vicious&delicious

Even as WCW took a turn for the worse they still had a self-created star in Goldberg who was the second or third biggest draw in wrestling during wrestling's hottest period. That alone made them relevant. Does TNA have an active wrestler who is one of the top ten draws in wrestling?

The problem with TNA is that they cannot accept that they are a small wrestling federation. Instead of focusing on putting together a simple, coherent product with great wrestling they are forever searching for the secret recipe which will take them to the big time. Bringing in old timers is not going to do it. Going live is not going to do it. Taking Impact on the road is not going to do it. There only chance to move the needle has always been to develop a truly hot act. And given the age of the federation, it is sad and embarrassing that you can count on one hand how many acts had any buzz whatsoever let alone actually drew. Hell, even ROH in its prime had acts which you could argue drew, even if it was in the 100s. Can you say the same for TNA?

Maybe the lesson here is WWE should give a little more thought to how they name their wrestlers? Also, when they reintroduce a wrestler under a new gimmick maybe that wrestler should keep his old name. Tensai would've gone further if they just acknowledged from day 1 he was Albert. I don't think it would be all that difficult to mesh the Wyatt and Harris backstories together. Harris was in the new Nexus as a sheep and was left for dead. But he has learned how to lead and now he's back for revenge.

It is kind of funny how pissed off everyone got when Arquette won the title. This is a company who had Hulk Hogan selling for Jay Leno and Bret Hart feuding with Will Sasso. They had already completely exposed the business. Arquette was just the cherry on top.

Miz was on a rocket to the top. Creative was behind him. The crowds were into the Miz and Riley act. When he won it truly felt like his time. But the second he won, the WWE immediately started treating him like a joke. He was in a long feud with Jerry Lawler which forced him to need the help of his lackey (Alex Riley) to fend off a 60-year old part time wrestler. After barely defeating an AARP member, they put him in a feud with Cena where he was never booked as an equal. They then turned his lackey, leaving his chickensh*t heel character without his muscle. His weak looking offense was exposed, he lost his title and got lost in the shuffle. As he spiraled down the card, viewers had to suffer through periodic long winded interview segments where Miz would reflect on what a joke he had become. But instead of their being a payoff for his whining, he just kept on moving further down the card. Part of me feels like if they had just given him a few wins with Rileys help against credible opponents during his title reign we would be having a different conversation right now.

I wouldn't say that Punk was buried. He was stuck in the jobber to main eventers rut that Cesaro is stuck in and Ziggler just got out of. Bryan was buried. Once the audiences cooled on him after his Miz storyline he was routinely being fed to the likes of sin cara. The only thing that saved him was his out of left field MITB win. Even after the win creative did nothing with him for months. He was in no angles and he wasn't on a bunch of ppv cards. The briefcase essentially became a I.O.U. a decent storyline that Bryan took complete advantage of.

One other element that adds to the strangeness of Joe remaining in TNA all of this time are his friendships with Cena and Punk. I have no idea how close they still are, but when the 1 and 2 in the company can vouch for your work and reputation you have a much better chance to swim than the Braden Walkers of the world.

It's a great "what if." However, we're making believe that Joe signed a contract for life with TNA 8 years ago. His contract must've come up for renewal several times since he first set forth in TNA. Why does he keep on resigning? My guess would be that he knows his spot in TNA. In the WWE I don't know what they would give him other than a developmental contract. Perhaps when his contracts are up for renewal he has been able to successfully leverage WWE interest into better contracts with TNA. I also feel that Joe had the luxury in ROH and the TNA X-Division of working with great smaller workers. The second he started getting mixed in with TNAs past their prime heavyweights (Nash, Steiner, etc.) his stock crashed.