To me, there's a major difference between wanting to see a company go tits up and just simply not being all that into a lot of what said company puts out.
Personally, I like TNA, as a whole, a helluva lot more than I used to. I started to watch it on a regular basis in late 2007 or early 2008. I'd kind of taken a break from wrestling altogether throughout much of 2007 anyhow, so I got back into watching WWE & TNA around the same general time frame. For me, much of TNA from about mid 2008 until very early 2012 just wasn't any fun. TNA kept rehashing the corporate power struggle/faction wars stuff over and over again to a point where, for all intents & purposes, it was the same angle, only with different players in each spot with nothing else remotely mattering unless it was an angle which was part of the primary storyline umbrella. Watching the company build itself around much older wrestlers based entirely on what they'd done a decade or so earlier rather than what they were able to help deliver now also was a bit turn off and it just went on and on.
Last year though, I thought TNA had its best year in quite a long time when it came to the overall quality of the product. We were seeing much fresher faces being elevated within the company into major spots & programs like Austin Aries, Bobby Roode, James Storm, etc. TNA had finally backed off from rehashing the same power struggle/faction wars stuff that'd dominated its landscape for the last several years. It also allowed wrestlers to be put in a spotlight rather than bunched together in factions that they either didn't need to be part of in order to be and/or get over, nor were they just packed together in huge factions in which one or two guys had a chance to shine with everyone else comes off as nothing but a low level thug. The BFG Series was also a big boost to last year as it provided some of the best wrestling content we'd seen in quite a long while.
As for this year, I think TNA has regressed to some degree. Wrestlers like Austin Aries, Bobby Roode & James Storm have been, for the most part, put into either mid-card or tag team limbo with little to no real purpose, the X Division means even less than it used to as it's now little more than random triple threat matches between interchangeable high flyers. The faction wars storyline is back and has dragged on needlessly, in my opinion, given that the heel faction of Aces & Eights has to be the overall weakest "major threat" in the history of TNA. The return of Jeff Hardy to prominence was a mixed bag for me. It's good to see that he has a handle on his life, the guy's a human being after all, and he did have a handful of spectacular matches as TNA WHC. The downside though was that Hardy, to me, was a generally bland champ even though he'd had the strongest run of his career thus far as a singles champ. I'd say the highlight of the year for TNA, in my eyes, has been the rise of Bully Ray. The angle with Brooke Hogan didn't do much for me as a whole, but Ray's work made it bearable. Looking at the BFG Series this year, based on its lineup, I don't think it'll be quite as hot this year as it was last year because, unless some major booking changes happen over the next several months, Hardy & Styles are really the only babyface guys that have the momentum at this point to be a believable challenge to Ray. Still, there should be some good wrestling content on Impact Wrestling for the next several months if nothing else.
If TNA did rise to be "successful" as the term is applied to WWE based on the numbers, it'd be a testament to the little company that could. As of right now, TNA is really only #2 by default as there's simply no one else remotely close. Even ROH isn't, at least not with its current television deal & set up. I don't want TNA to fail. Even when I've flat out hated what it was putting out, I didn't want it to fail because another big wrestling company is a good thing for wrestling as a whole. As a fan, and as a human being, I don't like the idea of any wrestling company going out of business. Hell, it's somebody's livelihood that's coming to an end and, on an even more personal level, it's someone's dream that's going down the drain. Sometimes, in all the debate, bickering and general criticism; we forget things like that. I know I certainly do at times and it's kind of a shame because we sometimes tend to equate, at least some degree, a small sense of self-worth with whatever wrestling company you like or dislike.
