at the $7 price!

Since all major storylines and matches are built for the pay-per-views, it honestly feels useless to watch the ‘free TV’ shows since they’ll just dick me around with lame matches and dumb filler like “contract signings.” Honestly, WWE pay-per-views are way too expensive and are almost never worth it. I can’t tell you how many times I have looked forward to a match only to see it end with some stupid interference or never even happen thanks to a cheap shot. In fact, this year’s Wrestlemania saw a heavyweight title match between Sheamus and Bryan Danielson that had been built up for months end with an immediate “boot to the face.” That’s at WRESTLEMANIA! That’s supposed to be where all the stops are pulled out! People paid $55-60 for the show and one of the biggest matches on the card was a joke. That’s why I can’t justify ever buying a WWE pay-per-view. Either they need to improve the show for the large amount of money it costs (Note that these days the average American household income has dropped by 30-50%; paying $40 a month seems like a very frivolous expense.) Or WWE needs to substantially lower the price of these shows if they are going to pull those kinds of shenanigans.

So in summary, the shows are lackluster, the writing and booking are crap, the wrestling matches are boring save for a few talented individuals that occasionally are allowed to show what they can do and without any competition there is no reason to believe any of this will change. Vince McMahon will never step down. He will only stop having creative control with his company if he is either left a vegetable by a stroke or dead. In the meantime he has already established his heirs to the throne in his daughter Stephanie and her wrestler husband Triple H. Maybe they will bring about some incredible change to make WWE entertaining again… but I highly doubt it. Those odds are about as good as Impact Wrestling getting it’s shit together and becoming a threat World Wrestling Entertainment.

Sigh. What else is on?