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Biggest TNA Mistakes

7K views 74 replies 40 participants last post by  Obfuscation 
#1 · (Edited)
1. Not utilizing Hulk Hogan properly. You have the most popular wrestler of all time employed and he rarely wrestled and when he did it was a feud with Flair.
2. Not utilizing Ric Flair properly. You have the best wrestler of all time employed and he rarely wrestled and when he did it was a feud with Hogan.

These two legends should have battled over the legends belt. Then teamed up as a tag team winning the TNA belt. Then they both should have put over a few wrestlers (Angle, Roode, and Styles). Before they each had their final Retirement matches.

3. Going back to the 6 sided ring - TNA Fanboys love the 6 sided ring but its more difficult for production. With a 4 sided ring you can have a stationary camera focused on one side of the ring capturing all the action and running spots.

4. Not giving a shit about the PPV's.

5. Not jobbing out the guys who are leaving and in the process building someone else up.

6. Re-hiring Russo against Spike's wishes

7. Doing a piss poor job of marketing your shows. Indy shows draw better than TNA Shows.
 
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#19 · (Edited)
Sinking large amounts of money and changing direction for

.

Many of the other relevant mistakes they made were related to that. They honestly never recovered momentum and lost what reputation they had with fans or talent. Bringing those two back was the beginning of the end of tna as an alternative.
 
#2 ·
hogan and flair were pretty much done as in-ring competitors anyway when they debuted in tna in january 2010. regardless hulk hogans first match in tna shouldn't have been a throwaway tag match on tv just to garner a rating head to head with raw..hogan hadn't wrestled on american tv since defeating randy orton at summerslam 2006 so his first match should have been built to for weeks/months and probably happened at something like slammiversary

the biggest mistake tna made was having joe lose to angle. joe was redhot at the time and had been for 2 years previous with roh..angle was already on the downward and joe should have beaten him and beaten him convincingly and then won the tna title right after that feud ended by early 2007..bang you have created a megastar and with the troubles wwe were facing in 2007 ie top talent falling like flies due to injury and the whole benoit incident you now have a guy that legit could be considered top wrestling champion on the planet once cena went down injured in august 2007.

another big mistake was not signing all the available talent around 2007-09 when wwe under johnny ace had no interest in them. they turned down the opportunity to sign bryan danielson in 2008, they had the likes of tyler black, jon moxley, el generico on trial and didn't sign them. the indie scene was awash with talent at the time (brodie lee, kow, steen, pac) and tna were signing up the nastys boys, val venis, orlando jordan, mr kennedy.

not realizing the talent they had with tanahashi and especially okada..tna fans are quick to point out what a mistake wwe made getting rid of derrick "ec3" bateman and yet okada and tana have mainevented 2 of the last 3 toyko dome shows in front of 35,000+ fans each time..get back to me when ec3 is doing those sorts of numbers for tna as champion...

not fully utilizing their relationship with spike when ufc shared the same channel during its boom period. its actually baffling to believe they didn't do more with this when they had the opportunity. ufc was doing incredible numbers on spike in 2007-09 and only once did i see someone from tna on a ufc broadcast and that was hogan announcing he had signed with tna talking to joe rogan.

killing your ppv product just to pop a rating on the following impact. tna used to draw 40k-50k buys on ppv for shows (sometimes more) but how many times did a title not change hands on ppv and then did change hands the following impact...man way to piss off the people who paid $50 to watch something they could have seen for free...it wasn't surprising that by 2009 ppv buyrates had dwindled (people streaming them illegally was down to almost nothing as well), eventually leading to tna pulling out of the ppv market pretty much altogether.

continually trying to catch wwe. i never got this obsession and they are still at it today. tna have spent tens of millions chasing the golden carrot this past decade when they had a free run of signing who they wanted, airing and touring when they wanted, keeping everyone they wanted with zero interference from wwe..imagine if paul heyman had that ability back in the day how big ecw would have gotten
 
#9 ·
hogan and flair were pretty much done as in-ring competitors anyway when they debuted in tna in january 2010. regardless hulk hogans first match in tna shouldn't have been a throwaway tag match on tv just to garner a rating head to head with raw..hogan hadn't wrestled on american tv since defeating randy orton at summerslam 2006 so his first match should have been built to for weeks/months and probably happened at something like slammiversary
IMO the majority of Hogan and Flairs matches should have been reserved for PPV.

You could bring back the nostalgia feuds

Hogan v. Flair, Flair v. Sting, Hogan v. Sting for the Legends title.

Then have Flair and Hogan over Angle, Roode, or AJ.

Then have Flair and Hogan team together against a Team like the Dudleys for the Tag Straps.

One of the biggest mistakes was never having Flair and Hogan tag together.
 
#17 ·
For me its losing the bidding war on indie talent. Remember in the mid 2000's most of the NAME indie guys were going to TNA (Joe, Styles, Sabin, Shelley, Kazarian, Lethal, Low Ki). WWE got the biggest star of them all in Punk, but TNA got most of the top indie talent. Then in about 09, it flipped. By that time, Joe and Styles should've been the unquestioned top two stars in TNA. They were top guys no doubt, but they were taking a back seat to the ex WWE talent and it only got worse in 2010.

The only guy of note they got was Nigel McGuinness and that was only because he failed his medical tests when WWE was about to sign him. Gonna use their indie names here. WWE got Danielson, Black, Hero, Steen, Castagnoli, Generico, Moxley, Brodie Lee, PAC, Prince Devitt, and Samuray Del Sol. That's insane when you think about it. WWE got ALL these NAME indie guys. All had varying degrees of success and failure. Really the only failure is Hero.

All of a sudden, TNA has failed to replenish and rebuild their roster and have no future main event guys on their roster under 30, Magnus didn't work and now he's gone.
 
#21 ·
For me its losing the bidding war on indie talent. Remember in the mid 2000's most of the NAME indie guys were going to TNA (Joe, Styles, Sabin, Shelley, Kazarian, Lethal, Low Ki). WWE got the biggest star of them all in Punk, but TNA got most of the top indie talent. Then in about 09, it flipped. By that time, Joe and Styles should've been the unquestioned top two stars in TNA. They were top guys no doubt, but they were taking a back seat to the ex WWE talent and it only got worse in 2010.

The only guy of note they got was Nigel McGuinness and that was only because he failed his medical tests when WWE was about to sign him. Gonna use their indie names here. WWE got Danielson, Black, Hero, Steen, Castagnoli, Generico, Moxley, Brodie Lee, PAC, Prince Devitt, and Samuray Del Sol. That's insane when you think about it. WWE got ALL these NAME indie guys. All had varying degrees of success and failure. Really the only failure is Hero.

All of a sudden, TNA has failed to replenish and rebuild their roster and have no future main event guys on their roster under 30, Magnus didn't work and now he's gone.
TNA has EC3.

Your main eventers shouldn't be under 30 years old. Not many wrestlers are good enough yet. Don't push young guys to the main event just because they are young. Stupid. Push the best.
 
#25 ·
-Bringing in Hogan and Bischoff in 2010
-Over using Sting and Angle
-Not using Jeff Hardy correctly
-Doing shit all with Roode after he lost the title in 2012 (he was the best champion in TNA history)
-Turning a red hot Aries heel to force a feud with Hardy
-Any TNA vs Stable feud (MEM, Immortal, Fourtune, Aces & 8's)
-Not making Samoa Joe the top guy in 2006/2007, never should have lost to Angle
-Not marketing themselves better while on Spike
-Wasting money on WWE/WCW guys that brought nothing to the table (Foley, Booker, Nash, Steiner, Flair etc.)

I could literally go on all day
 
#26 ·
-Bringing in Hogan and Bischoff in 2010
-Over using Sting and Angle
-Not using Jeff Hardy correctly
-Doing shit all with Roode after he lost the title in 2012 (he was the best champion in TNA history)
-Turning a red hot Aries heel to force a feud with Hardy
-Any TNA vs Stable feud (MEM, Immortal, Fourtune, Aces & 8's)
-Not making Samoa Joe the top guy in 2006/2007, never should have lost to Angle
-Not marketing themselves better while on Spike
-Wasting money on WWE/WCW guys that brought nothing to the table (Foley, Booker, Nash, Steiner, Flair etc.)

I could literally go on all day
You say this but that is what TNA was built off. Some companies are innovative. Others are nostalgic. TNA may have innovated a little, but they were always living off the fans of other promotions. So I can't say it was really a big mistake, as that would basically be calling TNA a big mistake (which I guess is true for some).
 
#55 ·
Joe should have been their Tanahashi and Cena but they went with Sting and Angle.

They also never fully capitalized in their talent relationships with CMLL, NJPW, NOAH, Dragon Gate, and AAA. Look at how they put the X-division title and tag titles on when AJ, Joe, and Daniels clearly were ready to move past that title. You could have had Lethal, Chis Sabin, Alex Shelley, Austin Aries, Low Ki, Milano Collection AT, CIMA, Masato Yoshino, Rey Bucanero, KENTA, Ultimo Guerrero, and other compete for it. It should have been elevated to the what the junior heavyweight titles were in Japan. A true upper mid card and even main event title to keep the heavyweight title a real draw.

They botch the women's division which could have been unique with Cheerleader Melissa, Ayako Hamada, Gail Kim, Taylor Wilde, and so on putting on high caliber matches but they put the title on the wrong workers or made them all the same character.

Stupid gimmick matches like Ultime X, Reserve battle royale, and King of the Mountain. Man fuck off with that shit. Simple sometimes is better.

They never got the war games match right.

ECW and WCW jerk off sessions.

Having people like Al Snow as your road agents.

Their obsession with ratings instead of making draws for live shows, merch, dvds, and ppvs.

Not signing indie guys WWE picked up.

Go back and look at the their world x cup stuff and see how many of the top talents of other companies they never fully used to do something different.

I think signing a drugged up Jeff Hardy, useless Anderson, the Fat Dudley Boys (Bully Ray came several years too late), Nasty Boys, Orlando Jordan, lazy RVD, and Val Venis were also horrible choices.

Oh yeah wasting El Mesias as the brother of Abyss (look how awesome he is as Mil Muertes).

TNA was basically directionless, except for when Roode was champ, their entire existence with brief things that were cool (like Triple X/AMW feud, etc.).
 
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#3 ·
Re-hiring Vince Russo in 2006.

In 2005, TNA had so much going for it, they were on Spike, they signed Sting, and they were gaining the identity of being a proper alternative to WWE, but he practically killed all of that momentum TNA gained in 2006, and he's one of the reasons why TNA has the negative stigma of being a company with constantly shit booking attached to it.

Also if I'm not mistaken, TNA going on the road was a huge failure, so probably that too.
 
#7 ·
TNA thinking Hulk Hogan would be the rocket fuel they needed rather than making TNA all about its own talent and unique feel.
 
#10 ·
I think bringing in Hogan was the right move.

Problem with bringing in Hogan is that the fans either want to see him Wrestle or they want to meet him.

They don't want to see him being the GM.

IMO you put Hogan wrestling on PPV and TV during sweeps week. Then you have him at live events signing Autographs.
 
#12 ·
Hiring Hogan was a mistake, he was unable to wrestle and the couple of matches he did have he could barely move and looked awful, Hogan as a non-wrestling character was not worth the money he cost them.

Wasting money on over-priced veterans when they should have been hiring top Indy talent like CM Punk, Danielson, Steen, the Kings of Wrestling and Tyler Black.

Letting the X-Division go from being the focal point of the company to the piece of crap it is today.

Not booking Ric Flair right, he could have been great as the mentor for a new Nature Boy but AJ Styles was not the right guy.

Over-exposing Sting, on a special attraction basis he could have been a big ratings draw but he appeared to often and wore out his value quickly.

Going on the road. Expensive mistake as they failed to even get close to breaking even on the costs.

Failing to motivate RVD and Mr Anderson. These two came in with much hype and looked like big stars initially but soon lost their momentum and mostly looked bored and just going through the motions.
 
#13 · (Edited)
Actually building any feuds that meant anything, there has never been anyone really invested in what is going on because they rarely sell it as mattering...
Angle/Joe had good build up, that's how stuff should be marketed, I can't remember any PPV's with cards sorted out more than a week before the actual date
 
#14 ·
Flair was washed up when he showed up in TNA. He was useless at that point. Agree on the 6 sided rings. Hiring Russo was not the issue, not using him appropriately was. Russo with a filler is money. TNA never seemed to realize this.

I always thought one of the biggest issues with TNA was when they started listening to the IWC too much. I still remember at that time when when you had IWC marks ranting,raging and demanding all sorts of shit on the internet. Unlike WWE(atleast at that time) TNA would actually go on and give in to these demands instead of ignoring this community as they should have. Some of which include killing their PPV system entirely by reducing to four per year, taking the shows on the road, putting the title on Aries, putting the title on Roode, Over-pushing Bully just because he was good talker, putting the title on him, building the entire show around him and so on.... None of this ever did anything for TNA in my honest opinion. Aries was a midget, talented but still a midget that didn't belong on top, Roode was way too generic, Bully was too old and was forever a WWE relic no matter how much he improved. I know people would disagree with my post after reading it but this is truly how I've always felt watching TNA product. TNA listened and gave in too much to an unreliable internet community demands when they should've ignored it altogether.

TNA wanted to be WWE so much, and there's nothing wrong with that fundamentally since WWE is the world's biggest and most successful wrestling promotion after all, but TNA half assed in their efforts imo. Their goal should've been to create a larger than life marketable characters like John Cena like The Rock but instead TNA ended up creating generic ass no-character wrestlers and pushing midgets & old has-beens with no mainstream appeal. Maybe it was because of the writers they hired like Dave Lagana who is pretty much an IWC oriented booker or maybe it was Dixie herself being dumb, regardless TNA made a big mistake catering to a niche community and giving in to their demands.
 
#18 ·
making it become wwe lite. i mean before that it was a mix of wcw lite and ecw lite but even that was better than a diluted version of a sterile vapid corporate company in wwe.


sucking off sting for so long was bad too
 
#20 ·
We can pin point a million things because there is a million things to point out.

But all that leads to is why this clay is failing.so many different flip flop things they tried Bck and forth left and right.they never ever kept a solid consistent company path or direction. Never pushed anyone long enough to be built other then ec3 finnaly someone.

The company is like a women's brain,all over the map.

First 3 years had consistent path of its brand and all.


Gfw seems to know what it is and is about to start that path
 
#31 ·
- Wasting so much money on Hogan
- Letting Monty Brown go, he could have been money for them
- The treatment of the X-Division, whenever there's an x-division match, they talk about how important it is, and how it helped build the company, then they don't talk about it again for weeks, plus the belt is fucking ugly
- Missing out on opportunities due to wanting Dixie Carter to stay in power
 
#35 · (Edited)
I'm amazed that people think signing Hogan was bad.

Putting him in charge of your product was a bad idea. But Spike loved him and Bisch.

Hogan should have been used to put over a few select younger pieces of talent and he should have created a protege. Same with Flair.

They should have went on the road to sell tickets, do PR work, and sign autographs for the fans.
 
#36 ·
I'm not one for talking shit, because I've really enjoyed having TNA as an alternative through the last decade or so.

But if I had to point anywhere in particular, it would be not following through with Joe and AJ.
 
#39 ·
My perspective on GFW took a turn for the worse these past 30 days.

Basically, Jeff and Dixie might go down in history as two of the worst promoters of a worldwide wrestling organization.

I wonder how ticket sales going for GFW first tv tapings ? There's literally no buzz for the GFW tv tapings. They have 19 days left.
 
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