Why Did You Stop Watching TNA?

[ヒュー　G.　レックション]

I came on this forum today to see what people here thought of Bound For Glory, only just realising that it must've aired now. To my surprise, nothing here whatsoever! It seems as though this section has been a lot less active lately, and I'm sure it's because of decline in the product.

Now I used to be a huge TNA fan! For many years I considered TNA the superior product especially so for the years 2011-12. I would defend much of what they did and I enjoyed their roster, matches and storylines. As well as all the little things they did, such as the way they filmed their backstage segments, concepts like the BFG Series, a more adult based product etc.

2013, also a great year in being entertained by TNA! However, towards the tail end is when things started to go downhill for me. There are three significant events I can think of that made me start to dislike TNA:

Chris Sabin Winning the Title

While a great moment, they really did nothing of note with it. Sabin's a good talent but nothing of note really happened post-win, you had the AMAZING Austin Aries-Suicide reveal which was setting up an Aries-Bully rematch but then Sabin ends up winning the shot. He was plagued by bad booking however, as something else ended up happening...

Tito Ortiz as "August1Warning"

This was real shitty. No reaction whatsoever when he arrived and he contributed nothing also. Rampage at least seemed interesting when he arrived but ultimately he ended up being pointless too just like King Mo. Storylines seemed to take a really shitty turn here, also I think this is when Bruce Prichard left creative but I could be wrong.

AJ Styles replacing a DUI'd Kurt Angle

The build with Styles was so damn good, a complete repackaging and his "No-One" persona was excellent! But they ruined some great build and decided to stick him in Angle's place and make him full fledged babyface again. This took away all of the mystique (and "Crow Sting" remarks I guess) from him. Now this of course is mainly Angle's fault for the DUI but it's very unfortunate they did this.

TNA never really seemed to be the high quality product it once was (in my eyes at least ) I still continued to watch however though not as nearly as enthusiastic. TNA would still have minor cool moments. Liked Magnus as champ, but was not keen on the Dixieland crap.

MVP when he arrived ended up being a really cool face GM and I did like what he did with the Joe and Magnus thing, but everything else was extremely poor. Then of course by then AJ and Bad Influence were gone. But the one event that made me call it quits on TNA was...

Eric Young becoming world champion

Having just watched Mania at the time, to completely copy what they did with Bryan and use it for EY was incredibly poor. And EY had zero main event build, doing his comedy stuff with Joseph Park mere months prior. He was not credible at all as a main eventer, or a world champion.

And so I never watched after that. It's possible that EY had a great run with the belt and put on amazing matches but I doubt it, considering the state TNA are in now. The product was just too shitty to carry on watching. This post was a lot longer than I expected it to be, but I'm interested to read everyone else's thoughts!

 

[The Dragon Saga]

I've said this numerous times on here, so I'll do it again.

I used to love TNA. TNA used to be a great alternative to WWE. But then TNA stopped wanting to be an alternative and tried to be competition. They got stupid, did stupid things and I genuinely feel that watching TNA in 2010 was one of the worst periods of time in any wrestling promotion, ever. Anywhere. And that includes WCW 2000. It was horrible, it was painful, but I continued watching because I had hope it would turn around.

For awhile, it did. For about six months in 2011, when Bobby Roode and Austin Aries were TNA Champion's, the show was great. At that time it was better than anything WWE were doing. It seemed like TNA had finally found its way, but you know what happened? TNA did what TNA does, TNA screwed everything up and the product became slightly better than it was in 2010. It would be good one week, horrible the next, good for two weeks, horrible for three weeks - incredibly inconsistent and often replicating old angles or angles that had been happening in WWE the month prior.

The straw that broke the camels back was Bound for Glory last year. TNA built itself as a wrestling promotion. People can tell me that wrestling isn't the only factor that makes wrestling, wrestling, but it's the main ingredient. That show had a) fuck all wrestling b) aside from the main event the wrestling it had was pretty uninteresting c) it came across like an episode of Impact, and this was all on their supposed, "biggest show of the year". So I was angry, but again I went back and again I gave them another chance the following Impact, and what did they do? They had less than 35 minutes of wrestling in a two hour show. So I said enough was enough.

TNA's fans are gluttons for horrible viewing. It's only until you give up and realize the promotion has zero direction, is being led by clueless people and has no idea whether it's a wrestling or sports entertainment promotion that you will understand. There are so many better products out there than TNA. I've been saying this all year, all TNA has anymore is their TV deal, and soon they won't have that anymore. Their attendance for a promotion on national TV is horrible - I love ROH, but I know ROH shouldn't be drawing more people to its shows than TNA is. TNA takes simple things and screws them up. It's constantly biting itself in the ass.

I gave up on TNA this day last year, I started watching more NJPW and that blows TNA out of the water. I read spoilers and even those are hard to get through. If TNA has a passable show nowadays it's called "good", that's how far back they are. Bound for Glory this year has been panned because their idea completely backfired on them. It wasn't their biggest show of the year, it was a free night out in Tokyo with Muta's promotion. And what happened in the end? One of its main guys who is no longer with the company went into business for himself because he wants to go back to NJPW.

 

[three count bout]

I came very close to quitting when MVP turned heel, it was so refreshing having a Face GM but they had to revert to the usual status quo. I rode it out though and since then thankfully Dixie has stopped being an on air character (for now), and there aren't any super stables like Immortal or Aces and Eights hogging up too much air time.

Joe is a good X-Division champion, and the focus hasn't left the X-Division since Destination X. Lashleys put on decent matches, and has been a respectable champion with MVP being an entertaining mouth piece for him.

 

[Rayne]

For me, it was the dawn of the Hulk and Eric Show, when TNA took the focus off of the stars they had been building for the past several years and put it on a pair of men near sixty years old. I can even pin down the exact date; October 14th, 2014, when Eric Bischoff put on a forty-five minute promo to open Impact, when all of the company's heels came down, paid fealty to the crown, and the supposed star, Jeff Hardy, got ninety seconds of mic time.

I wasn't a fan of the Hulk and Eric era early on, when we got such stories as "The Power of the Ring" and the return of the Nasty Boyz, but I was still willing to give the product a chance. Then.... came THEY.

I pretty much assumed, very early on, that "THEY" would be Hulk and Eric, but had really been hoping I was wrong. I couldn't figure out a reason why I should care that Hulk and Eric were out to steal Dixie's company, or why I should care about Dixie Carter as a character (still can't, but she's wisely off television now.) It was yet another nWo rehash at a time when nWo rehashes had become more stale then the eighteen DX reunion.

Then we got treated to their kids being pushed into limelight roles despite being painfully, horribly unsuited to them; faction war after faction war, multiple ECW reunions- there never came a point where I said "I'm missing something here". We had people claiming that Hogan vs. Sting was some epic main event, based on the premise that Hulk Hogan wasn't so crippled that he couldn't take a bump, then turned face for some inexplicable reason after the match. Simply, the booking sucked, and booking is why people watch professional wrestling. People watch professional wrestling to see good stories; take a look at TNA's product now, which features excellently performed professional wrestling matches, but non-existent storytelling.

Short story, the product started to bore me because I stopped caring about the characters they were promoting.

 

[GeminiGarlord]

Honestly at some point they just stopped having wrestlers that interested me. Losing AJ Styles was probably the last straw for me and I slowly started drifting away. And the enormous focus on boring old guy like hogan didn't help.

 

[OYDK]

Good question. I guess it was a few reasons. I was enamored with TNA back in 2009 til about 2011 and than, a lot just stopped making sense to me. Watching Hardy disgrace the business like he did was big for me. How could a company allow somebody to go to the ring that fucked up? How is it somebody GETS that fucked up backstage? Than they started flip-flopping with their hottest guy at the time Anderson, giving him the title, than having him drop it the next week, than turning him heel and back to face within 3 weeks... It became the Hogan-Bischoff-Flair show and I was tired of seeing it. It just got to the point where I would put TNA on and not even pay attention... An hour in and I would have no clue what happened. That was about quitting time for me.

Tried to get back into it by watching some 2012 and 2013 episodes but the same damn thing happened.

 

[Slash-LN]

There's probably no discussion in this section about Bound For Glory because it was an underwhelming pay per view that for the most part didn't further story lines. There was no stand out moment that warranted its own thread.

For those of us who watched it and wanted to discuss it we did so in the live discussion thread.

I haven't stopped watching TNA but I do keep forgetting that Impact is on Wednesday now until I get to this site.

 

[Rayne]

Watching Hardy disgrace the business like he did was big for me. How could a company allow somebody to go to the ring that fucked up? How is it somebody GETS that fucked up backstage?

Up until this point, I thought that TNA was just boring to me, but might still have a product which could sustain itself. Hardy's stagger up the ring steps was the moment I realized something was seriously wrong in TNA; not just a "I am not entertained", but a "no one's running the show".

No one should be babysitting Jeff Hardy (at least not up until that point), he's a grown man, but at some point, there are going to be discussions about the match that night between producers and performers. Even saying they were just going to wing the match, between the backstage area and the ring there are a few dozen people, every one of which could have raised the red flag to a big boss, several of whom would be empowered to hold up the procedings while management figured out what they wanted to do with the situation. No one acted. It's not a hard fix; you have Eric Bischoff come out and say that Jeff Hardy was injured in the locker room, but he has a replacement. It's a pretty kludgy fix, but better then sending out a clearly drugged up Jeff Hardy to fuck up your pay-per-view.
Jeff Hardy was allowed by TNA management to go out to the ring in a fashion in which he was clearly under the influence. Eric Bischoff only came out/was sent out after it was realized that not only was Jeff clearly unable to perform, but that he was in the process of embarrassing TNA on a pay-per-view which people paid decent money for. (Also, it's largely forgotten now, but TNA promised their paying customers six months of TNA's On Demand offering, then pulled the plug on that offer after one month.)

I lost interest in TNA long before this, but this was the moment I lost faith in the company's ability to do business.

 

[George Steele's Barber]

I was never an avid viewer and there was no event that completely turned me off from their product, instead it was a series of bad decisions that pretty much led to me having no interest in watching their product.

My fondest memories and probably the era that I watched the most came when Angle premiered. I enjoyed his work, I enjoyed what Christian was doing, the Mafia was sometimes enjoyable, the knockouts could be fun, the tag scene seemed decent. They were doing a lot of things that WWE seemed to be really failing at.

Then Hogan came in.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Hogan and a lot of what he did entertained. It just seems like a lot of the decisions that were made after his arrival were poor.

1. Going to Monday nights/Attack on WWE

Why push my loyalty? Why make me choose? It was a stupid move partially because it was a ******** move. I was happy with both. By moving TNA forced me to choose and I chose Raw.

2. Hogan's buddies

There was no need to get the Nasties, Jimmy Hart, Love Sponge, Venus, or Jordan TV time. None of them are the slightest bit draws. The TNA roster at the time was better for the most part then a lot of the "talent" that got an opportunity through Hogan.

3. Garrett Bischoff

While I actually think Brooke Hogan made for some compelling story and TV, Garrett Bischoff does not have big boobs and he is not Hogan's kid. He was Bischoff's and his blood isn't that great to make up for his other clear deficiencies.

4. Aces and Eights

Great start that fizzled out fast. By the time Bully Ray was revealed (which sounded pretty cool I was pretty much out).

5. Angle/Jarrett

I didn't like using the kid and I hated their parking lot brawl. It made me feel like I was watching a snuff film. It is probably the one moment where I really considered never turning on TNA again.

6. Jeff Hardy

Between the drugs and the bumps, Jeff Hardy seemed to be a lot of what I don't like about pro wrestling. TNA's response to their fans after they let Hardy go out and ruin the night was pretty weak.

I still struggle to believe he is clean or will ever be able to stay clean with how he performs.

7. The Impact Zone

At some point I started to notice how terrible they were and how poor TNA's production was in comparison to WWE. It really made it harder to watch the show.

8. Anderson

The face and heel turns and silly attempts at being interesting felt so forced. Asshole? He is the prime candidate of TNA's inability to tell a story and overreaching attempts at being edgy.

9. Gut Check

Awful segments with awful talent and never used it to create much of an interesting story.

10. Dixie's Heel Turn

So much potential but you can't squeeze blood from the stone that is Dixie's lack of self awareness.

Honorable mention goes to that TNA mark poster Dizzy that used to frequent these boards.

 

[Shalashaska]

I stopped watching when it became clear that the homegrown guys were never getting passed that glass ceiling and that their focus was on former WWE guys and putting out WWE lite instead of a compelling wrestling show.

Styles, Joe and Abyss were 3 guys that early on I saw as being the future main eventers, the guys they would build the company around. They made A.J. look like a jabroni one too many times with that awful Flair gimmick, Abyss became such damaged goods due to stupid stories and gimmicks that the crowd couldn't fart enthusiasm when he came out and the company plain didn't know what to do with Samoa Joe. He could have been the company's MMA style badass, their Brock Lesnar but NOOOOO this is WWE lite, this is WCW mk II, this is Sports Entertainment not a boring old 'rasslin show stick a tattoo on his face and have him do MYSTERIOUS STUFF, OOOH IS HE A BABYFACE OR HEEL? WHO KNOWS? Wait where did the crowd go...?

 

[The Boss]

I wanted TNA to succeed for so many years as pro wrestling is in dire need of another major promotion to rise up. However despite the always top quality in ring action, TNA was always concerned with gimmicks over substance which kept the company down. I have heard that this was mostly Vince Russo's influence. What ever the reason TNA just never seemed as if they cared. The word "alternative" was often used for the more accurate word, "cheap".

That all changed in 2009. TNA finally decided to open its wallet and invest in the company. In brought in some of the biggest names in the business including the biggest of them all HOLLYWOOD HULK HOGAN. His presence was felt immediately as his debut resulted in what is still the highest rated TNA show ever. Then at the first PPV we again felt HOLLYWOOD HULK HOGAN'S influence as the gimmicky six sided ring which had long burned out it's "cool because it's different" factor was replaced with a traditional four sided ring to restore a sense of seriousness in the company and to let the fans know that they meant business.

For the next four years TNA became must watch TV. I loved the old school way they would build stories like Immortal and Aces & Eights. Changing the name of the show to "Impact Wrestling" with the slogan, "Wrestling Matters" made me feel like I was turning on a show about wrestling which is what I wanted. New concepts like the backstage "concealed" camera segments, the Bound for Glory series, Open Fight Night, Gut Check Challenge and TNA ReACTION made the company a true alternative to WWE that fans could enjoy. Was it perfect? No. Mistakes were made as inevitably the case when you experiment so much. For instance the Move to Monday nights. I hear so many people point to this as a sign of failure. Admittedly the move was indeed a failure, but we must also remember that HOLLYWOOD HULK HOGAN'S debut was live on Monday and it got the highest rating ever for the show. So it made sense to try it. Unfortunately follow up shows were still taped and spoiled on the internet. As a result the move to Monday didn't work out and the went back to Thursdays. Also while it was always cool to see the indy guys on gut check (which btw got better when they had two indy guys face each other) spreading it out over two weeks seemed a bit much and the judging seemed obviously fixed and pointless. They should have announced the winner as getting a "trainee contract" and perhaps use him on occasion in the future. This would free up more time at for wrestling. They also made the error of not keeping the knockouts division strong. But over all the show was still great.

In addition to the show content HOLLYWOOD HULK HOGAN and Eric Bischoff took other steps to improve the quality of the show. Production values were raised and new sets constructed. With new key lighting, seating and camera angles, Impact no longer looked like small potatoes. The venue now seemed to be holding more fans which gave the show (at least on television) a bigger presence to the viewer. The next step was one the fans had been crying for, for years, they started broadcasting the show live. No longer would TNA fans have to deal with inconsiderate SOBs who post spoilers and ruin the fun. Finally we got to sit back and enjoy TNA with no worries. Things were really looking up.

It didn't stop there. Up next came the big one. The change that every TNA fan had been calling for. The one that was going to solve all of the problems... the got out of the Impact Zone and went on the road. TNA had done a few test road shows in the recent past and of course had usually gone on the road for their four big PPVs, but this was different. To have a fresh new crowed of real wrestling fans (as opposed to theme park tourists just getting out of the sun) every other week brought a new level of excitement never before seen at a TNA event. And new fans got to experience Impact Wrestling live for the first time. This lead to TNA's first ever Impact taping in the UK which turned out to be a huge success.

Everything was looking up for TNA. Through HOLLYWOOD HULK HOGAN'S famous name they managed to get new TV deals all over the world and greatly increase their exposure. Attendance was way up especially in the UK. Now they weren't drawing 10,000 yet but they were generally drawing 2,500 - 3,000 per show which was a bit improvement over the 100 - 500 they would normally draw. And attendance continued to grow. In 2012 TNA set a domestic attendance record at 5,500 fans. The following year they would break that record when 7,200 fans attended Lockdown.

Best of all of course was the screen presence of HOLLYWOOD HULK HOGAN. Even though he managed to wrestle a hand full of matches, the majority of the time he was either getting or recovering from surgery. So the GM role was a great way for him to stay in the spotlight while taking care of his njuries. Win, win for everybody. And the constant tease that he was about to get into a fight as they built up to his next match drew me back week after week. I was so convinced that he was going to defeat Bully Ray for the World title I could taste it. But we all know what happened. With WrestleMania xXx just around the corner Vince McMahon came calling with his fat check book. Right as HOLLYWOOD HULK HOGAN was negotiating a new contract that would have not only kept him in TNA but also likely would have seen him win the World title and end the Aces & Eights angle Vince pulled him away and left us with a year's worth of great build with no pay off.

But I didn't stop watching right away. I wanted to see if TNA could survive without the almighty HULKSTER at the wheel. At first it wasn't bad. Prior to HOLLYWOOD HULK HOGAN leaving Dixie Carter made a heel turn which she surprisingly played very well (at least at first). But soon things started to go haywire. Unexplained face/heel turns at a moment's notice, more gimmick matches and storylines that made no sense. It all smelled as though Vince Russo had returned. He publicly denied this but later confessed. Then there was the return to taping the shows months in advance. Suddenly the champions on TV would sometimes be different than the ones on the PPV. Jeeze how confusing can you get? Then we have to consider all of the talent TNA let go. Big name legends, veterans and great young talent was being released in favor of cheap indy talent.And although some of them might be talented, some of them just don't have "it". Worst of all was the return of the six sided ring. The ultimate statement that they have given up being the promotion where "Wrestling Matters" and instead promote gimmick over substance. How can you get excited to watch a promotion when their biggest standout is a funny looking ring? No one goes to a concert to see the stage. No one buys tickets to the Superbowl to look at the field. But that's what TNA presents as their main attraction.

This was a little longer than I intended but I wanted to explain both what got me into TNA and what drove me away.

 

[shafe_41]

Dragon Saga effing nailed it harder than a drunken cheerleader on homecoming. TNA was fantastic when it was an alternative to WWE. Being its own thing. Doing its own thing. Creating its own characters.

My breaking point came when TNA went after the guys that were a bajillion years past their prime that nobody has any REAL interest in seeing. Flair, Hogan, Foley, etc... They were pathetic shells of themselves. TNA had something going with Joe, Sabin, Shelly, the X-Division and a SOMEWHAT youthful Angle and Christian. Hell... even Sting at his age was a great piece. From that point on, the company was nothing but a comedy of errors. I honestly can't even speak to them all because I stopped watching in about 2010. I was dedicated weekly in late 2006 until about the end of 2009. After that, I couldn't tolerate what was happening anymore.

I'll stick to my guns that in 07-08, TNA was putting on a better product than WWE in terms of PPV quality, match quality, and weekly television. Lockdown 07 was fantastic. Storm/Harris at Sacrifice that year was one of the best hardcore/no rules matches I had ever seen. It was just a great product. Their ideas were innovative. Even the PPV that had Angle wrestling three matches was a great event because you never got tired of Angle... even if one of those matches did involve Pacman Jones. The difference then vs. now is the guys then wanted to put on a great product. They wanted to be great and wanted to elevate the product. The guys now... just want/need a paycheck and TNA is their best option if they aren't in the WWE. It's that simple. Look at their roster and who is left compared to just 6-7 years ago. Dudleys, EY, Roode, Storm, and Joe. That's about it. There isn't much special about the rest of them. For the most part, it's a roster of duds. That's not saying they're not talented. Their creative is a mess. Everything is just a mess and we're watching TNA die a slow horrible death.

 

[The Boss]

Long story short in my case. I stopped watching when TNA stopped caring about the fans who were watching, investing in and growing the company and instead became to worried about what was being said on the internet. By turning their backs to the larger, louder, paying crowd and catering to the IWC who admittedly hated their product and were constantly trashing it, TNA ended up losing them all.

 

[FromGlasgow]

I must be in the minority as I would hate to see TNA fail as they still have a lot of great talent like Kurt Angle, Eric Young, James Storm, Bobby Roode, Austin Aries, Magnus, Bro Mans, Abyss, Samoa Joe, MVP, Bobby Lashley, Jeff Hardy, Matt Hardy, The Wolves, Velvet Sky, Angelina Love, Madison Rayne and Gail Kim to name a few, They just need to find that new set of break through superstars as well as another couple of big names to balance all the others who left in the recent past. Go back to their roots and sign sort of a next generation of new X division style wrestlers not bringing back the same ones as used 14 years ago as well as continueing with their knockout division as up until recently I always thought was superiour to the WWE Divas. If TNA goes we would just be left with a complete WWE monopoly over wrestling which would be dull.

 

[MC_Live]

10-10-10. The whole Immortal storyline did it in for me. Now, I should have realized that the moment Hogan and Bischoff stepped foot on to TNA soil everything would go down hill. Hogan should have helped the company. Hell, Bischoff should have helped too. But instead of grow the product, they replaced everyone with their buddies. The result turned into lackluster story lines. And then the whole Immortal thing happened. Jeff Hardy should never have gone heel. Fortune got completely screwed up. And for a few years following basically every chance TNA had to do something, they did it in the worst way possible. While Bobby Roode proved to be a great heel champion, he should have won at BFG and been a face. Then after that, he and Storm had a great feud, the should have culminated in Storm winning the title at Lockdown in his home state, but that didn't happen. Then Austin Aries had a great run, and for some reason Jeff Hardy beat him at BFG, which never should have happened. Does anyone remember why Aces and Eights started? Because they thought that Sting needed a reason to not be in the BFG series other than "Hey, I've already been Champ 15 times, someone else can have that spot." So they created a group to attack him. And since they never had a clear outline for where Aces and Eights should go, it obviously turned out horrible. Chris Sabin offered a great opportunity to tell a good story, and that was wasted. BFG in 2013 was a complete screw up. AJ styles had a great character that they completely dropped. On top of that Dixie tried being a heel, and she was just dreadful. She doesn't have a clue what she was doing. The TV has actually been pretty good over the summer, and I started getting back into it. But BFG this year turned out to be a complete shit show. The amount of problems that resulted from their ahead of schedule TV taping was an insanely stupid amount that should not have ever happened.

When Hogan came in, they went full WWE lite. They're not WWE. They can't and won't out-WWE the WWE. They can't even semi-WWE the WWE. I stopped watching when it stopped being TNA. And I'm just hoping they can get a new TV deal and start the road to recovery.

 

[Papa Pillman]

Honestly there are still lots of reasons to watch, Impact has basically not put on a bad episode of TV since Slammiversary. All of the #TNANYC broadcasts included great wrestling with simple but mostly effective match making angles to set them up revolving mostly around building competition in each division.

Lashley's title run has been one of the most well-booked in TNA history, and the Tag Title Series is one of the best things the company has ever done.

As for BFG though, there's not a lot to talk about. Talking about BFG is like talking about a ONO PPV. Only the main event had any build, the rest were just random matches.

Aside from giving a breakdown with some star ratings, there is really nothing else worth addressing about the show. And since no one here cares much about people's individual ratings its kinda pointless to even post those. I did enjoy the show though, and the X-Division 3-way was excellent.

 

[Dagger Dias]

I've taken multiple breaks from watching TNA. After enduring many decisions made by this company that make absolutely no sense, a few occasions came up where I finally considered walking away for good. The first of these was when they gave Brooke Hogan an onscreen role. If her father wasn't the most famous wrestler in history, she would never have showed up on Impact. Ever. She also wouldn't have made it onto any other television shows or created her abysmal music album. The moment she was given an onscreen role on Impact, I knew it was time for an extended break. The only thing that got me to come back after that was the new Main Event Mafia. I was a big fan of the original, so why not. I kept watching for a bit. Then they made Eric Young the World Champion.

Eric Young as the World Champion!? He was not believable in the role. That was ridiculous. Had it not been for Bobby Lashley's World Championship win then that Eric Young World Championship run legitimately would have been my reason for giving up on TNA. I came back to see what Lashley as TNA World Champion was going to be like. Then, we had the absolute final straw. Bound For Glory 2014. How do you not have a World Championship match on YOUR COMPANY'S BIGGEST SHOW OF THE YEAR!? That was it. I'm done. I'll talk about TNA storylines from the past but I truly doubt I'm ever watching TNA again. I'd need an extremely good reason to at this point.

 

[Slash-LN]

Honestly there are still lots of reasons to watch, Impact has basically not put on a bad episode of TV since Slammiversary. All of the #TNANYC broadcasts included great wrestling with simple but mostly effective match making angles to set them up revolving mostly around building competition in each division.

Lashley's title run has been one of the most well-booked in TNA history, and the Tag Title Series is one of the best things the company has ever done.

As for BFG though, there's not a lot to talk about. Talking about BFG is like talking about a ONO PPV. Only the main event had any build, the rest were just random matches.

Aside from giving a breakdown with some star ratings, there is really nothing else worth addressing about the show. And since no one here cares much about people's individual ratings its kinda pointless to even post those. I did enjoy the show though, and the X-Division 3-way was excellent.

Running a series of shows where the audience are rabid wrestling fans and not just lousy tourists got a great reaction from said fans?

Who'd of thunk it?

Oh wait. On top of that the company is going to revolve the wrestling show around wrestling matches with just enough stuff in between to further story lines? Oh and a good portion of those matches are actually going to be good matches?

Am I dreaming?

Seriously though Papa Pillman is correct. Those New York shows were good. The crowds were good, the matches were good. The presentation was good enough.

Really those shows came down to nitpicking for the most part. For people who made it their mission to find something wrong. There were a few exceptions to that like too many ECW alumni coming into the company for a while and the Menagerie is horrible but some people like it.

If things had been run this way all along I think less people would have given up on the company.

People are right that at one point TNA got away from what made it popular and turned it into something people were trying to get away from with what WWE does. That's on TNA. They may be back on course right now but I can understand that former fans don't want to get burned again.

As far as the company letting Jeff Hardy go out there fucked up. What promotion would do that? Definitely not just TNA.

[Youtube]xl6ZLhawpRA[/Youtube]

 

[Rayne]

As far as the company letting Jeff Hardy go out there fucked up. What promotion would do that? Definitely not just TNA.

[youtube]xl6ZLhawpRA[/youtube]

Yes, but TNA is a company which is trying to look better than companies like "Top Rope Promotions". When you're the #2 player in your industry, more is expected of you than when you're packing fifty people into a restaurant function room.

 

[MWRedskins]

Honestly, i haven't stopped watching it, but i don't watch it like i used to and for me the biggest reason is who they pushed and who they didnt push. i think pushing Eric Young like they did was just not wise. people who know the product and watched it remembered Young as being a moron who pulled his pants down in a match, married ODB and was a TNA Knockouts Tag Team Champion....then all of the sudden, they push him as a serious guy (finally) and in what seemed like a month, beats Magnus and to make it worse, Magnus was pushed as a champion who could only win matches with interference. in my book TNA should've 1) made Magnus more credible as a champion....2) pushed Aries more, the fans love him, push him and 3) pushed Storm earlier as well. TNA finally did a wise thing and built a heel in Lashley strong....that's what they should've done with Magnus, then his title loss to Young would've been much better. i will likely watch TNA more if they have good signings/re-signings and push the right people.

 

[Violent Violet]

I used to watch it when it offered something WWE didn't, which was outstanding tag teams, X division and female wrestling. When Hogan came in, the first thing TNA did was clear out all of the women who could wrestle. Gail Kim and then Awesome Kong and then Cheerleader Melissa and Roxxi, etc. That's when I tuned out because, to me, at the time, that was the only thing that separated TNA from WWE.

 

[Nada]

It wasent good TV, it wasent entertaining. It was, at the time of Hogans arrival, this pseudo WCW, as if a necromancer had resurrected WCW, but not the good WCW of 96-97, but rather the shitshows of 1999-2001.

But the thing pushed me away from TNA was that the company never had its own identity. Early on it was crash (trash?) TV, and TNA as in tits n ass was taken literally, the the bad WCW esque period and then ripping of WWE in some aspects. Which is not a good idea, because creativly WWE has not been great for 10+ years.

WWF in 1997-1999 was "trash" TV, but in a good way, the set design, the gimmicks, the music, it all had a very raw feeling (pun intended), it was a edgy and cool.

WCW in 1996-mid 1998 was a very international company, they had so many great performers, they had foreigner wrestler who didnt do the heel foreigner "FUCK America!" gimmick. They presented themselves as sport, where announcers would treat as such.

ECW is well known for its identity, it is its most famous characteristic.

TNA just never had their own. WWE does have a identity, its just not a positive one, of this corporate monolith that secretly hates wrestling and wants to be anything but. And TNA's identity was right there, they should have been the anti "entertainment" corporate sell out company, yet they had Jersey Shore "celebs" on and tried to be like WWE. Its evident by listening to Dixie that she admires Vince

I admire Vince too, i am sure we all do, but rather the Vince of 1986-1999. Not the modern one

 

[sMark]

TNA simply did run out all of their chances with me, because they turned every great thing they had in absolute garbage and their wrestling level droped drastically, to the point where it looked like WCW in it's worse phase.
In 2005-2010 TNA was great to watch - some familiar faces that long gone from WWE TV for nostalgia factor, and hot and young indy talents who always did a great job in the ring. The company was on a role, but then Hogan happened and everything became stale, boring and not fun, so somewhere in 2012 i stopped watching them at all, and i will not go back and watch them ever again.

 

[Rayne]

TNA just never had their own. WWE does have a identity, its just not a positive one, of this corporate monolith that secretly hates wrestling and wants to be anything but. And TNA's identity was right there, they should have been the anti "entertainment" corporate sell out company, yet they had Jersey Shore "celebs" on and tried to be like WWE. Its evident by listening to Dixie that she admires Vince

Ugh. There is no secret corporate conspiracy to destroy professional wrestling. The answer is actually much simpler.

Professional wrestling doesn't sell.

The WWE (and TNA) aren't in the business of presenting the purest example of professional wrestling as a form of art. They are in the business of making as much money as possible within the genre of professional wrestling. This is why you see projects like Total Divas and WWE Films (which people love to shit on, but they aren't in the business of making art- they make low budget movies which bring in more, consistently, than they cost to make.) There is a very limited amount of money out there that can be made from professional wrestling itself. If professional wrestling was a hot seller on its own, you wouldn't have to look up in the 700's to find ROH on your cable network.

Instead, they sell what sells. Celebrities and characters. They were selling the same thing during your own personal golden era of 86-98, it's just that you were younger then and not as jaded. Those years saw Mr. T, Cindy Lauper, Lawrence Taylor, Mike Tyson, and a whole cavalcade of other 'non-wrestlers'. Remember "Wrestling Matters", then being treated to ten minutes of in-ring content surrounded by six Hulk Hogan segments? TNA realized that professional wrestling didn't sell, but they also understood that the group that considered themselves 'purists' were at least large enough to try and pander to, since they were trying to scrape together any steady audience they could. In the meantime, they were bringing in celebrities left and right to try and goose the ratings. (It was worth an attempt but didn't work; the hypocrisy was pretty obvious. Hiring the B-list couldn't have helped matters.)

There's a difference between personally liking a product, and making money from it. I like ROH, but I understand why a company that's selling the product they're currently selling won't grow much beyond where it is without changing their formula. WWE and TNA chase the money; the WWE succeeds at it, whereas TNA did not.

So no, mein kinder, there is no conspiracy or shame-faced turnaway from professional wrestling, except in the general broad population based sense. It is, and always has been, about chasing the most money that you can.

 

[BenChillin]

The many things mentioned in the first post is why.

Also, the flip flopping of faces to heels, the incoherant storylines, and the misuse of Samoa Joe, and more recently Austin Aries.

I did like Aries being the guy who beat Roode though. That was dope. Then they did the cash in with Sabin and that wasn't.