If TNA Was Never Born?

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

Who fills in that distant number 2 spot?

[BorneAgain]

We could have had an Australian based wrestling boom thanks to World Wrestling All-Stars going major and WWA fever sweeping the world, but we didn't.

Thanks a lot Jarretts.

[edgestar]

That Don West/Mike Tenay high five gif wouldn't be a thing. Think about that, for a second

[Stone Coke Miami Watson 🥃]

The NWA!!!

Ah, who am I kidding? They're a #2 sometimes, but they'll never be #2 again...

[The Dark Order Inferno]

Ring of Honor would be #2, at pretty much the same level they are now. They wouldn't have grown more with less competition for talent, I think it would be quite the opposite in fact, there would be less competition for talent and less drive to make new stars as the WWE weren't exactly serious in their interest in indy names for most of the 00s so the periods of stagnation would have been far worse.

[El Pollo Guerrera]

I figure the best bet would have been Jimmy Hart and his XWF. If he had some of the names that stayed in early TNA, he may have been able to land a solid TV deal and not try to stick with the "infomercial" model that was the original idea.

[Reflecto]

If TNA was never born, the most likely option would end up as "TNA's basic roster"- but maybe you lose 'Dixie Carter in wrestling', but replace it with 'a slightly worse person running the show than Jeff Jarrett as a "top star" that it's built around.

Considering who were out of the WWE's good graces around 2002-04 area, the possible names to run the company would be...just as dire (Extreme Rising and Shane Douglas taking the role? Bret Hart reforming Stampede? Raven running his own promotion? Scott Steiner running his own promotion? Kevin Nash and Scott Hall running a promotion together?).

[Deleted]

Hogan Celebrity Wrestling. not kidding.

[BlackoutCreature]

If TNA had never been created then something like TNA would've been created instead. There was just too much extra name talent floating around in the early 2000's and too many "creative" people out there screaming about how their ideas would've worked if WWF/WCW had done them right and given them a proper chance for something similar to TNA to not be formed.

[Tony Schiavontay]

Nov 5, 2016 8:47:42 GMT -5 edgestar said:

That Don West/Mike Tenay gif wouldn't be a thing. Think about that, for a second

Same with the clip of the camera randomly cutting from a backstage beatdown to Tenay and West reading their lines off a script.

And the gif of Sting hitting his head on the back of the chair by accident.

Or the one of Sting disguising himself as himself to attack RVD.

Living in a world without these gifs and clips is not living.

[MrElijah]

We wouldn't have the Big Bad Booty Daddy talk about:

-FAAAAAT ASSES!!
-Doing people an egg.
-SONSA BITCHES!!
-Giving us mathematics from a man from a highly educated university.
-Getting his bags.
-SMOE JOE
-And giving us quality ring announcing

[hossfan]

The MPWA (Mister Potter Wrestling Alliance)

[lildude8218]

That does it! OUT YOU TWO DIXIES GO! THROUGH THE DOOR OR OUT THE WINDOW!

[Dragonfly]

There were seven major attempts to fill the massive hole left by WCW and ECW, each with a unique strategy:

ROH: No-frills "indie" supershows catering to the "ECW Fancam" crowd. Most of the roster was unknown at the time which to the target audience, was a major plus.

WWA: WCW 2000, if it happened in Australia without mainstream (read: not PPV) TV coverage, and without Russo. The roster was mainly former WCW employees that Vince didn't want, sprinkled with a few disgraces (Road Dogg, Brian Christopher) and an occasional big, green hoss (Nathan Jones) for flavor.

XWF: Pre-Russo WCW, albeit much more "family friendly" and with less known names. (They did have Hulk Hogan sort of attached, however.) Their goal was to use the popularity of Kevin Sullivan-era Nitro to get a spot on cable.

MECW: ECW, now with Chris Harris, Buff Bagwell and an owner that made Paul Heyman look like a saint! They wanted everything.

TCW: WCW according to (and starring) the Rhodes family. Other major... ish names included Steve Corino, Glacier and former Power Plant trainer Sean Evans. They were gunning for both TV and a pay-per-view deal.

IWC: Essentially the Pittsburgh indie all-star team run by the then-NWA president Jim Miller and his header booker at the time, Bubba the Bulldog. There were a few known faces like Evan Karagias and Shane Helms, but the focus was on local guys, Chris Hero and Tracy Smothers. They were shooting for a spot on DirecTV.

TNA: While the focus changed by the second ("R-rated wrestling for adults!" "The adult-friendly PPV wing of the XWF!" "Memphis 2: Jeff Jarrett Boogaloo!"), the central concept stayed the same: weekly pay-per-views offered at a reasonably low price.


By the summer of 2002, the landscape looked like this:

ROH: A definite success, albeit a purposefully small one.
WWA: Still chugging along somehow.
XWF: Not quite dead yet, but the end was near.
MECW: Super dead.
TCW: Newly dead.
IWC: Died after the deal with DirecTV fell through. The IWC that exists today is actually an extension of the officially-licensed house shows run by former Steel City promoter Norm Connors.
TNA: In deep, deep financial shit, but still in business. (Boy, does that sound familiar...)

Without TNA, the fates of five of those six promotions wouldn't have changed. ROH still would have still taken it slow, as the creation of TNA had little effect on their long-term plans. The XWF would have still collapsed, as no one wanted their stupid TV show. MECW was long gone in the summer of 2001, thanks to the unbridled jackassery of owner Jason Collins. TNA not existing wouldn't have affected them in the slightest. TCW was felled by Dusty's inability to get a nationwide TV contract and Dustin returning to the WWE, not the Jarrett family. DirecTV killed IWC because of the new slate of executives hated wrestling, not because of TNA. By 2002, IWC was firmly entrenched as a local indie, Miller was happy running his own promotion across town and Bubba was out of wrestling due to IWC-caused depression. TNA not existing wouldn't have changed that.

This leaves the WWA. According to Jerry Jarrett, Jeff loved Andrew McManus and wanted to work more closely with him. With TNA out of the picture, a lot of the post-"Oh shit! It's Vince Russo!" content would have been in a WWA ring. (Everything before that, like Cheex and the Dupps, was all Jerry.) By 2004, WWA is a regular occurrence booked by Jeff, Russo and Jeremy Borash. It might have taken a year or two longer, but I think WWA would have gotten an American TV show just like TNA did. The only real difference is that instead of mocking Dixie, we would be mocking Andrew McManus.

[Glitch]

Nov 5, 2016 14:06:16 GMT -5 Tony Schiavontay said:

Nov 5, 2016 8:47:42 GMT -5 edgestar said:

That Don West/Mike Tenay gif wouldn't be a thing. Think about that, for a second

Same with the clip of the camera randomly cutting from a backstage beatdown to Tenay and West reading their lines off a script.

And the gif of Sting hitting his head on the back of the chair by accident.

Or the one of Sting disguising himself as himself to attack RVD.

Living in a world without these gifs and clips is not living.

And a clip of Steiner informing us of a weight variance of another wrestler.

[Deleted]

If you could go back in time and kill TNA before it was born, would you?

[Magnus the Magnificent]

Wrestlicious!

[edgestar]

Nov 5, 2016 14:27:21 GMT -5 MrElijah said:

We wouldn't have the Big Bad Booty Daddy talk about:

-FAAAAAT ASSES!!
-Doing people an egg.
-SONSA BITCHES!!
-Giving us mathematics from a man from a highly educated university.
-Getting his bags.
-SMOE JOE
-And giving us quality ring announcing

And also, letting everyone know that he was hungry.

[DSR]

I like to imagine a world where Wrestling Society X became the #2 promotion, and Jimmy Jacobs and Tyler Black are still Doin' It For Her.

[Tony Schiavontay]

Nov 5, 2016 15:28:52 GMT -5 Glitch said:

Nov 5, 2016 14:06:16 GMT -5 Tony Schiavontay said:

Same with the clip of the camera randomly cutting from a backstage beatdown to Tenay and West reading their lines off a script.

And the gif of Sting hitting his head on the back of the chair by accident.

Or the one of Sting disguising himself as himself to attack RVD.

Living in a world without these gifs and clips is not living.

And a clip of Steiner informing us of a weight variance of another wrestler.

Not to mention his display of Beautiful Mind-level mathematical skills in calculating the probability of his victory of opponents, something Mike Rotunda and Terry Taylor needed a computer to do.

Not to mention, this:



TNA is a force that gives us meaning. We need TNA more than TNA needs us.