Is TNA the worst wrestling promotion in history?

[Loss]

I actually think you can take a look at the whole picture and there's no need to separate the business model from the quality of the television. Because a company can be doing bad business and still have some redeeming qualities. TNA is doing bad business and still is really short on those redeeming qualities. Having a talented roster is meaningless when they do nothing with them.

[goodhelmet]

OK, and that applies to WCW in 99 and 2000 under Russo just as it applies to TNA under Russo. Like others have mentioned, Joe was booked really strong for a long time. The X Division was something to build on until it became Nash's plaything. Right now, TNA is in the shitter but as a whole, the company has not been a complete wash its entire existence.

[Loss]

WCW definitely didn't use the talent they had, but until Russo came in, most of the time, the booking wasn't hindering them from having good matches. To me, it's all about the overall effect. WCW had some awful periods where there were still some redeeming qualities. WWF has had bad business periods with good wrestling and good wrestling periods with bad business. I wouldn't call either the worst, because when I think of TNA, I think of a company with bad booking, bad promoting and bad wrestling, in the sense that none of the matches have any psychology.

[Bix]

A big part of the problem is that TNA seems to have no real identity.

 

Not as much lately, but they wanted to be seen as THE ALTERNATIVE with the X Division roster overlapping with ROH a lot, while even pre-Russo the show was this retarded WWE Lite like the middle part of GWF, only with flip piledrivers.

 

At the very least, XPW had a clear identity as the methed out lovechild of ECW and porn. Towards the end, it was a perfectly fine promotion with Douglas booking.

[Guest TheShawshankRudotion]

I actually liked WOW in a non-ironic fashion. Aside from the goofy gimmicks, the booking was solid and logical. The women were mostly very, very green, but it was fun to see some of them grow into decent wrestlers.

 

"Aside from Goofy Gimmicks"

and

"Some of them"

 

Are understated here.

 

WOW was very heavy on goofy gimmicks, and had every stereotype under the sun that isn't seen as offensive here only because the bar is so low on offensive things in wrestling (saying wrestling has always had stereotypes is not a valid argument, also). To say "aside from goofy gimmicks" with wow is akin to saying "aside from the war in Iraq" with GwB. A key element of WOW was the gimmicks, you can't deny that.

 

And there were maybe one or two watchable/capable wrestlers in WOW. A lot more were blown up in the ironic fashion, or the lust-in-pants fashion. "Some" is to suggest there were more than that. The best WOW workers are just below the worst TNA wrestlers, and the best WOW matches... well, as bad as TNA has been, they have smoked WOW in the matches dept. Not to mention WOW lasted all of a cup of coffee.

 

Not that this is a serious matter, it's just you sorta downplayed some important elements in what made WOW suck. However, having more competent storylines than TNA doesn't really say much, and in a way, says a lot.

[Guest TheShawshankRudotion]

Uh, I actually kind of liked Abrams shows. Not that they were good, but they were unoffensive and an interesting place to see some of the "stars" work in. I haven't watched any of the stuff I have on tape in a long time (I have a couple of commercial releases IIRC), but I seem to remember thinking they were solid.

 

The UWF was like the WWF during the same time period, except with worse (and more out-dated) wrestlers and production values.

[Bix]

 

I actually liked WOW in a non-ironic fashion. Aside from the goofy gimmicks, the booking was solid and logical. The women were mostly very, very green, but it was fun to see some of them grow into decent wrestlers.

 

"Aside from Goofy Gimmicks"

and

"Some of them"

 

Are understated here.

 

WOW was very heavy on goofy gimmicks, and had every stereotype under the sun that isn't seen as offensive here only because the bar is so low on offensive things in wrestling (saying wrestling has always had stereotypes is not a valid argument, also). To say "aside from goofy gimmicks" with wow is akin to saying "aside from the war in Iraq" with GwB. A key element of WOW was the gimmicks, you can't deny that.

Well, what I meant was that while the gimmicks were ridiculous and kitschy, for the most part, the booking was actually very solid and logical.

 

And there were maybe one or two watchable/capable wrestlers in WOW. A lot more were blown up in the ironic fashion, or the lust-in-pants fashion. "Some" is to suggest there were more than that. The best WOW workers are just below the worst TNA wrestlers, and the best WOW matches... well, as bad as TNA has been, they have smoked WOW in the matches dept. Not to mention WOW lasted all of a cup of coffee.

Oh c'mon, there is no way that Peggy Lee Leather is worse than guys like Petey Williams or Lance Hoyt.

 

The UWF was like the WWF during the same time period, except with worse (and more out-dated) wrestlers and production values.

They actually had some pretty decent talent for the time, such as:

 

Cactus Jack

Dan Spivey

Steve Williams

Terry Gordy

Larry Zbyszko

Bam Bam Bigelow

The Blackhearts

 

Most of the roster was pretty washed up, but there were bright spots.

[goodhelmet]

WCW definitely didn't use the talent they had, but until Russo came in, most of the time, the booking wasn't hindering them from having good matches. To me, it's all about the overall effect. WCW had some awful periods where there were still some redeeming qualities. WWF has had bad business periods with good wrestling and good wrestling periods with bad business. I wouldn't call either the worst, because when I think of TNA, I think of a company with bad booking, bad promoting and bad wrestling, in the sense that none of the matches have any psychology.

 

There really wasn't anything redeeming about Russo era WCW... at all. He turned anything worthwhile in that company into an unwatchabe mess.... much like TNA now.

 

Ok, and TNA without Russo was a perfectly acceptable company where everything wasn't complete shit. They had the occasional hot angle, the occasional hot match (maybe not by your standards) and some decent feuds. To say they have done nothing right is really over-generalizing.

 

If you want to say that 2007 TNA is starting off so bad that it could be considered one of the worst wrestling runs by any company, I am inclined to agree with you... and again it leads back to Russo. Russo's early run was absolute shit as well.

 

As for Bix enjoying XPW, knock yourself out. I would take the crappiest overbooked Jeff Jarrett match and watch it until my eyes bled before I ever watched XPW.

[Bix]

As for Bix enjoying XPW, knock yourself out. I would take the crappiest overbooked Jeff Jarrett match and watch it until my eyes bled before I ever watched XPW.

Oh, most of XPW's run was pretty crappy, but the last several months were fine and there was decent stuff at times before then.

[goodhelmet]

So are you saying that at no time in TNA's life that there hasn't been any decent stuff or stretches that were fine?

[Guest TheShawshankRudotion]

 

They actually had some pretty decent talent for the time, such as:

 

Cactus Jack

Dan Spivey

Steve Williams

Terry Gordy

Larry Zbyszko

Bam Bam Bigelow

The Blackhearts

 

Most of the roster was pretty washed up, but there were bright spots.

 

And just about everyone performed to the lowest of their abilities there. I was severely disappointed watching the vast majority of those "good" wrestlers listed above. The odd time you had a motivated Cactus Jack, which was nullified by anything Captain Lou and his ghettoass rubberband did afterwards.

[Dylan Waco]

Orndorff worked there too and I seem to remember him being pretty good there.

[Dylan Waco]

 

WCW definitely didn't use the talent they had, but until Russo came in, most of the time, the booking wasn't hindering them from having good matches. To me, it's all about the overall effect. WCW had some awful periods where there were still some redeeming qualities. WWF has had bad business periods with good wrestling and good wrestling periods with bad business. I wouldn't call either the worst, because when I think of TNA, I think of a company with bad booking, bad promoting and bad wrestling, in the sense that none of the matches have any psychology.

 

There really wasn't anything redeeming about Russo era WCW... at all. He turned anything worthwhile in that company into an unwatchabe mess.... much like TNA now.

 

Ok, and TNA without Russo was a perfectly acceptable company where everything wasn't complete shit. They had the occasional hot angle, the occasional hot match (maybe not by your standards) and some decent feuds. To say they have done nothing right is really over-generalizing.

 

If you want to say that 2007 TNA is starting off so bad that it could be considered one of the worst wrestling runs by any company, I am inclined to agree with you... and again it leads back to Russo. Russo's early run was absolute shit as well.

 

As for Bix enjoying XPW, knock yourself out. I would take the crappiest overbooked Jeff Jarrett match and watch it until my eyes bled before I ever watched XPW.

 

 

Two things.

 

While I agree that Russo era WCW pretty much universially sucked, there was at least one interesting facet about from the "smark" perspective, namely the fact that it was interesting to see this much touted "succesful" WWF writer in a WCW setting. For that reason the behind the scenes aspect of the business was arguably more interesting and perversely entertaining than most other periods have been in recent memory. Of course that has virtually NOTHING to do with the quality of the shows, but it's the single reason I can think of why WCW from that era may seem less offensively shitty than TNA now.

 

And on XPW...I don't really have anything positive to say about the company..BUT one key difference is that they didn't seem to destroy their stars. TNA has pretty much sunk LAX, The entire X-Division, Joe,Christian, Abyss, and even Angle. It's almost lilke they create stars to destroy them. XPW never created any stars really, so the results of their shittiness was less horrifying.

[Loss]

I'm also still intrigued by which Juventud fans of XPW got? The great worker or the trainwreck?

[Bix]

I'm also still intrigued by which Juventud fans of XPW got? The great worker or the trainwreck?

 

Both. You got him rambling in a vastly entertaining manner during his "Juice Bar" segments and then dragging a decent match out of Chris Chetti.

 

The debut of The Juice Bar on YouTube.

[Stuttsy]

And on XPW...I don't really have anything positive to say about the company..BUT one key difference is that they didn't seem to destroy their stars. TNA has pretty much sunk LAX, The entire X-Division, Joe,Christian, Abyss, and even Angle. It's almost lilke they create stars to destroy them. XPW never created any stars really, so the results of their shittiness was less horrifying.

Well said. XPW & MLW too for that matter get a pass from me in this discussion because, frankly, there was never any potential there anyway. Whereas TNA gets far harsher criticism from me for wasting a ton of potential.

 

I'm not sure that in five years, TNA has successfully executed a storyline from start to finish.

Now that is an excellent point, I would love for someone to try and figure that out, because I genuinely can't think of any.

 

On the subject of WOW's goofy gimmicks, I personally feel like that's all about context. WOW to me came off 100% like an updated version of GLOW and as such I basically assumed that it was SUPPOSED to be campy and cheesy and the gimmicks were basically supposed to be your most basic level of stereotypical characters. And still, what's wrong with campy gimmicks? That's a foundation of the business. Give me that over all this horrible, horrible bullshit TNA's doing where no one knows who is a heel or babyface or what their motivation is, from a character standpoint.

[Strummer]

If this were based purely on personal taste, I would say ECW from 1998-2001 but for whatever reason the company had their most successful house show run in 2000-2001. At this point Paul had lost all of his creative juice and was simply pandering to smarks by putting on token "good matches" that were not supposed to emotionally connect with the crowd.

 

I *really* hated WWE 2003. You had Vince wrestling in Main Events in 4 PPVs, the insane Sable push, an incredibly stale, unmotivated HHH, Zach Gowen, Mr. America, Bischoff v Austin in the putrid co-GM angle, the Shane-Kane feud, Redneck Challenge, Bischoff "raping" Linda McMahon, Jim Ross set on fire, the Test-Steiner feud over Stacy, a Maven push, La Resitance, "Sheriff" Austin, the goofy comedy in Angle/Brock. Plus stuff I've forgotten. Add on to the fact that business was down.

 

 

Definitely 1999 for WCW. There were some good matches (especially in the tag division) but the bad far outweighed the good. You had Sid's streak, macho Man-Nash feud, the inexplicable Madusa push, the Cat getting wins over popular midcarders, David Flair, Junkyard Hardcore Battle Royal or whatever it was called, Insane Clown posse, Van Hammer getting TV time,the aborted "new" v "old" angle, West Texas Rednecks, the Windham brothers getting pushed, No Limit Soldiers, First Family squashing Revolution, Duggan ruining Berlin's push, Hogan/Flair double turn. And that all happened before Russo showed up.

[Stuttsy]

I *really* hated WWE 2003. You had Vince wrestling in Main Events in 4 PPVs, the insane Sable push, an incredibly stale, unmotivated HHH, Zach Gowen, Mr. America, Bischoff v Austin in the putrid co-GM angle, the Shane-Kane feud, Redneck Challenge, Bischoff "raping" Linda McMahon, Jim Ross set on fire, the Test-Steiner feud over Stacy, a Maven push, La Resitance, "Sheriff" Austin, the goofy comedy in Angle/Brock. Plus stuff I've forgotten. Add on to the fact that business was down.

I definitely agree with this as a candidate for worst period of television, but it really can't qualify as worst wrestling promotion ever from a business standpoint, as the company was still either making a little money or not losing buckets and buckets of it (I'm not up on the business stats) but as far as piss poor programming, definite candidate.

[Guest Lennie]

I definitely agree with this as a candidate for worst period of television, but it really can't qualify as worst wrestling promotion ever from a business standpoint, as the company was still either making a little money or not losing buckets and buckets of it (I'm not up on the business stats) but as far as piss poor programming, definite candidate.

 

Well if we're just talking worst television runs, wouldn't the new ECW from its debut to present be the clear frontrunner?

[Dylan Waco]

TNA tv is FAAAAAAAAAARRRR worse than current ECW tv and they have never run a ppv as good as either of the ONS shows.

[anarchistxx]

I think Turning Point 2005 is better than NOS2 at least.

[Guest Lennie]

TNA tv is FAAAAAAAAAARRRR worse than current ECW tv and they have never run a ppv as good as either of the ONS shows.

 

Nothing is "far" worse than the new ECW tv. There may be something out there that's worse, but it can't be by much. It's like saying that radiation poisoning is a far worse way to die than burning to death. It may be slightly worse, but death can only be so bad, you know?

 

ECW December to Dismember was the worst PPV I've ever seen, and it's really not even close. Even if the weekly shows are close to equally bad (and I'll admit it's close), TNA has put on some decent PPV's, or at least had some great matches on PPV. TNA's booking is non-sensical, while ECW's booking seems designed to completely alienate all of the fans of the original product.

[Al]

Then you have the issue of whether "new" ECW deserves to rank as its own promotion. It's really just a "B" show.

[sek69]

Then you have the issue of whether "new" ECW deserves to rank as its own promotion. It's really just a "B" show.

 

 

Is it really a debate? ECW is just another brand like RAW and Smackdown, no one would argue they are separate promotions.

 

Speaking of, I think they hit on something with the ECW Originals vs New Breed feud. They finally found something for the old guys to do and it might give some of the new faces a rub they badly need.

[parker]

 

TNA tv is FAAAAAAAAAARRRR worse than current ECW tv and they have never run a ppv as good as either of the ONS shows.

 

Nothing is "far" worse than the new ECW tv. There may be something out there that's worse, but it can't be by much. It's like saying that radiation poisoning is a far worse way to die than burning to death. It may be slightly worse, but death can only be so bad, you know?

 

ECW December to Dismember was the worst PPV I've ever seen, and it's really not even close. Even if the weekly shows are close to equally bad (and I'll admit it's close), TNA has put on some decent PPV's, or at least had some great matches on PPV. TNA's booking is non-sensical, while ECW's booking seems designed to completely alienate all of the fans of the original product.

 

I couldn't disagree with you more. ECW books like they may actually have an idea of what they may want to do in the future. While TNA runs in this horrible grey area where storylines go no where and wrestlers turn face/heel on a whim. There was also more decent wrestling on December to Dismember than the last TNA PPV. TNA is far worse than anything on tv right now.