Ideas that were good in theory but TNA ruined...

[Halloween]

Much like the "Infamous Dixie Carter quotes" thread I think this will lead to a lot of responses so allow me to get the first one out of the way.

Was earlier thinking about The Menagerie and honestly in theory it's a pretty good idea. Having a gathering of carnival characters is something TNA desperately needed and having a group of heels who didn't want to take over the company would have been an interesting change.

However, in classic TNA fashion they debuted the group as faces. Instead of having a edgy/interesting/scary heel group lead by an evil ringmaster and flanked by a strongman, an evil clown, a fire eater/sword eater and a gigantic woman they instead decided to have a happy-go-lucky clown, Mike Knox, a strongman and a hot former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. Of course after all the vignettes hyping the group and talking about how much money they needed to save the carnival we never actually saw The Menagerie trying to make money and we never heard about the carnival they left behind ever again.

In my opinion this is one circumstance of a good idea that they completely made a mess out of. What else have they messed up after having a good idea?

[Oh Cry Me a Screwball]

The Menagerie was dead the moment someone got the bright idea to play their music over their matches.

I still get chills about how bad that match with Kazarian was.

[jagilki]

"Daddy, there's this wrestling company for sale. I think I can run it real good."

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

Tito Ortiz could've been used for something...

Or at least it didn't need to suck THAT bad.

[Deleted]

Joe vs. Angle

[Emmet Russell]

I liked the idea of Flair being a mentor for AJ Styles.

I didn't like the idea of them turning AJ into Flair lite.

AJ should've stayed as AJ Styles, but with Flair as his manager. Instead, they wanted him to become a clone of Flair, even dying his hair blonde. No one in wrestling is further away from being Flair than AJ, so of coarse they picked him.

[Captain Stud Muffin (BLM)]

Nov 7, 2015 20:02:38 GMT -5 Emmet Russell said:

I liked the idea of Flair being a mentor for AJ Styles.

I didn't like the idea of them turning AJ into Flair lite.

AJ should've stayed as AJ Styles, but with Flair as his manager. Instead, they wanted him to become a clone of Flair, even dying his hair blonde. No one in wrestling is further away from being Flair than AJ, so of coarse they picked him.

The sad part was as soon as the rumor started off Flair managing AJ everybody immediatly predicted this would happen and TNA would be making a horrible mistake in doing so. Ric Flair mannerisms work for Ric Flair only and giving country boy AJ Styles a styling and profiling gimmick was nonsense.

[Can you afford to pay me, Gah]

The idea of the Main event Mafia going against the Frontline. If done right the younger talent should have gotten some kind of rub but nope. Instead we get Joe the main face turn heel and during the time also draws a penis on his face.

World champion Samoa Joe. Some reason he wins and becomes a whinner.

[Mozenrath]

I don't know if Flair could be a good manager to anyone, because he would make everything about him. Lo and behold, that's exactly what he did.

I think if you want to go pre-Dixie, something that really f***ed them is whoever Jarrett had handling PPVs, who either outright scammed them or who was totally incompetent, in either case, TNA thought they were making more money than they actually were and over-expanded. Jarrett needed bailing out, Dixie stepped in, and a company that had some issues as it was then went on path that led us here eventually.

[lionheart21]

The Aces and 8s storyline started out well.

[Hit Girl]

Wrestling

[OVO 40 hunched over like he 80]

The Abyss vs Sting saga.

It started out quite good in my opinion, though I admit that winning the nwa belt by dq was controversial. They were building to a match wereSting wanted to take out James Mitchell. So they had a match were the loser got locked inside a cage. It was awesome and had a big fight atmosphere. Sting won and Abyss got locked out. He then put his hands on Mitchell and beat the crap outta him. Mitchell bled and sold like hell, I was interested for what happened next...then came the stupid casket match.

I still had hope for Abyss when Tomko debuted and they had similar tattoos, they said that Tomko was from Abyss's past. They were building to reveal Abyss's father...who turned out to be James Mitchell making no sense whatsoever, to me it was a bummer because I read online that Jake Roberts was rumored to play Abyss's abusive father.

Then after that they had Abyss speak and it killed his mystique, his voice doesn't match his size. Abyss lost all credibility during this period and became the most pathetic wrestler of all time.

[Deleted]

The Bound For Glory Series. TNA could have had their own G1 Climax, instead they had a mess with a convoluted points system and guys wrestling different numbers of matches.

[Deleted]

the ex-WWE guys. Instead of bringing them in and giving them pushes they should have brought them in on short term deals and use them to build up their guys.

[Halloween]

Nov 7, 2015 21:50:08 GMT -5 @akeem said:

the ex-WWE guys. Instead of bringing them in and giving them pushes they should have brought them in on short term deals and use them to build up their guys.

I think it depends on the guy. When you talk about guys like Kurt Angle, Rob Van Dam, Christian, Team 3.D, Jeff Hardy etc etc these were guys on top of their game when they signed with TNA and they had a great amount of star power that COULD hook a casual viewer.

Guys such as Rikishi, Test, Spike Dudley etc who added not much of anything definitely should have been on short term deals only.

[This Player Hating Mothman]

Joseph Park was kind of entertaining for the first few weeks, but the story stretched out what could have been done enjoyably within six months into like two years and by the time it paid off nobody cared anymore.

[Welfare Willis]

Communism.

Also, Cheesecake calendars.

[EoE: Well There's Your Problem]

This championship tournament they've got going right now. It's a great idea on paper to ensure that the majority of your TV matches mean something towards a future event, but the way they went about it by rushing through it all on the first few days of that insane megataping a few months back, at the time giving no hint towards what it was actually for, then vacating the world title specifically for it after Bound For Glory just killed any chance it had of it being taken seriously.

[BlackoutCreature]

The Main Event Mafia. The idea that a bunch of declining main eventers deciding to unite so they can keep themselves as the top dogs and stay in the limelight had a ton of potential. But the Frontline as opposition just fell apart before it could go anywhere and the angle stuck around long after its shelf life expired. It also had way too many pointless side stories going on with things like Joe joining the group, Foley's heel turn and title reign and Angle and Sting feuding over who was in charge of the Mafia.

In the end no new stars were created, none of the TNA originals were elevated by the story and it all just kinda quietly faded away instead of getting any kind of big time pay off.

[jimmyjames]

The MVP takeover
Aces & 8s.
Joseph Park
The Beautiful People.
Claire Lynch saga before they bought in Claire Lynch.
Sam Shaw.
Gut Check.