By Shawn Michael
In the 90’s there were 3 different wrestling promotions WWF(WWE) WCW & ECW. All these promotions have had great success, WWF was the Industry leader when its tough competitor WCW wasn’t blowing them out the water for 84 weeks in a row in the ratings & ECW was the smaller promotion but big in success and fan following. Two of the three promotions went out of business because of financial reasons and then there was just WWF whom later turned into WWE the global phenomenon and only wrestling promotion. In 2002 another promotion called TNA was born and run by Jerry & Jeff Jarrett whom wanted to bring an alternative to WWE. Later on Dixie Carter & the Carter family whom run Panda Energy took control of the company and have run the promotion for the last 11 years.
When I say give credit where credit is due, I mean just that, TNA whether you hate them or love them are the only promotion to get on National television, on a BIG network that has a reach of ninety-nine million homes. They have a roster that promoters would die for and they have proved everyone wrong when it comes to people saying they were going to die within weeks, months, & years. So give credit where credit is due because for all their wrongs they have some success in the wrestling world. I am & have been a TNA fan since I saw them on Spike TV in 2005, but I am not a TNA fan boy whom worships them no matter what & I’m not a TNA hater who only sees them do nothing but wrong.
OWN UP TO WHAT PEOPLE PERCIEVE YOU AS
The first couple of years in Existence TNA was the Alternative to WWE because they presented actual wrestling, wrestling that you would not see in the WWE. TNA had the great X-Division which was an alternative in itself, they had a great tag team Division & and a women’s Division that was full of talent. TNA focused on what WWE didn’t & they did it well. However TNA decided to take different route in 2009/10 and become WWE Lite instead of sticking to being different and I’m sorry, but you can’t beat somebody at their own game when they have been playing it for more than a decade successfully. TNA was capturing a audience because they were doing things differently and some might think better, but when TNA started doing things like WWE and they were doing them badly I might add, they were just a rip off and why would people look at a rip off when the real thing is here and doing it better.
I understand reward comes with risk, but you have to calculate risk and make sure that there is a bigger probability that the risk has a chance to become the reward and TNA didn’t do that. 2010 was a disastrous year for the company because everything TNA could’ve done right they did wrong. Now I’m not going to lie and say when it was announced that Hogan & Bischoff were coming to TNA that I wasn’t extremely excited because I was. I was excited to see one if not the biggest names in professional Wrestling come to TNA because I knew that would mean more awareness for the product, plus I assumed from the scar tissue left, that Eric Bischoff would want to do things differently. TNA was a young company with a young, but talented roster who could take on WWE’s talent and instead of showing that in 2010, TNA shows Hogan, Hall, Nash, Sean Waltman, The Nasty Boys & Ric Flair. Now I’m not going to say for one night it wasn’t great to see these guys but then it continued on after that and it got sickening. Why not use the older guys to put over the young guys, and I don’t mean by wrestling them, but saying on that January 4th show that they were coming to see the AJ Styles, the Machine guns, & Beer Moneys. TNA ruined a golden opportunity and they have continued to ruin opportunities after opportunities and that’s why fans get frustrated. I give credit to TNA for the good they do & I give credit for the fact that when there was nothing but WWE, Jeff Jarrett was bold enough to start his own company and give the fans something else to see, but with the credit I give TNA, TNA needs to understand that they are blessed with the position they are in. A huge network picked them up in 2005 and has supported them for the last 8 years, they have a loyal following of a million
