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There's a line in "The Death of WCW" that fits perfectly. May not be word for word, but here's the jist.

"By refusing to accept the truth (your product's s*** and no one cares anymore), promoters often delude themselves right out of business."

That's what I'm seeing here. TNA wants there to be another reason why they're doing so horribly at the moment instead of admitting their faults. But when you have matches ending with guys going through the ring, old wrestlers coming in for a month or two and getting paid more than the loyal talent who's been with you for years (Scott Hall, Nasty Boys, maybe Val Venis), and insult the fans intelligence by claiming a HoF ring can essentially give a man superpowers, you need to stop and realize that what you're doing isn't a sound business model.

It's a joke around these boards, but in some ways it's the God's honest truth: TNA is becoming WCW. Minus the obvious influence of Eric and Hogan, minus Flair and all the other old wrestlers, it's still obvious. You have an amazing undercard at your disposal, which includes the KO Division (and lord knows they haven't exactly gotten their fair share), the X-Division (which at one time was your bread and butter, and pretty much your gimmick for all intents and purposes), and the Tag Division (which is something you can use against WWE's barely there tag division). You have main eventers that people want to see in the ring (a la Hogan, Savage, Sting, Flair, Luger... guys who, at the time, people did want to see in action). You have all this going for you... and you can't do anything with it.

Eventually, the guys at the top got stale, and the undercard wouldn't get the call up and would be underutilized. TNA is lucky that fans won't tire of Pope, Joe, AJ, Anderson, Hardy, or RVD for a while, but they need to do something with their undercard. Doug Williams, bless his soul, is doing an amazing thing with the X-Division. The tag scene is somewhat interesting, with Morgan aas the lone champ (which is kinda stupid, but I'll give it time before really passing judgement) and a feud brewing between Beer Money & MCMG. The KO division is the only part I see floundering, but you can salvage that IF YOU ACTUALLY TRY (I'm an optimist, so I'd like to hope this is the case).

WCW suffered and eventually died because of mismanagement. As much as Jaime Kellner delivered the final blow, WCW had a snowball's chance in hell of surviving because mismanagement had effectively killed it already. TNA isn't at that point just yet, but it's on that track. TNA, and especially Dixie, need to stop deluding themselves, by balming fans for their shortcomings, admit they've f***ed up, and work on a way to correct their mistakes or at least make amends for them.


Elmstreet, the second we take over TNA, we're running this company right brother. ;D

Just looking at the TNA roster page:
www.tnawrestling.com/roster/superstar-roster

There's still a LOT of quality talent on the roster:

Styles
Angle
Sting
Wolfe/McGuinness
Angelina
MCMG
Beer Money
Dinero/Burke
Doug Williams
Ayoko Hamada
Joe
Hardy (debatable, but a big name)
Morgan (debatable, I guess, but he's really improved)
Rhino (debatable)
Team 3D (debatable)

For nostalgia value, they also have some of the biggest names of the 80s and 90s on the roster, including Hogan, Sting, Flair, and the Outsiders. Even with their recent talent departures, they could still be putting on a strong wrestling product.

They just AREN'T.

Do you guys remember the actual origins of Conan O'Brien's Masturbating Bear? Even though it became popular just because of how weirdly random a giant masturbating bear is, the character originally started off as a bear who would go into a flying money booth to grab cash for a needy game show contestant:



The gag was that even though the contestant really needed the money, and even though the money was RIGHT THERE in front of the bear to grab, the bear would always, frustratingly, use its hands to masturbate rather than grab even a single hundred-dollar bill for the entire time. All it had to do was just stop masturbating for 2 seconds and grab some money and everything would be fine. It had everything it needed to succeed, but left to its own devices, it always went off and screwed up right before everyone's eyes.

The company already has some outstanding wrestling talent and some of the biggest stars of yesteryear for the nostalgia value. It's not like they're hurting for yet another new wrestler to sign that will bail them out of their jam. Signing "Big" Dave Batista won't rescue them any more than signing Van Dam, Flair, Hogan, or Angle did.

It's like, if you described TNA to a friend of yours who's a casual fan that hasn't been watching wrestling in recent years, you could point out that Impact has Hogan, Flair, the NWO, and Sting, as well as Kurt Angle who really goes all out in his matches, plus three high-profile ex-WWE stars in Hardy, Van Dam, and Anderson, plus the cream of the crop of the indies--AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Nigel McGuinness, and up until recently, Chris Daniels, though other indie darlings like Brian Kendrick, Amazing Red, and Homicide also hang their hat there. Your friend would be all like, "wow, that sounds awesome." And you'd have to explain, "no, sorry, actually the product kinda sucks."

Hey Virgil was over once!

Recipient of Flair's HOF Ring?