WTF TNA part II

Before I get into this let me just say that Ring of Honor is the best wrestling promotion going today and they are losing their TV deal in April. With that being said...


Total Nonstop Action wrestling is the most upsetting thing in the world. Literally. There is nothing more upsetting to me in the world of wrestling than the current state of TNA. And it’s upsetting for a few reasons, I’ll touch base briefly on a few of them and then go into detail on the more pertinent ones. A little over a year ago Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff “took over” TNA creatively. They took away the trademarked 6 sided ring, inflated the roster with WWE and WCW rejects, and made us all feel like we were in the sinking ship that was WCW 10 years ago. But as the year progressed we had our shares of ups and downs. The ups seemed a bit more logical than the downs, Hogan axed good friends Bubba the Love Sponge and Brian Knobbs & Jerry Sags (The Nasty Boys) among others. We also saw the departure of Scott Hall, Sean “X-Pac” Waltman, Sean “Val Venis” Morely, Shane Douglas, and a slew of others culminating in the departure of Kevin Nash, a wrestler that many fans and critics wanted out of TNA years before he finally decided to leave. The downs were also present,, but forgivable, an attempted ECW reunion that ended up in a half-assed stable of washed up veterans, losing great talent like Christopher Daniels, Homicide, Awesome Kong, ODB, Consequences Creed, Petey Williams, Sojay Dutt and arguably Sting. So at the end of the day, TNA did beef up their roster with WWE rejects and did push a small handful notably the obvious Jeff Hardy, Ken “Mr. Kennedy” Anderson, and the Fairfield CT native Matt “The Blueprint” Morgan. But they weren’t trashy rejects, they were deserving rejects. But the roster problem is one that has plagued TNA for years, it’s really not the roster, it’s how they use it.

And in 2010 we saw TNA make the strangest and most unnecessary alliances in TNA history. One extremely logical and amazing stable formed was Fortune, headed by the legendary Ric Flair and featuring four TNA breakout stars in AJ Styles, Frankie Kazarian, and Beer Money Inc. Robert Roode and James Storm. The group was phenomenal (pun intended) and then they started adding other guys to beef up the ranks. Morgan was in there for a bit, as was the incredibly underutilized Douglas Williams. They are both good performers, but they don’t need Fortune, and the Fortune certainly didn’t need them. Then....on the overhyped 10-10-10 we saw the tides change. A new stable formed that Hogan and Bischoff thought would be like the nWo, a “cool” group of heels that everyone wanted to like. So who do they make it up with? Hogan, Bischoff, the out of shape and never over enough Abyss, Jeff Hardy, Jeff Jarrett AND the entirety of Fortune? Aside from Hardy, none of this absurd stable, called Immortal, was shocking or cool. And from October to last month the stable ran the place, capturing all of the titles in the process (though losing the heavyweight title to Mr. Anderson in the end). However, during that time Hardy got over as a heel (most notably walking down to the ring puffing a cigarette) and Jarrett reinvigorated his career with his MMA spoofing Double J Double M A tournaments, but the rest of the group kind of floundered. The tag titles were an easy win for Beer Money, the X title in Kazarian’s hands was almost a waste, as the X title has been as of late. TNA’s breakout star AJ Styles had no real push, Abyss won the Legends title (that title still exists?) and we were treated to boring TV. Great. Not a surprise. At all.

So then the Amazing Red’s kayfabe brother Crimson comes in telling tales of another “they” coming. He speaks of a group that will put Immortal in their places and restore peace to TNA. And then Kurt Angle brings in Scott Steiner. And we start seeing hints of the return of the Main Event Mafia. Okay where do you start here? Where does one begin to criticize this? Because Immortal is so stagnant and it’s clear they’re being carried by Flair’s Fortune, they want to bring in a group of wrestlers that was never over that tout a youngest member who is 42 and an oldest member who is 51? The entirety of Fortune is 35 and under (sans the manager of Flair) and most of the members of the rest of Immortal are in feuds. How could a feud be believably booked where a bunch of retirees face a bunch of peak wrestlers who are widely considered some of the best in the game? And why would I waste my time watching a retuning Kevin Nash, Booker T, Scott Steiner, Sting and Kurt Angle wrestle Jeff Jarrett, Jeff Hardy and Abyss AGAIN. Who will the crowd get behind? The talented young guys? The overbooked guys? Or the old veterans? Clearly Fortune was the group to highlight and make babyfaces in this instance...but not according to their plan.

And what is perhaps the best part of this plan on TNA’s side is that after teasing the Mafia return, even putting a video together showing the group, they didn’t sign Sting, Booker and Nash to contracts! So when the WWE beefed up their Royal Rumble to 40 stars and wanted a few guys to get nostalgia pops, who would they go for? Kevin Nash and Booker T. So now TNA has re-signed Scott Steiner, booked a major angle, and then lost it all in the blink of an eye because of bad negotiations. The second that idea popped into their heads they should have had Booker, Nash and Sting in Orlando signing papers to ensure it would happen properly. Instead they assumed that these guys would want to wrestle in front of the rabid and unforgiving Impact Zone crowd for another several months, and then hang up their boots and call it a career. Little did they know that Booker and Nash had greater aspirations. So what does TNA do? After making a hype video for the MEM’s return they literally tell you “Anything is possible” and swerve Fortune to be faces. Great. In fact that is fantastic. That means that AJ Styles will go back to being a main event player and Flair can be the man again without Bischoff and Hogan on his side. But at what cost is this good news? TNA looks completely unprofessional, poorly booked, and entirely unbelievable. I am glad Fortune are the good guys, and I am glad that the members will not have to share the spotlight with Abyss and Jeff Jarrett, but I am completely offended as a viewer and as a one time super fan.

So what does the future hold for this company of fools (on the booking and writing side, not in the ring)? Well they have to do something really good to clean up this huge mistake. Turning Fortune face is a good move. But now that we have Scott Steiner under contract does that mean we have to be subjected to his god awful matches? And are Angle and Steiner part of Fortune now? I don’t know. TNA has unlimited potential and perhaps the best roster in the business but these mistakes they keep making are what is making them lose fans that at one time would do anything for them (myself included, I was on a street team for a little while). It is a common and upsetting question, but once again I find myself asking WTF TNA