TNA Wrestling: The Little Company that Couldn’t and Still Can’t
TNA Wrestling Saved My Love of Pro Wrestling:
Hi, I’m “Arizona” James Walsh. And, I’m a wrestling fan. If you know me or have known me at any time in my life, the fact that I’m a wrestling fan would be part of your description of me somewhere near the start of the conversation. For example, “James is an honest guy. But, he sure does love his wrestling!” Or, “James is a hard worker. He strangely loves pro wrestling, though!” You get the picture?
When WCW and ECW closed up shop and the WWE was the last standing company in 2001, I stopped watching new wrestling all together. From March of 2001 to June of 2002, I watched only 1 match and that was The Rock and Hulk Hogan from WrestleMania X8. Other than that, I was out. Then came TNA! Just like the line from the Godfather, “Just when I think I’m out, they pull me back in!”
TNA Wrestling was the desperate bastion of hope for fans who were simply not going to fall in line with the Evil Empire and be a WWE fan. It was the Hail Mary toss of a team down a touchdown with seconds left in the game. After the Huckster and Nacho Man skits, I swore off WWE for life and have never gone back. If my options were WWE or nothing, I selected nothing. But, TNA came along and rekindled my love affair with pro wrestling. It was a risk no one had to take. Jeff Jarrett did, however. It was something special for a while. But, it did eventually become the “little engine that couldn’t”, as Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff once said.
When TNA started on June 19, 2002, it was a pay-per-view only format. For just under $10 per week, you would get to see 2 hours of quality produced pro wrestling that didn’t resemble what you were getting from the WWE in any way, shape, or form. In its infancy, TNA gave us elements of what became the backbone of the promotion during the years of which it mattered most. You had Jerry Lynn and AJ Styles delivering X Division style matches that sadly has become the expected style of wrestling these days. You had foul mouthed, scantly clad women from WCW and ECW such as Francine, Elektra, Daffney, Bobcat, Jasmin St. Claire, and others who really delivered the T&A of the TNA innuendo. The main event scene was filled with talent such as Jeff Jarrett, Scott Hall, Ken Shamrock, Curt Hennig, and other established names that the fans were happy to have a chance to see work. Those Wednesday night pay per views were a delight. When did I start to lose my love for the company?
The Sided Ring Sucked and FOX Sports One Was Too Tame:
In 2004, TNA changed the shape of their ring from the traditional 4 sided ring to a 6 sided ring. The ring itself looked different but often threw off the logistics of wrestling to the viewer. Plus, the different shape resulted in tighter ring ropes, a more taut ring mat which means the wrestlers were taking bumps on a harder than necessary surface, and the awkward nature of shooting a wrestler off to the ropes now could result in a buckle bump instead of them bouncing back ala an Irish whip. It was a change that some loved and some didn’t. As you can tell, I didn’t. Why was it done? Expansion.
While the Wednesday pay-per-views carried on until September, TNA bought time on FOX Sports Net at 4 p.m. on Friday afternoons to bring TNA to the mainstream audience. It was a gamble. But, the gamble paid off with some help from a pissed off David Sahadi wo helped get TNA Impact on Spike TV, now Paramount Network, in October 2005 just after WWE RAW moved off Spike and went back to the USA Network.
With an 11 p.m. slot on Saturday night, the show did OK numbers. When Kurt Angle came in, the nature of the beast changed a little.
So, why change the ring shape?
Having done wrestling media for 30 years, I was around at the time the ring shape was changed as well as all the subsequent times wrestling fans asked people in power at TNA when the ring would go back to being shaped like an actual wrestling ring and not a Mexican styled visibly smaller disaster area. The answer I, as well as everyone else, got was something that sounds a little like this:
“We want people flipping through the stations to see our product and realize we’re not WWE.”
Here’s how I’d tell that they’re not WWE if I didn’t already know. WWE didn’t run 250 seat sound stages (and I’m friends with Eddy Mansfield who originated doing prow restling at the Universal theme park in Orlando back with the IWF in the early 1990’s) nor does WWE fly a TNA logo the size of the tiny ring that is in every camera shot. No one was going to confuse the look of TNA with the look of WWE. And, when the talking heads saw fit to bash the Monday Night War concept that came back in 2010, those talking heads buried the excuse for the stupid shaped ring by admitting that production wise, TNA looked nothing like WWE.
Jeff Jarrett Deserves Credit:
Jeff Jarrett created TNA. He didn’t have to. Many tried to talk him out of it. The WWE fans, which the majority of IWC fans are deep down, wrote TNA off before it started and subsequently have written it off hundreds if not thousands of times since. They eventually were right because the product on TV today is a joke and everyone knows it. I digress, Jarrett took a risk. That risk was a worthy one. The wrestling business, as a whole, owes him a debt of gratitude for the risk.
But the risk failed and failed early.
Dixie Carter Deserves Credit Too:
If I owned a burger joint and my burger joint ran out of money, for whatever reason, so I had to sell it, I should not be surprised that the new owner didn’t want to keep that burger joint running the same way it was when we ran out of money. When Panda Energy and Dixie Carter’s family bought the majority of TNA, it stood to reason Dixie Carter would take a more vested interest in her investment, the origin of the word “vested” for my English enthusiasts out there. While Jeff Jarrett did continue runing the company for years with Dixie having only a minor obvious input into the show, it should never have been assumed by anyone, including Jarrett, that there would be a possibility of Dixie Carter becoming more involved.
If Dixie Carter and her family didn’t step in, TNA would have died in late 2002. That isn’t an opinion. It is a fact.
In 2006, I did a pretty good interview with Dixie Carter on my AM radio show. Dixie, who agreed to the interview and then tried to back out last minute because of being a mother again fairly recently and being tired but still came on in spite of her exhaustion, we talked about her understanding of pro wrestling. She told me about living in the same apartment complex as Jeff Jarrett when the Jarrett family took over World Class Championship Wrestling at the Sportatorium and changed it to the USWA before it became the GWF. She new these names. She knew this history. She knew Jeff Jarrett 12 plus years before they ever started doing business together. She might not have lived her life as a die hard wrestling fan watching every bit of footage of pro wrestling that ever existed and knowing every move, name, and piece of history. But, she was not the clueless dunder that the Dark Side of the Ring documentary sought to make her out to be.
Being blunt, I’ve forgotten more about pro wrestling history than Dixie Carter ever knew and ever will know. Also being blunt, Dixie Carter has forgotten more about business in general than I ever have or will know. Sometimes you need a business person to make decisions and not a bleeding heart hstorian. Dixie provided that.
Kurt Angle and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Drug Problem:
Kurt Angle was released from WWE fur one reason and one reason only. That reason was Eddie Guerrero had died in November of 2005 and Kurt Angle showed every sign of being the next WWE talent to die. Angle, due to his neck, was on enough pills to down a bull elephant. Vince McMahon and WWE didn’t want that PR disaster. So, they released him. So, what does TNA do? Sign Kurt Angle… Because, he’s Kurt Angle!
Kurt Angle gave his all to TNA. I might not be the world’s biggest Kurt Angle fan. But, I sure respect his heart and effort. With that said, his drug problem followed him into the Impact Zone. As discussed during the Dark Side documentary, Karen Jarrett was already separated from Angle. Angle had, in a somewhat public affair, been linked to Dawn Marie in 2005 just prior to her pregnancy, your rumor here. No one on that level of pills could maintain a personal relationship that was healthy. Karen was brought in, on screen, to help Kurt Angle garner heat. Se was also brought in, off screen, to keep Kurt Angle from himself.
In 2018, I interviewed Rhaka Khan. Khan, real name Trenesha Biggers, went into great detail about the life and times she had as Kurt Angle’s girlfriend in the late 2000’s. She talked about his drug rages and how he once knocked her over a couch and stomped her over a disagreement over what she would make for dinner. Oh yeah, Kurt Angle has pulled the nose of his plane up for sure. But, the apples from the Angle family tree did not fall that far from each other as one of his siblings murdered his wife.
Karen started dating Jeff Jarrett shortly after Jill Jarrett, Jeff’s wife, passed away. Can you blame Jeff? Karen was a dime. Jeff was also a good person in a business full of sharks. So, why shouldn’t these two have found each other? I’m glad they did.
2009 Sucked and It Was Time for a Change:
What I find shocking is Dark Side ran the clip of Dixie Carter’s meeting with the TNA locker room addressing the talent and telling them it was time for a change and you were either with her or you stood against her. The documentary presented this as if it was a terrible thing and she lost the locker room with that speech.
No one ever proclaimed “It is time for a change” when shit was going well with their company.
No matter what you’re told, 2009 was a terrible year for TNA. Kurt Angle had already wrestled Samoa Joe. The Main Event Mafia, which always sucked, had long since run its course and was a drag to watch be dragged out. AJ Styles had already faced Christopher Daniels 4,692 times and the matches were evidence of diminishing returns in every measurable category including fan interest. And, the show had been a schizophrenic wonderland of crash TV for 3 years and even the most ardent TNA fans had punched out.
It was time for a change. That change was coming with Dixie Carter’s decision to hire Hulk Hogan.
Hulk Hogan & Eric Bischoff Did Not Kill TNA Wrestling!
It was around Christmas of 2009 that it was confirmed that Hulk Hogan was coming in to TNA Wrestling. Not long after, the merchandise went up on the website including an Obama styled “Change” T shirt with Hogan’s face on it – This was the one Hogan TNA shirt I didn’t buy. Because, I didn’t want anyone to mistake me for an Obama guy. But, I digress. The excitement was high. Even before Hogan appeared at TNA, he was doing national talk shows in the US and Canada promoting TNA and what him coming in could look like. Tell me, were they going to have Samoa Joe do those shows? Was Eric Young going to? Would the producers of national shows have wanted those guys? No. Why? Because Hulk Hogan was a star and producers know stars bring ratings. So, he could feed the machine. More media, more attention to TNA.
The Complicated Side of Hogan in TNA:
A tease is good if and only if there’s a viable payoff to the tease. Hulk Hogan’s TNA run was full of teases of matches that simply, for the most part, didn’t happen. They teased Hogan fighting early on and did team up with Abyss on the March 8th, 2010 episode against Ric Flair and AJ Styles. If memory serves, Hogan didn’t wrestle again until Bound for Glory 2011, a year and a half later, against Sting. Then, well, there was a match during a 2012 UK tour that TNA released on YouTube shortly after Hogan passed that should have aired on TV. But, really, that was it.
The Dead Man’s Hand
For those who say that TNA had nothing good going on during the Hogan and Bischoff era, I say Aces and Eights. Perhaps the best attempt tor ecreate the nWo that I’ve seen since 1996, Aces and Eights was a compelling story and seemed to be building towards a Bully Ray versus Hulk Hogan match after Bully won the World Title at Lockdown 2013 and revealed himself as the leader of Aces and Eights. “Hulk Hogan, I screwed you and I screwed your daughter!” Those were fighting words. And, Hulk would fight with the Aces and Eights in backstage fights and occasionally in the ring. But, he’d never wrestle.
The reason Hulk didn’t wrestle was because he was limited physically. While he looked like the Hulkster we all knew and loved until the day he died, his back was shot and he just couldn’t get in there and do it anymore. Yet, the tease that he would was almost constant. Was he holding out for more money to have a big match? Possibly. I can’t say either way. But, stringing the viewer along to hope against hope that we’d get another magical Hulk Hogan match only to never really deliver it kind of felt cheap and nasty.
Hogan Brought Stars to TNA & That Is NOT a Bad Thing!
Dark Side seemed to want to mock Hogan’s choices in who he was comfortable with working with. When Hogan made his debut with TNA in 2010, they did an nWo reunion. Hogan, Bischoff, Hall, Nash, and Sean Waltman all appeared. Within weeks, the Nasty Boys with Jimmy Hart showed up as did Bubba the Love Sponge. These were guys Hulk Hogan brought in because he was comfortable working with them. Were they good fits? Some were. Some weren’t. That’s life.
Do you know who else Hulk Hogan brought in?
Mr. Anderson! Anderson! And, Anderson ended up being a great fit for the TNA brand and did a great job for a long time reaching the top of the card where he probably would have reached in WWE if Randy Orton didn’t lie about him. It is interesting that the Dark Side guys used Mr. Anderson as an example of guys Hogan brought in that were his “close, personal friends.” I don’t think that is the case with Mr. Anderson. Sure, he was on the Hulkamania Australian tour. But, he wasn’t exactly living in Hogan’s guest house like Brian Knobbs.
Oh, guess who else Hogan was responsible for bringing in?
Rob Van Dam! “The Whole Fn’ Show” himself! RVD had worked with Hogan on Hulk Hogan’s Celebrity Championship Wrestling and Hogan seemed to like him a lot. Are the haters going to imply that Rob Van Dam was not a good pick up for TNA in 2010?
Sean “Val Venis” Morley was another guy Hogan brought in and that didn’t work as well. That could have to do with Morley’s creative. His only match in TNA was in a bathroom against Chriopher Daniels and if AEW has taught us one thing, it is Christopher Daniels’ mind for pro wrestling might not be as sharp as we once thought it was. I’m not sure the blame falls on Morley’s back for his TNA run being a flop.
Hulk Hogan’s TNA Exit Wasn’t That Bad!
When Hulk Hogan left TNA, a lot had changed. While the TV ratings were still strong and the stories were even stronger, Aces and Eights had not concluded and could still have resulted in more great TV, the money ran out. Hogan left TNA because the money ran out. Here’s the cool part. AJ Styles left TNA a few months later because the money ran out. Sting left TNA about six months later also because the money ran out. It takes money to make money, people. And, Dixie didn’t have enough money to start with to get over the hump. Close! But, no cigar!
When Hogan left, Dixie Carter followed him down the ramp and hugged his leg to try and stop him from going like a toddler who was told “no” to getting a toy at the market. It resulted in a few great shots of Dixie Carter’s rump as she begged which wasn’t a terrible thing. But, it also resulted, much like Mr. McMahon after the Montreal Screw Job, in giving Dixie Carter a character change on TNA TV. Instead of being the owner all too happy to meet the fans and take pictures with the fans and the TNA belt, she was now pissed off with the viewing audience and was seeking to put back in place talent that she saw fit to carry the company. Ethan Carter III, for example, was born out of this change to Dixie Carter’s character. And, it resulted, ultimately, in the Dixie Carter feud with Bully Ray that saw her take the Super Bomb through the table in 2014.
Eric Bischoff Did Want More Control!
Vince Russo said Eric Bischoff clearly wanted to take over TNA. While I do like Eric Bischoff, I do believe that was a true statement by Vince Russo. Bischoff saw, in TNA, an opportunity to try and recreate magic the way he did with WCW 2 decades prior. Clearly Bischoff wanted to try and make TNA in WCW’s image. So did Jeff Jarrett, to some extent. TNA resembled, in every sense of the word, WCW far more than it resembled Memphis Wrestling. It just did. If you are a football coach and the team you are about to play lost last week, do you study the game tape and replicate what the team that achieved victory did as best you could? That is what both Bischoff and Jarrett did by using what worked in WCW on TNA TV. It ust was.
Eric Bischoff did not kill TNA. He wanted more control than he could get. But, he wasn’t responsible for killing TNA.
Awesome Kong was Not the Most Important TNA Knockout
If you have any history of listening to me on my podcast or reading my posts, you know I have nothing but kind things to say about Awesome Kong’s matches with Gail Kim. Even their 2016 encounters, with a less physically capable Kong, were quality. I’ve compared their early encounters to the matches between Vader and Sting that ere incredibly hard hitting and featured a larger person against their smaller opponent – Imagine Sting at 6’2, 255 pounds being considered “smaller” given the Lollipop Guild we have in modern wrestlers. Kong’s large size and decidedly not Barbie like figure made her stand out. But, it would not have meant a damn thing if Gail Kim wasn’t her opponent.
Gail Kim and I might not agree on much in life. We are very, very, very different people when it comes to world views. Yet, I believe she deserves to be considered the most important person in TNA Knockouts history. That is a tight field. One could make the case for Velvet Sky or Angelina Love to be that cornerstone. Others could argue Mickie James or, later Deonna Purrazzo as the be all and end all of the division. I’d ask ODB her opinion of that but she’d be conveniently unavailable to respond – Sorry, inside joke after she stood me up multiple times for an interview this year. But, even ODB, who I’m still annoyed with, could stake a claim to being the most important TNA Knockout of all time. These are all valid options. But, if I had to choose just one, it would be Gail Kim. She is the “Ace” without a doubt.
What made Gai Kim special? Well, she was the “Total Package”. So, I’ve given her Bob Orton Jr and Lex Luger’s names already and didn’t give her “The Franchise” tag even though I compared her to Sting. Regardless, she looked good, could work, could talk, and compared to Kong, was the underdog. You could watch Gail Kim wrestle and forget that she was a physically fit female as a male fan and appreciate her athleticism. But, be reminded of her sex appeal with the greatest of ease. Like it or not, the latter matters. If Tessa Blanchard didn’t shake her rump upon the ring entrance, I don’t think her work alone would have gotten her to be the traditionally male World Champion. And, as talented as Velvet Sky, Angelina Love, Madison Rayne, and even Lacey Von Erich may have been, if they weren’t bending over the ropes in skirts and having their top half on display in a revealing shirt upon their ring entrance, the ratings would not have been what they were for those segments. It is an inconvenient truth. But, a truth nevertheless.
To finish my point about Gail Kim, her run in TNA ranged from 2005 through to 2025 with a few gaps in between. Her fingerprints can be seen on the division in every era since. And, Awesome Kong? Well, her influence was pretty much limited to just that initial run of Knockouts and nothing more. She was a key player and performed tremendously. But, she lacked the staying power. In fact, she went to WWE and wasted their time and money after having a nervous breakdown there even though they had big plans for her. Then, she cried racism on Netflix’s GLOW and got the show cancelled. And, as a final “I dont care about pro wrestling” signal, she went to AEW and was about as agile as an 80 year old Abdullah the Butcher seemingly unable to actually climb into the ring and always being on the floor. But hey, she’s the main knockout to talk to, right? Wrong.
So, Awesome Kong argued that she made less money than a McDonald’s worker in TNA and suddenly, online, she’s a hero for saying so. Interesting. Didn’t Kelly Klein provide evidence of her $20,000 a year pay as Ring of Honor’s Women of Honor champion and ultimately get blackballed for life from pro wrestling for doing so? So, why is there a moral difference between Awesome Kong and Kelly Klein. I’ll wait for an answer.
My response to Awesome Kong’s cries about her TNA pay as she presently lives in the Hollywood Hills? I’ll quote Olivia Soprano from the Sponranos. “Oh, poor you!”
During Dark Side’s 3rd hour on the subject, Awesome Kong implied two things. First, she had no idea who Jeff Jarrett was before she started working for him in 2005 except the match he had with Chyna in 1999. And, while Ric Flair’s image was on the screen, that Hogan brought in people who had no idea about pro wrestling. Ric Flair might be a disaster in life with alcohol and bad decisions both personally and professionally. But, you cannot imply he knows nothing about pro wrestling. He mastered it.
Jeff Hardy’s Drug Problems Were a Disgrace!
When the incident happened with Jeff Hardy being high as a kite against Sting, it made national news. It was on FOX News. It was covered on the popular morning radio show Opie and Anthony who delighted in laughing at Hardy being off his rocker against, as they put it, “an elder statesman Sting.” While the duo, one of my favorite radio shows of all time, had a casual relationship with professional wrestling, they did have their finger on the pulse of what people were talking about. And, they let TNA have it for allowing Hardy to even get in that ring. They should have given Sting more credit for being the legend and icon he is. But, they pretty much, to a huge audience, explained to people why TNA was and would always be the minor leagues compared to WWE because of an incident like that. Words can’t express how much that damages the brand to the casual viewer.
When D’Lo Brown saw Hardy was out of it, he should have insisted they not send him out. He said, on Dark Side, “We had a million options we could have taken and we took the wrong one.” Ya think?
As I will mention about Jeff Jarrett later, I am so happy that Jeff Hardy sorted his life out. But, he hurt the momentum that TNA had going. You cannot underscore the damage this did to the casual TNA viewer’s opinion of the brand.
TNA is Not Dead… Well, Sort Of!
Throughout this editorial, I’ve said “did not kill TNA” a number of times. There’s a good reason for that. TNA isn’t dead. I mean, it is sort of dead. It is WWE’s bitch brand and when WWE says “jump”, Carlos Silva says, “how high?” But, it still exists and has a TV deal on AMC. The product has some quality talent like Nic Nemeth and the Hardy Boys. But, the undercard is crowded with a lot of talent that simply is never going to make it. They recently had the Knockouts title on an Asian girl who has a gimmick name that sounds like when you throw silverware down the stairs. It just isn’t going to happen.
Dixie Carter did sell TNA and could have sold to WWE. She didn’t. She sold to Anthem and they’ve stripped the balls off of TNA to devalue it in every way, shape, and form. While Dixie deserves so much respect not selling TNA to the “Evil Empire”, it appears obvious that WWE will one day own the TNA brand if they don’t already and we simply were not told.
In Conclusion:
When you walk into my house through the front door, on the right of my dining room is a mounted guitar signed by Jeff Jarrett. I have lots of awesome wrestling goodies around my house that I’ve collected over 40 years of being a fan. But, the placement of that guitar in such a visible spot in my home is because Jeff Jarrett means a lot to me as a talent. I grew up watching the USWA on ESPN when Memphis was running Dallas and I loved that stuff more than I could ever express in text. I also was at one of Jeff Jarrett’s first WWF matches in the Meadowlands Arena before he ever was on TV and my best friends’ mother got the ire of good ol’ Double J by screaming at him, “Your roots are darker than mine!” Funny thing is, I don’t think Jeff even dyes his hair! Nevertheless, Jarrett reacted to the screamed remark and I’ll never forget that.
What Jarrett created in TNA in 2002 was magic. It is a shame that we still, in 2026, weren’t watching a Wednesday night pay-per-view format of pro wrestling because those shows were tremendous. From week to week booking, logical match lengths which grew FAR too short when the brand went mainstream on cable TV, and a raunchy edge they could never have had on regular cable, TNA’s Wednesday PPV events were perfect. I also saw the beauty in their TV expansion in 2005 through 2007. But, 2008 and 2009 were no picnic to watch as a fan. Simply put, Dixie Carter’s “you’re either with me or you’re against me and it is a time for a change” speech was delivered because things weren’t going well. TNA had lost its luster. We can point fingers at who, what, why, when, and how. But, in the end, who was to blame wasn’t going to change the fact that TNA sucked in 2009. If you liked the change in 2010 as I did, cool! You’ll probably get a lot of shrapnel from those who didn’t. Will Ospreay, the amazing talent yet mental midget that he is, says TNA became something he didn’t like when Hogan and Bischoff took over. REally, Will? Did you like 30 second long TV matches that had angles as finishes that started before the bell ring on each and every show for at least 2 years prior? Perhaps Will Ospreay only saw the PPV main events which didn’t really change at all with the new creative direction of TNA> And, if I may be so bold, if Will Ospreay loved TNA so much before 2010, why hasn’t he pressured the impressionable Tony Khan to use a stupid shaped ring in AEW? Sometimes people talk to hear themselves talk. Sometimes people should shut the fuck up. Will Ospreay should shut the fuck up.
God bless Jeff Jarrett for giving us the gift of TNA when we needed it most. God bless him and his family for the tragedies they endured during that time. And, good for him and God bless him for overcoming being an acoholic. I mean that from the bottom of my heart.