The Johnsons. TNA thought people would consider this funny.
Moments before the very first TNA broadcast, the company held a dark match featuring a morbidly obese black wrestler named Cheex and his valet "The Brown Eye Girl". Cheex's immense weight damaged the ring, and the ring crew had to act fast to repair the damages before the PPV went live. (They did, obviously.)
The Dupps, a hillbilly tag team originally from ECW, helped TNA break new ground when the company introduced an incest aspect to their gimmick: a valet billed as both their cousin and girlfriend, Fluff Dupp, accompanied the team to the ring.
A tag team called The Rainbow Express used a gay gimmick as heels (TNA targeted the South as its primary audience). Color commentator Don Westmade awkward homophobic remarks about the team while heel commentator Ed Ferrara sounded educated and tolerant in comparison. Oh, and the Rainbow Express debuted after the cousin-fukking Dupps, which the commentators didn't seem to care about all that much.
TNA had not one, but two terrible penis-related gimmicks:
Richard and Rod, The Johnsons, were literally a pair of wrestling cocks managed by Mortimer Plumtree.
The Hot Shots -- future Raven follower Cassidy Riley and future "Natural" Chase Stevens in their first TNA appearances -- wrestled with giant bulges in their pants (i.e. tubesocks jammed into their tights). They cut a promo that consisted of three brief lines ("We're pricks. We are proud. And we are protruding!") and grabbing their 'dikks' afterwards.
The first month of weekly PPVs featured a midget match on nearly every show. The short-lived midget division included Puppet, a psychotic dwarf who threatened to kill other midgets and once masturbated in a trash can before asking backstage interviewer Goldylocks if she wanted some of his "porridge"; Meatball, an obese midget; and Teo, an "extreme" midget who once tried to force his way onto one of the cagedancers.
Segments, Mishaps, and Angles
As an omen of things to come, TNA used the first segment on its first ever PPV broadcast to show a group of older wrestlers talking. In the first few minutes of the debut show, Jeff Jarrett cut a promo about how having a battle royal to crown a NWA champion was a bad idea, Ken Shamrock came out moments later to agree with Jarrett, and Scott Hall showed up through the crowd to...agree with them as well. What a way to build up the main event!
The first broadcast also featured a musical performance from country music artist Toby Keith, who was shoved by Jeff Jarrett midway through. The performance (one for which TNA surely paid out the ass) simply stopped after the shoving. Security hauled Toby Keith away despite Jarrett having assaulted Keith, though Keith later returned to screw Jarrett out of winning the NWA title as revenge.
The first month of PPVs featured K-Krush (Ron Killings, aka R-Truth) feuding with NASCAR driver Hermie Sadler. This feud culminated in a match at PPV #4, one which Sadler won by reverse decision. Sadler would've driven a car covered in TNA sponsorship logos during NASCAR events as a trade-off for this "push", but he failed to qualify for the rest of the season.
TNA plugged a lingerie elimination match on the first show by having Elektra make one of the most egregious accusations in wrestling history: she accused Francine of causing ECW's bankruptcy. The next week, the women involved in the match wore what looked like pajamas from an insane asylum, then left the ring after getting stripped down to their bra and panties (thus getting eliminated). Jeremy Borash fukked up the introductions for the first two girls, then just stopped introducing them altogether. Once Francine was eliminated, Ed Ferrara tried to help her; Francine pretended she would fellate Ed, then punched him in the groin. The Francine/Ferrara exchange took the focus off of the actual match, which caused cameras to miss most of the eliminations. Taylor Vaughn (B.B. in WWE) eventually won the match -- which meant she earned a contract and the "Miss TNA" moniker.
Jim Miller (then-President of the National Wrestling Alliance) had so much faith in TNA, he didn't show up to acknowledge the company until its third show (he was in Japan beforehand). When Miller finally showed up, the PPV ended with an image of him tied up with rope and the letters "F U" spray-painted on him.
Bill Behrens was shown tied up and stripped to his underwear, too. TNA explained neither of these things. (This will become a pattern. The never explaining things, that is.)
Fans brought tons of signs for ring girl Athena to shows. Although fans at The Asylum loved Athena, TNA didn't properly introduce her to the PPV audience for several months, which left the home audience in the dark as to what the signs meant.
James Storm and Chris Harris didn't compete in a tournament to crown the first NWA Tag Team Champions under the TNA banner because someone had knocked them out backstage. A few weeks later, TNA revealed the above-mentioned Hot Shots as the culprits -- even though the team hadn't even debuted at that time.
Sabu became the #1 Contender to the NWA World Heavyweight Championship in a Ladder Match despite never making any appearance prior on the show where the match happened. He then challenged then-champion Ken Shamrock to a Ladder Match, and Shamrock challenged Sabu to a Submission Match. The dueling challenges resulted in a Ladder/Submission match that ended with Malice stealing the Heavyweight Title.
Brian Lawler turned heel when he turned on Scott Hall. Lawler explained his actions on the next PPV by cutting a promo about how much he hated his father (Jerry "The King" Lawler).
Brian Lawler main evented a PPV against Scott Hall. At the beginning of the match, the crowd chanted "Jerry's Kid" as Lawler berated them for a good three minutes. During all of this, the near-seven-foot Scott Hall managed to hide behind Lawler.
Puppet came down to the ring after Jeff Jarrett attacked another midget. Puppet pulled a gun on Jarrett -- only to get hit multiple times with a steel chair.
Scott Hall ended his second PPV in a row getting carted out of the arena on a stretcher after Ron Killings strangled him with a belt. Earlier in the PPV, Killings did the same spot with Norman Smiley, who Killings strangled for a longer period of time than Hall. Smiley walked away under his own power.
Ron Killings cut a shoot promo about how Ricky Steamboat never made it to the top in WWE because of racial discrimination. When Killings claimed TNA had done the same to him, Steamboat agreed with him and gave Killings a shot at the NWA World Title. TNA planned to make this the start of Steamboat's first-ever heel turn, but he never appeared in TNA again. (Smart man.)
Don West assumed the role of Amazing Red's number one fan and stood on the announce table to scream, "GO, RED, GO!" in the middle of a match.
After a successful run of PPVs, TNA ran a "best of the X-Division" series. More than half the matches involved AJ Styles, as TNA obviously wanted to push him as one of the main faces of the company -- which they tried to do via a heel turn as soon as he became popular with fans. The theme of "a wrestler well-respected by the wrestling industry and fans who would honestly prefer to cheer someone who does high risk moves than boo them" would become a staple of Styles' entire TNA career.
The Blue Meanie debuted, gave Francine a DDT, and promptly disappeared back to wherever old ECW stars go after they become irrelevant. (Tommy Dreamer still rents out his basement, doesn't he?)
Marcus Bagwell killed off his "Buff" gimmick after losing to The Rainbow Express ("I'm a six time tag champion and I just got beat by two gay guys"). TNA put the angle on hold when it didn't book him for another two months (Jerry Jarrett disliked Bagwell's backstage unprofessionalism). Bagwell quietly returned, lost a tag tournament match with BG James, and disappeared for the rest of the year.
Syxx-Pac did a "shoot" on "sports entertainment" and how he had come to TNA for professional wrestling again. He cut this promo just before TNA held an impromptu boxing match betweenSaved by the Bell star Dustin "Screech" Diamond and obese TNA timekeeper Tiny.
Sean Waltman initially refused to join the company unless they booked his then-girlfriend Alicia Webb (who portrayed Ryan Shamrock in WWE). Jarrett expressed concern at this, since Webb was Ken Shamrock's ex-girlfriend, but ultimately booked her. TNA paid her $500 per appearance (after Waltman refused the initial offer of $350 per appearance) to come down to ringside so guys would hand her money. TNA Never Explained This™.
Taylor Vaughn didn't appear on TNA programming for a month after she won the "Miss TNA" moniker. When she finally appeared, Bruce interrupted her interview and eventually defeated her in a match where Vaugh's "Miss TNA" crown was on the line. The next week, Bruce put that title on the line against Vaughn in an evening gown match in which he wrestled completely in drag. (Bruce treated the the crowd to a striptease after defeating Vaughn.) Bruce continued to put the "Miss TNA" title on the line in open challenges to women in the crowd a-lá Andy Kaufman -- and he wrestled all of them in drag.
James Storm debuted as a comedy cowboy character who shot cap guns off before each match. Chris Harris blamed James Storm's "gimmick" when TNA didn't book America's Most Wanted for a couple of PPVs afterwards.
During PPV #9, Don Harris wore a shirt with a Nazi SS symbol on it. The Jarretts apologized for this on the TNA website and put Harris on probation. Upon returning, he never wore the shirt again, though people could still make out his SS tattoos.
Jarrett fought a guy billed as "Bullet" Bob Armstrong's masked "The Bullet" character two weeks in a row. The Bullet unmasked after the second match and revealed himself as BG James (WWE's Road Dogg and one of Bullet Bob's sons). James' distinct tattoos weren't on The Bullet during the character's first bout, though.
Since Dreamworks Pictures had a movie filming in the area, Chris Rock appeared in the ring for less than two minutes in a segment in which he declared "NWATNA is the best wrestling in the whole world!" We're assuming this happened because Chris was young and needed the money/exposure.
After two title matches and numerous other non-title matches end in disqualifications (or simply end with no finish), Bob Armstrong made a change to the NWA rules: if a wrestler decided to get deliberately counted out or disqualified, they would lose their title. Armstrong announced this change on a show where three separate matches involved brawls around the arena. The first title defense after this ruling featured a DQ, but because Ron Killings didn't intentionally get himself disqualified, he kept his belt. Numerous examples of referee Scott Armstrong failing to call for count-outs or DQs plague later PPVs.
"Bullet" Bob also announced a tournament for a shot at the NWA World Title and placed Don Harris (TNA's "Head of Security") in the referee role for all of the tournament matches. The first match involved BG James and Ron Harris (Don's brother). Bob came down to the ring and fired Don as referee so BG James could win. TNA never followed up on this. (This, too, will become a pattern.)
On PPV #23, James Storm vs. Slash went down in history for the most false finishes in one match. Storm kicked out of a powder shot, got rolled up with a handful of tights, and received a belt shot before he resorted to a double team on Slash to win the match. The referee was distracted about six times during this contest.
A triple threat tag team match between The New Church, the Harris twins, and America's Most Wanted saw several referee distractions take place due to typical underhanded manager shenanigans. During one of these distractions, Athena hit a low blow on the Harris Brothers. At the end of the match, the Legion of Doom ran in to beat the fukk out of the New Church and the Harrises (Harrisi?). The referee never called for a disqualification despite everything happening right in front of him. AMW won the match when they pinned Slash after LOD nailed him with the Doomsday Device.
Curt Hennig debuted as the mystery partner for BG James and Syxx-Pac against Jeff Jarrett, Brian Lawler and NWA World Heavyweight Champion The Truth in exchange for Scott Hall no-showing. Hennig became a top competitor, challenging world champions Truth and then Jeff Jarrett multiple times.
Showing that Vince Russo didn't learn anything from his horrible idea of bringing backstage shenanigans on-air, near every time Curt Hennig got the microphone he bragged about kicking Brock Lesnar's ass on the plane (referring to the infamous Plane Ride From Hell, which got him fired from WWF). Not only the sources confirmed the exact opposite happened on that flight, crowd didn't really cared or reacted.
Lynn and Styles tagged together in the first ever match on TNA, though they lost that match to The Flying Elvises (a trio of multiracial Elvis impersonators). Styles pinned Lynn to become the X-Division Champion one week later, then tagged with Lynn again to win the Tag Team Championships the week after that.
One week after the tag title win, Lynn hit a piledriver on AJ and called him a glory hog. Styles demanded an apology the next week -- then kicked Lynn in the head. Lynn later interfered in AJ's X-Division Title defense.
TNA remembered these two held the the Tag Team Titles and had them make up on the very next PPV. Then it booked AJ to attack Lynn on the next show, despite the two still holding the Tag Team Titles.
Lynn was pinned in a Triple Threat for AJ's X-Division Title. The two then brawled with Jeff Jarrett and Ron Killings for unknown reasons to end the show.
Lynn and Styles defended the Tag Titles against Jarrett and Killings, but the match ended with a (typical for TNA) Dusty Finish.
TNA finally booked Lynn and Styles into a trio of matches intended to let them settle their differences: a Falls Count Anywhere Match, a No Disqualification Match, and (if necessary) a ten-minute Iron Man Match. The series ended with no clear winner when the Iron Man Match concluded in a 3-3 draw.
A few weeks later, Styles and Lynn (still feuding over the X-Division Championship) fought in a Ladder Match where the referee took a bump for no reason, Sonny Siaki interfered (and got beaten up by Lynn for it), and AJ ended up with the belt. This apparently didn't settle well with Bob Armstrong, who immediately booked a rematch for the next week under the same stipulations. This story will continue shortly, but first, a disco interlude!
Disco Inferno's Jive Talkin’
Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno in WCW) pitched an idea for a talk show during his debut. He hyped it by putting himself over as the guy who pinned Joey Maggs and Barry Horowitz countless times.
Week One: Goldylocks made an appearance. Gilbertti called her a stupid bytch, demanded to see her t*ts, and claimed said t*ts were all she was good for. After Goldy attacked him for being a misogynist fukkwit (as well she should have), Paulina from Tough Enough debuted as Gilbertti's bodyguard. She disappeared after the second episode of Jive Talkin’ (as well she should have).
Week Two: The Dupps made an appearance to introduce the Hard-10 Championship. They brought out their granddaddy's spit bowl (The Dupp Cupp) and said the person with the most points would take it home. Though someone could easily get to ten points by hitting someone with a chair ten times, it could be achieved by "feeling up the ticket lady" or "involving an animal in the match" (amongst other ridiculous things; see Rules of the Dupp Cupp to the side). After the Dupps bored everyone to death with their endless explanation of the Dupp Cupp rules, the first fight for the Cupp took place on Jive Talkin’. Said fight did nothing to pop the crowd, and Ed Ferrara suffered a concussion during the match. Ferrara would later leave the company when management told him TNA couldn't pay him his monthly fee. (In retrospect, this began a bad trend.) The Dupps also departed from the company soon after this appearance, but the Hard-10 "matches" continued well into 2003 anyway.
Week Three: Gilbertti interviewed someone pretending to be a Baldwin brother (actually, it was Shark Boy without his mask on). TNA never had another installment of Jive Talkin’ after this and would never mention it again.
Syxx-Pac Wins the X-Division Title
During a match with Sonny Siaki, Jerry Lynn (the #1 Contender for the X-Division Championship) suffered an injury and negated the idea of a Lynn vs. Styles Ladder Match rematch.
On the same show, TNA put on a fifteen-minute X-Division Iron Man Match for the #1 Contender spot between Tony Mamaluke, Kid Kash, Ace Steel, and Low Ki. With five minutes to go, all four men each had one point. When the timer hit the one-minute warning, Steel and Low Ki were wrestling each other. As Low Ki put Steel in position for the Ki Krusher, Mortimer Plumtree pulled on Low Ki's legs and set him up for a pinfall. The referee counted the pinfall even though the full fifteen-minutes had elapsed.
Bill Behrens decided to put Ace Steel in the Ladder Match against Styles. Low Ki disagreed, Ace Steel and Plumtree came out to counter-argue, and Bob Armstrong decided to put Steel and Low Ki in a match to fill the #1 Contender spot. During the Steel/Low Ki match, Plumtree took advantage of a referee distraction and injured Low Ki. Ki lost the match via count-out, but not before Behrens, Armstrong, and everyone in the state of Tennessee (except then-governor Phil Bredesen) intervened to call the DQ. Once the bell rang, Jeremy Borash announced, "The winner via countout, Ace Stee—it's a disqualification, ladies and gentlemen, the winner of the match via disqualification: Low Ki!"
Since the X-Division gave him such a headache, Armstrong put every X-Division competitor into the Ladder Match with Styles. Despite not actually being in the ring when the bell rang and having never competed in an X-Division match beforehand, Syxx-Pac came out during the last thirty seconds, climbed the ladder, and won the title.
Syxx-Pac eventually put over both Low Ki and Styles before he dropped the belt back to AJ.
Brian Lawler and April
Brian Lawler spent a good amount of time threatening to reveal something about Jeff Jarrett. TNA Never Followed Up On This™. Jarrett eventually confronted Lawler: "I did not sleep with April, but you've gotta wonder, Brian -- who is right now?" (April was indie wrestler/fitness model April Hunter.) Syxx-Pac later made out with April on the entrance ramp during one of Lawler's matches. April later lied to Lawler (a heel) by saying Syxx-Pac forced her into the kiss. This made April some sort of super heel for...reasons.
During a match between Syxx-Pac and Lawler, April became frantic and begged them to stop fighting before Goldy came out to comfort her. The announcers implied that the two were in a lesbian relationship. TNA Never Followed Up On This™.
Waltman left TNA after Vince Russo joined the company. His departure forced TNA to change the identity of April's secret lover from Syxx-Pac to Bruce -- the same Bruce that had debuted as a homosexual character in the Rainbow Express, eventually became Miss TNA, and beat up women on a regular basis.
During an interview segment, Lawler heard April moaning and burst into the girls locker room to confront her. April had on a skin-colored bikini to cover her breasts, and was covered in a copious amount of bubbles. Despite trying to maintain an above-chest camera frame, the cameraman continually dipped down to bizarrely show that April either had no nipples, or had them somewhere they shouldn't be. (Since she has implants, that wouldn't be improbable.) Lenny Lane confronted Bruce and called him a phony homosexual before Brian Lawler ran in for a beatdown.
TNA stopped booking Lawler for the rest of the year as punishment for lashing out at a fan who sat on his jacket. Bruce later dropped his homosexual gimmick via a worked shoot wherein he rechristened himself as "Angry" Alan Funk. Naturally, he stopped appearing on TNA shows not long afterwards.
"Until they make radical surgical changes in creative, and unless they get some people who comprehend the wrestling business, they are doomed to be the financial drain on Panda [Energy] that they are now and have been since inception. The core of their problems is the creative development of their product. They have to cut the cancer out. [...] I would deserve the label ‘stupid’ if I had made the decision to hire Vince Russo. But I made the horrendous mistake of yielding to [Jeff's] wishes. [Russo] obviously has qualities that I don’t recognize or understand. How can a person who has a 15-year history of failure still keep a job?"
― TNA Co-Founder Jerry Jarrett on Vince Russo C-O-N-SPIRACY or N-A-Ï-V-E?
When TNA started up in January 2002, Jeff Jarrett hired Jay Hassman to deal with contracts for the various pay-per-view companies around the country and making sure the company had ads running in various cable TV magazines. Any time Jarrett asked about buyrate estimates, Hassman said they would be in the 60,000 to 70,000 range. He also said the first ever TNA show had done 80,000 buys.
In a way, the Internet called bullshyt on this claim: various people had complained on forums about how they couldn't watch the PPVs because their cable providers didn't carry them, and the ones who could watch the shows didn't see them mentioned in any cable listings or advertised on TV. Jarrett smelled a rat and called InDemand directly for the PPV numbers; InDemand told him the first show had done just under 20,000 buys. TNA sued Hassman and his company (which also provided PPV support for the WWE), which would mark the start of two specific issues: the birth of a conspiracy theory about WWE sabotaging TNA from the beginning and TNA's constant money problems (Jarrett had budgeted the company at 50,000 buys based on Hassman's estimates).
Dixie Carter became involved in the company around this time, too. Jarrett received financial backing from a lot of different companies when TNA began, one of which was HealthSouth. In October 2002, HealthSouth lost tons of revenue due to fraud investigations and pulled out as a backer for TNA. Dixie, already working as a promoter for TNA, persuaded her father to become a financial backer for the company; as a result, Panda Energy purchased the 71% backing position for the company for $250,000. The company renamed itself as TNA Entertainment and Dixie became its President by the start of 2003.
2003
TNA fans show their support to one of Vince Russo's classic shoot segments The Russo Shoots
"OH shyt, IT'S VINCE RRRUUUUUUUSSSSOOOOOOOOO!" (Quote from Mike Tenay!) Mr. Wrestling III, who previously helped Jeff Jarrett win his first NWA World Title, unmasked to reveal his true identity: Vince Russo. The next show featured the first of many Russo shoots on wrestling in general. Russo started by claiming TNA originally stood for t*ts 'n' Ass and the promotion would've been "gritty". Some indications of this original concept remain (e.g. cage dancing girls and midgets masturbating in garbage cans). The latter would be mentioned at least three times.
On the following PPV, TNA gave Roddy Piper a live mic to plug his book. Piper took his chance and pulled a shoot promo on Russo. The crowd went nuts until Piper said "Hey Russo, did you book my cousin Owen's death?". Everything went quiet while Piper continued to rant and Russo came out to calm Piper down. Piper refused to give Russo the mic, hit him with the book, and verbally berated him to boot.
After a tag match, Russo came out and responded to Piper's comments. He talked about how he gave the fans everything they wanted, then mentioned Athena (the same Athena as mentioned above in 2002). Russo eventually brought her into the ring, attempted to get her to flash the audience, slapped her when she refused, and repeatedly called her an "ugly wench". The Harris twins eventually came out for the save, but swerved the crowd when they hit their finisher on Athena (twice). TNA Security didn't think it necessary to intervene until after Athena was already long laid out. This whole segment lasted a good ten minutes.
One month later Piper appeared again in a taped segment (for obvious reasons) promoting WB-23's Portland Wrestling show as a bunch of young wrestlers who are coming Russo's way and will make his life a HELL. There were zero points of advertising local show on pay-per-view of a promotion who wasn't even an NWA affilate, the show itself was cancelled after 3 weeks because of legal troubles with the Oregon state government (who thought show was a real competition and demanded to enforce state bans on jumps from the ropes, low blows and headbutts), and in the end Piper made a run-in on WrestleMania XIX to start his short stint with WWE.
Tenay brought out former WCW mainstay J.J. Dillon and announced him as Bob Armstrong's replacement for the role of NWA Representative. Russo came out with the Harris brothers and called Dillon a piece of shyt, accused him of being a pawn of Vince McMahon during his time with WWF, and claimed Dillon was responsible for getting Russo fired from WCW. The segment ended with Sandman attacking the Harriseses on Dillon's behalf. (Dillon made one more brief appearance in TNA, then disappeared from the promotion. Smart man.)
A video package of Mike Tenay interviewing Vince Russo opened a show intended to introduce Russo to new viewers. During the worked shoot, Russo defended putting the WCW Championship (which he referred to as a "prop") on David Arquette, defended ruining the cruiserweight division with the likes of Ed Ferrera and Madusa, and provided one of his most infamous quotes ever ("IF you want lucha libre, go to Japan!").
Tony Schiavone debuted, turned heel, had a job promised to him by Russo, and...never showed up in TNA again. (Smart man.) This entire segment lasted a good ten minutes and achieved absolutely nothing. Fan signs clearly shown throughout this segment included "WHO CARES?" and "The 'Total Non-stop Action' has officially stopped".
Sports Entertainment Xtreme (Get It?)
Russo introduced this stable as "Sports Entertainment Extreme, you can work out what the letters stand for." S.E.E.?
David Flair made his debut as an ax-wielding psychotic (presumably he meant to use the axe on Jeff Jarrett and Curt Hennig). Tenay and West hyped up Flair (who had been completely destroyed on WWE television by The Undertaker months earlier) as a huge acquisition for S.E.X. Russo also decided to use the axe on the TNA set for shyts‘n’giggles during this segment.
The debut of both Flair and the axe led to TNA's first iteration of Russo's favorite gimmick match (the "item on a pole" match). In the Axe Handle on a Pole Match, David Flair wrestled Curt Hennig in the latter's last match before his untimely death.
TNA hypes former WCW wrestler Mike Sanders as a big acquisition for S.E.X., which he joined almost immediately after his debut. Sanders would then job out to Jim Duggan (twice), Moondog Spot, and Shark Boy.
The Rock‘n’Roll Express immediately turned heel after their debut, joined S.E.X., and did practically nothing.
Russo left the company as an onscreen character in an angle that paralleled the Ric Flair/David Flair saga in WCW2000. Jarrett taped an interview of Russo's sons basically calling Russo a terrible father. Russo left S.E.X. in the hands of Glenn Gilbertti and Mike Sanders.
During their feud with Jose Estrada, S.E.X. introduced a fat Elvis impersonator named Disgraceland to the group. Disgraceland ate during his matches, gave Estrada a swirly in the toilet after his debut, and disappeared after being beaten by Estrada a few weeks later.
Triple X (Low Ki, Elix Skipper, and Christopher Daniels) won the Tag Team Titles for the stable, which also included the Harris brothers and The Rock‘n’Roll Express. This effectively reduced competitors for the Tag Team Titles to America's Most Wanted and The New Church.
Vince Russo returned to TV, but distanced himself from S.E.X; he claimed ownership of the rights to the stable's name and stripped the group of its gimmick. Despite being a nameless and (at this point) useless faction, the now-former S.E.X. stuck around for awhile and did nothing before quietly breaking up, which would soon become a recurring theme for TNA factions.
The First Ultimate X Match
For the first-ever Ultimate X Match, TNA suspended two lengths of rope above the ring to form an X and hung the X-Division Championship belt in the middle. To win the match, a wrestler had to shimmy hand-over-hand across the ropes to the belt and pull it down to win. (TNA made a point of emphasizing how the match would have no ladders in it by using the tagline "No Limits, No Ladders".)
The logic department failed on TNA, though: as soon as one wrestler let go of one of the ropes, the ropes sprang back with enough force to cause the title belt to pop off. As a result, TNA officials had to rehang the belt -- twice -- during the match.
Don West reacted to this by almost creaming himself and screaming "Yes!" over and over and over. (We're 99% certain Daniel Bryan didn't get his "Yes!" schtick from here.)
One Night in TNA
Vader showed up, went over the Harris Brothers, and was never seen again.
Paul Bearer randomly debuted at the end of a PPV, did practically nothing, and bladed in another appearance a few weeks later.
After Russo unmasked as Mr. Wrestling III, Mr. Wrestling IV showed up and unmasked to reveal himself as Nikita Koloff (who hadn't been seen in a pro wrestling event since 1992). Koloff teased turning against Russo before walking out of the company completely, never to be seen again. (Smart man.)
When Bart Gunn made his TNA debut, Mike Tenay hyped him up as a former major superstar from WWE. Gunn joined S.E.X. and lasted about a week.
Moondog Spot tagged with Jim Duggan and went over S.E.X. leaders Gilbertti and Sanders in under two minutes. He never showed up again. (Smart man.)
Viscera debuted in the role of Ron Killings' bodyguard. He disappeared after two weeks.
Mike Awesome hung around with The New Church for a few weeks, then inexplicably disappeared.
Lex Luger arrived in TNA while still under indictment for thirteen felony drug charges following the death of Miss Elizabeth in his home; TNA hyped his appearance as his first match since the fiasco. Before the match, Luger cut a shytty promo in which he referred to AJ Styles as "AC". During the match, Luger almost made AJ tap in the Torture Rack, but Sting eventually saved the day. (Way to keep your top face strong, TNA!)
Goldylocks butchered the National Anthem on live PPV.
The main event of February 5 featured a match for the tag titles between champions Elix Skipper and Low Ki, courtesy of S.E.X., and New Church members Brian Lee and Slash. So-called "match" was filled with usual TNA shenanigans like interferences by James Mitchell in full front of the ref, chairshots two steps away from the ref talking to Michell, said ref not giving two shyts about that (and so does the crowd), and ended with a worst double pin in the history of professional wrestling. Low Ki pinned Brian Lee for 10 seconds in front of backup ref (the original one took a bump), who waited patiently with his hand up until Slash and Skipper recovered after top rope finisher and Slash pinned Skipper "simultaneously" with Low Ki.
Scott Armstrong entered the arena moments later and announced the titles being vacated.
More S.E.X. members in masks ran down, AMW ran down, more people ran down, and it turned into a all-out brawl. Then heels from S.E.X., while outnumbered, somehow managed to lock faces in S.E.X. locker room for some reason. Russo in camouflage and "FU" paint on his face delivered some shyt nobody cared about before finding out Jeff Jarrett was one of the guys in mask (and had no problem with beating their own teammates). Jarrett catfighting Russo #137 to close the show.
Lollipop, a cage dancer notable for sucking on lollipops, accepted an open challenge from S.E.X. member Holly Wood. She suffered a nip slip almost instantly, then got her top ripped completely off, clearly exposing herself on camera and in front of the live crowd. Jeremy Borash was waiting with his jacket off (and was shown on camera before the incident) to cover her up.
Larry Zbyszko debuted to yell at AJ Styles for being a punk. This led to a match in which Styles had to cheat so he could beat a 52-year-old "living legend".
Since AJ didn't beat Zbyszko in under ten minutes, TNA made Zbyszko work as Styles' manager. Russo eventually lost interest in writing the angle, so TNA dropped it.
A feud between Brian Lawler, David Flair, Erik Watts, and Dusty Rhodes broke out over the NWA World Title belt; the catch was that none of them were the actual champion. Ric Flair owned a replica of the title belt awarded to him for his services to the wrestling world -- a replica which he gave to David as a present for getting serious about wrestling. When David brought this belt to the tapings, Dusty said David shouldn't have it despite it being David's actual legal possession.
AJ Styles busted into the S.E.X. locker room with a chainsaw, threatened to cut Glenn Gilbertti into pieces, and insinuated Gilbertti was part of THE GAY COMMUNITY by calling him a fakkit.
Raven became the first wrestler to "cross the line" and join TNA immediately after a departure from WWE. He became a major figure in the NWA title scene after his TNA debut and earned a title shot after about four months. During that title match, Jarrett overcame odds that would make even John Cena cringe to defeat Raven and deflate all of Raven's momentum in the process.
The New Church (a stable made up of Malice, Slash, Brian Lee, and manager James Mitchell) accidentally turned face when TNA booked a heel vs. heel tag team match. Considering how TNA had built up the tag team as EVIL for weeks, it seemed untimely to debut yet another heel stable.
Kid Kash beat Abyss in a First Blood / Chair on a Pole match.
In order to promote the X-Division as having "no limits", TNA debuted a muscular wrestler known as The Masked X (former Quebecer Carl Oulette under a mask) as a monster heel. This...actually went pretty well, as he squashed his opponent and the commentators pushed the idea of X's finisher (the Package Piledriver) as a "death-like" move. During his second match, things went slightly wonky when he attempted a swan dive and almost killed himself. He would vanish from TNA before the year was out.
TNA added an X-Division Trophy to the X-Division (on top of the X-Division Championship). TNA never explained the trophy's purpose, but at a best guess, the trophy worked as a signifier of who was the #1 Contender. Michael Shane had one and Chris Sabin had the other, so they had a match; at the end of it, Michael Shane won both the belt and the trophy. He then frequently appeared with the trophy and the belt. TNA Never Explained This™.
Mike Lockwood (WWE's Crash Holly) debuted in July as Mad Mikey with a gimmick of being mad at things. He wrestled on nine of the weekly PPVs, then left the company a month before his death.
The Hulk Hogan Era 1.0: He Is (Not) Coming to TNA
In October, Jeff Jarrett attacked Hulk Hogan at a press conference after Hogan's match against Masahiro Chono at NJPW Ultimate Crush II. The attack was supposed to lead into TNA's first ever $30 supercard PPV with a main event of Jarrett vs. Hogan. When Hogan learned Jarrett would go over, he came down with mysterious "pains" and pulled out of the deal. The whole thing became meaningless when Hogan eventually re-signed with WWE. (He didn't appear in a TNA ring until 2010...but we'll follow up with that later.) The footage of the attack was replayed countless times and even made it onto the 50 Greatest TNA Moments DVD.
Part of the issue with Hogan coming in went back to Bash at the Beach 2000, where Jarrett laid down for Hogan in a worked shoot. In a speech after the match, Russo came out and called Hogan "a bald son of a bytch". Hogan, despite being in on everything that night, wasn't happy with being called "bald" and filed an actual defamation lawsuit which prevented the two from working together. Three years later, the lawsuit still existed.
Actual tension also existed within the booking and creative team. At the time, TNA Creative consisted of Jarrett, Russo, and Dutch Mantell (better known to current wrestling fans as Zeb Colter). Jarrett and Mantell would come up with a scenario and agree to go with Russo's plans, then wait for Vince to leave so they could change all of his ideas. When a paranoid Russo learned Jarrett had been in discussions with Hogan, Russo saw the move as a betrayal and made the decision to leave TNA. To take himself off television, Russo had Jarrett beat him up; Russo told Jarrett to make it look as real as possible -- and suffered another concussion and severe bruising as a result.
TNA's first show of the year had no clean finishes. Three matches had referee distractions, one had the referee blatantly ignoring interference, and the last one was an Ultimate X Match where Mike Posey got bumped so Shane Douglas could bring out a ladder.
Jeff Hardy debuted at TNA's anniversary show in June...a debut which he and his then-girlfriend decided to spoil on the internet beforehand. In his first run in the company, Hardy no-showed two PPV events and had a habit of sleeping in during Impact tapings.
Jeff also brought the "Hardy Party" -- a group of fat, hair-dyed groupies who hung out with him after show was over -- to the Impact Zone. They typically hogged up the front row to watch Jeff's matches, left when those matches ended, and ended up hated by everyone else. Universal Studios eventually banned the "leader" of the pack from the park for a year when he shoved people in the crowd to get front row seats, which led to much rejoicing among non-Hardy Party regulars.
The Street Team
After TNA launched a messageboard on their website, Dixie Carter introduced the idea of "The Street Team": fans would go out on the street to do TNA's advertising for them. For a fee, TNA would send them a package that included flyers, buttons, stickers and other miscellaneous items to use as a way of spreading the word. This predictably resulted in TNA fans simply hounding WWE fans waiting in line for tickets or heading into a show by shoving TNA flyers in their faces. Those acts typically resulted in a negative reaction (to put it mildly).
People who didn't want to pay could join an internet team: they'd join the messageboard, and the board admins would ask members to advertise TNA on other messageboards. Many of the attempts tried to fit in with a specific niche interest based on a current TNA storyline (e.g. TNA targeted a NASCAR forum when Jeff Hammond was scheduled to appear on a PPV). The mass majority of these efforts resulted in people either mocking or ignoring the TNA fans. Other internet assignments included griefing TNA references into Blockland servers. (Seriously.)
Under New Management
TNA ended 2003 with CM Punk and Julio Dinero betraying Raven, which cost him a shot at the NWA World Heavyweight Title.
Jeff Jarrett came up with a novel theory afterwards: if he could get control of the NWA World Title over to his buddy Don Callis and make sure the NWA never crowned a #1 Contender, he'd never have to defend the belt. This plan involved Jeff talking to a lawyer about actual employment law within the US, specifically acts of violence by those in management positions. The plan also involved exposing the entire NWA Board of Directors for petty crimes, having them struck off, and forcing Erik Watts - the Director of Authority - to put his job on the line.
TNA Security took sides in the power struggle and split into two feuding factions: Red Shirt Security and Black Shirt Security. WWF jobber Joe E. Legend ("Just Joe") became a major player in this angle as the leader of the Red Shirt faction. He main evented a few PPVs during his run, including a "Guitar and Baseball Bat on a Pole Match" against Jarrett.
Jarrett's next plan? Win the Mr. TNA Award, which grants the winner a World Title shot. AJ Styles eventually won it. Oh, and Don Callis beat Erik Watts after Goldilocks betrayed Watts. Jarrett's "new management" lasted a mere fortnight, though -- because Vince Russo eventually came back.
"Celebrity" Involvement
Jonny Fairplay would be the first of many failed reality "stars" brought in for publicity at a high price. Nobody cared.
TNA hyped its biggest announcement of the year in January: it had booked Jonny Fairplay for a TNA appearance. Jonny, a longtime wrestling fan, had appeared on the reality show Survivor: Pearl Islands. TNA hyped him up as the "most hated man in America" (a moniker he "earned" for lying about his grandmother's death during a challenge on Survivor to gain the sympathy of his fellow competitors). TNA paid Fairplay $350,000 and gave him health insurance for his appearances, which consisted of him getting press slammed out of the ring by NFL star Brian Urlacher.
Fairplay randomly returned after being off TV for four months and issued an open challenge for any reality TV star to take him on in the "Reality Challenge". TNA Never Followed Up On This™ and Fairplay disappeared from TV for another six months afterwards.
Speaking of Brian Urlacher! He was under contract with the Chicago Bears at the time of his TNA appearances. In a bit of foreshadowing about a later debacle involving another NFL player, TNA decided against asking for permission to use Urlacher in a physical matter on their show. Once the Bears found out, they asked Urlacher to immediately cut all ties with TNA.
The first episode of Impact featured Abyss squashing Shark Boy. After the match, the Popeye the Sailor Man mascot from Universal Studios came to the ring and helped Shark Boy to the back.
TNA hyped up Dennis Rodman returning to wrestling through TNA. He came out with 3 Live Kru during the July 2 Impact and sat ringside to watch their match with Team Canada. He didn't do anything else for the rest of the episode, and the crowd chanted "Rodman's Worthless!" Rodman never showed up in TNA again. (Smart man...and that's saying something.)
The Insane Clown Posse landed in a pretty awkward feud with Glenn Gilbertti, Kid Kash, and David Young after coming to TNA. A highlight of the feud included the first and only "Dark Carnival Match" (a hardcore match with ICP music randomly interrupting the match concurrent with colorful lighting). Mike Tenay said the distractions were "part of the experience". According to Slam! Sports, ICP brought the largest crowds TNA had seen up to that point.
Vince Russo Returns
After firing Mike Tenay the week before, Jarrett heard news about TNA hiring a new Director of Authority. Tenay returned at the end of the next show to bring out the new DOA: Vince Russo.
Russo had become a born-again Christian during his time off and wanted an opportunity to explain himself on television. In his return promo, Russo claimed he "did a deal with the devil" and "knelt at the altar of television ratings" by emphasizing "nudity, violence and vulgarity" (all three of these words get pops). After Russo announced he'd been "forgiven", the crowd chanted "bullshyt". In spite of Russo getting chants of "pass the torch", this turned into another Jarrett/Russo feud when Jarrett slapped Russo (and got zero reaction for it).
James Storm, one-half of America's Most Wanted, hurt his shoulder in early 2004. TNA decided to give Chris Harris (the other half of AMW) a singles run and booked him in strong matches. The fans actually got behind Harris, who put on some great performances with some of TNA's top-tier talent. Russo, now playing a face as a "born again" Christian, groomed Harris to win the title by keeping Jarrett on the sidelines to accumulate ring rust. When Harris and Jarrett wrestled at a highly hyped PPV, Jarrett won and Harris shuffled back down to the midcard (which killed all his hype).
After Vince Russo's exit, TNA put Dusty Rhodes in place as the new head booker. In his new position, Rhodes fired half the X-Division and put Jeff Jarrett, Diamond Dallas Page, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Randy Savage, Sean Waltman, and Billy Gunn in main event feuds throughout the year. His freshly-released son Dustin was also predictably signed and was teased with an upper-card slot while earning victories over up-and-comer Bobby Roode at PPVs.
Fox Flops
In May, TNA announced that they had signed a one-year television deal with FOX Sports Network to create a show called Impact, putting the company on unrestricted cable and satellite for the first time ― a perfect opportunity to show the world the new face of professional wrestling and to bring new fans.
The show aired on Friday afternoons at perfect primetime of 3:00 p.m. and was constantly pre-empted (or even canceled) in local markets due to baseball, high school sports, and even skateboarding.
Local affilates made sure everyone in the world checked out Impact by fukking up their listings with incorrect airtimes for it or even not mentioning it at all.
One unique feature of Impact was that the show used FSN's "FOX Box" graphics at the top of the screen, showing the names of the competitors in matches and a clock ticking down showing the amount of time remaining in the match (thus presenting the product as a real sport). The feature was praised by most fans, and some early Impact matches actually used the time limit to add drama. This only lasted a few weeks before TNA forgot about it.
InDemand (TNA PPV provider) was scared of FOX purchasing DirecTV (cable provider carrying FOX Sports affilates) and becoming their direct competitors, so they actually forbade TNA to mention FOX Sports Network during TNA PPVs. So Tenay and West had to use the words "regional sports channels" referring to Impact whereabouts. Obviously there are a lot of local sports networks in most areas, so confusion was all around even for those who were already commited to TNA.
FOX Sports itself showed an actual "faith" in the product by featuring TNA on a primetime special of FOX Sports Network's The Best Damn Sports Show Period that was dubbed The Best Damn Wrestling Show Period, to promote TNA's first 3-hour PPV in November. The special featured host Chris Rose burying the product (while wearing a shirt that said "Wrestling is Fake") and host/comedian/actor Tom Arnold defeating Puppet the Psycho Dwarf in a match.
It was later revealed that TNA was purchasing the TV time from FSN at the cost of $30,000 per week. Impact averaged a .2 rating over the course of the year it was on FSN, which comes as no surprise. The contract was not renegotiated, and TNA left without TV spotlight for a half of the year until landing a deal with Spike TV.
This event was the conclusion of a story between Russo and Dusty Rhodes where fans voted on which one would become the Director of Authority. During the event, TNA showed the same stats over and over as the "current" results and told Scott Hudson to say they'd had a server breakdown from excess voting in Stamford, Connecticut (the home of WWE's home offices).
3 Live Kru, billed as having a year-long struggle to win the Tag Titles, wrestled in a seven-minute match where most of the heat landed on referee Andrew Thomas (who kept looking to see if the double teaming/illegal tactics/interference had stopped).
The previous match was likely cut short to give up some time for the next segment: an episode of Piper's Pit that featured Roddy Piper telling Jimmy Snuka to hit him before Kid Kash interrupted (to which Mike Tenay commented, "Why is this interruption from Kash of all people?"). Kaz and Michael Shane joined Kash so they could all beat up Snuka, but Sonjay Dutt made the save. Sonjay was then hit in the back of the head with a coconut. This nine minute segment ended with Kaz and Shane saying that "wasn't right" and Kash claiming "I didn't bring the coconut".
TNA promoted this show -- its first major live "supercard" PPV -- as the show where "the old world falls and the new world emerges". The event ends with Jeff Hardy (27) losing to Jeff Jarrett (37) thanks to interference from Scott Hall (46) and Nash (44). TNA also built the entire PPV around whose side Hall and Nash would be on. Whoops.
Randy Savage debuted in the last thirty seconds of the PPV; he magically teleported from a limousine to the inside of the building in about three seconds.
Turning Point 2004
TNA booked Randy Savage in a trios match; he and partners Jeff Hardy and AJ Styles were scheduled to fight Jeff Jarrett, Kevin Nash, and Scott Hall. Savage never appeared on Impact once during the hype for the PPV. During the PPV, Savage was "kidnapped" in the middle of the show and didn't appear until the last minute of the match -- where he simply punched Jarrett in the face and pinned him for the win. Savage never appeared on TNA programming again after this.
Although TNA wanted Savage's two PPV appearances to lead into long-term plans, Savage bolted on TNA right after he found out they were in negotiations to bring in Hogan (Savage still had personal issues with Hogan). The brief appearance at Turning Point became Savage's last-ever appearance in a professional wrestling ring.
In December 2004, WWE travelled to Orlando to film the "West Side Story" commercial for its 2005 Royal Rumble event. A few TNA stars and a camera crew headed over to the WWE filming set to offer a "welcome wagon", but they were kicked off the set. TNA turned this into a "storyline" where the footage of what went down would be shown at the PPV in an attempt to make WWE look bad. To hype up how scandalous this footage was supposed to be, a fake Vince McMahon and Triple H began roaming the Impact Zone to find and destroy the footage while "firing" several TNA employees in the process. When it aired, the footage ended up making TNA look bad: BG James, Shane Douglas, Ron Killings, Konnan, Abyss, and Traci Brooks walked onto the set with balloons and cookies, acted like obnoxious buffoons, continuously asked if they could speak to Vince McMahon, ate food off the buffet table without asking, filmed several WWE wrestlers without permission (including an unmasked Rey Mysterio), and acted offended/surprised when WWE officials told them to leave. After the footage aired, Tenay and West acted completely baffled as to why WWE would do such a thing.
This PPV opened with Scott Hudson and Shane Douglas conducting promos for the main event outside doors.
TNA brought in NASCAR commentator Jeff Hammond to team up with 3 Live Kru for a match. He tagged with BG James, who worked an entire match against Kaz and Michael Shane before picking up the pinfall. Hammond went on to host a weekly segment on Impact.
Abyss beat Jeff Hardy in a Full Metal Mayhem Match (TNA's version of a TLC Match) to become the #1 Contender for the NWA World Heavyweight Title. The final spot was supposed to have Abyss press slam Hardy through four stacked tables. Abyss actually threw Hardy over the rope and he barely went through one. Pissed off by the blown spot, Hardy no-sold the move and started dropkicking tables while Abyss retrieved the contract. Abyss didn't cash this contract in for a title shot, and he was pinned by Hardy at the very next PPV.
Jeff Jarrett faced Kevin Nash in a match where he would lose the title if he used his trademark guitar. During the match, Jarrett pulled out a case containing a cello, the neck of which snapped as he prepared to hit Nash with it. Despite Jarrett using the cello case to crush Nash's knee, the referee wouldn't let Nash hit Jarrett with the body of the cello. Three ref bumps, a run-in by Billy Gunn (see below), a run-in by a returning Syxx-Pac, a run-in by BG James, a belt shot, and a low blow later, Jarrett retained!
Billy Gunn debuted in the middle of this match by hitting Nash with a steel chair. Despite helping Jarrett, he got absolutely no reaction from the crowd. TNA debuted Gunn before they had a name prepared for him, forcing him to walk around in a "No introduction needed, you already know my name" T-shirt for awhile. When he used the name "The New Age Outlaw", TNA had to stop him because WWE owned the "New Age Outlaws" trademark. His next choice (just "The Outlaw") didn't last too long, either.
Miscellaneous Shenanigans
TNA signed Dave Hebner for a backstage role after WWE released him. Dave made three bizarre onscreen appearances where he was shown doing nothing but taking notes. TNA Never Explained This™, and after his last appearance, nobody ever mentioned him again.
Monty Brown got insanely over with his above-average promo skills and entertaining "Alpha Male" persona. After testing him with a main event push that the fans got behind, TNA had Monty feud with Trytan (see below) before turning Brown heel as Jeff Jarrett's goon. He stayed in the midcard for the rest of his TNA run.
TNA spent several weeks hyping the debut of Trytan, who was former Red Shirt Security goon/former Jonny Fairplay bodyguard Ryan Wilson. Trytan was basically a cheesy Terminator rip-off with sunglasses, a leather jacket, and a terrible variation of Brock Lesnar's F-5 that he called the "T-3". His only feud was with Monty Brown; the feud itself consisted of Trytan coming out at the end of Brown's matches and pointing at him. They had an awful five-minute match at Destination X, and right before the finish, the lights went out. When the lights came back on, Trytan was nowhere to be seen and a masked Mideon took his place (Monty proceeded to squash and pin him). TNA Never Explained This™ and Trytan left the company soon afterwards.
"I've been reading The Death of WCW, and after reading it I mean... Hulk Hogan, I'm glad he's not with us".
— AJ Styles during a 2005 interview with NODQ.com
WCW jobber Hector Garza received a massive push that was cut short after he was busted for steroids and deported. Mexican wrestler Shocker looked to take Garza's place as Tenay and West put him over huge (despite zero crowd reaction when he debuted at Destination X). While he never grew on the crowd, Shocker received an X-Division title match anyway -- and disappeared from the company soon after (TNA reportedly fired him for no-showing events).
On the bio TNA put up for Shocker on its website, the company said he had starred in a fairly popular fast food commercial playing regularly on TV at the time. The only problem with this? He was masked in that commercial, so nobody knew it was him.
Traci, Trinity, and Jonny Fairplay feuded over who would be Dusty Rhodes' personal assistant. After some very unfunny "Survivor Scavenger Hunt" skits at Final Destination 2005, Dusty gave them the task of signing a new tag team to TNA. The teams would have a match at Destination X and the winning team's "manager" would become Dusty's new assistant. Fairplay -- who previously tried to "sign" established TNA stars such as AMW and Dustin Rhodes -- didn't sign a team and had to sit out. Traci and Trinity, however, scored two teams that TNA hyped throughoutImpact broadcasts and advertised as a selling point for Destination X: Phi Delta Slam (a couple of obese men in their mid-thirties doing a frat boys gimmick) and the Harriseseses. They had an awful match. Nobody cared.
During Destination X, Fairplay signed Buck Quartermain and Lex Lovett, two regular TNA jobbers. He did this after Traci was already named Personal Assistant, so why did Fairplay bother signing them? TNA Never Explained This™. Fairplay never appeared on TNA again, and both Quartermain and Lovett soon disappeared as well.
Oh, and Phi Delta Slam? They were Dusty Rhodes' chauffeurs and hunting buddies at the time, which was pretty much the only reason why they were hired.
Dusty booked a complex match for the X-Division title at Destination X. It started out as a tag team match featuring AJ Styles and Elix Skipper going up against Christopher Daniels and Ron Killings. After Killings was pinned, the match became a triple threat. Daniels and AJ survived the triple threat and had a singles Ultimate X match. During that match, Daniels and AJ inadvertently knocked out the ref. AJ got up and retrieved the belt, but was attacked by Daniels, who took the belt from him. The ref saw Daniels with the belt and declared him the winner.
The Lockdown PPV debuted under Dusty's tenure in April of 2005. The idea originally came as a joke during a booking session in which he sarcastically suggested that every match on the card be contested inside a cage. Dixie, unaware he was joking, jumped at the idea. Lockdown became a staple of the TNA PPV as a result (though the company did the smart thing in 2013 by abandoning the "all matches in a cage" format and limiting the gimmick to specific matches).
The very first Lockdown is generally remembered for playing host to Chris Candido's last match. In the opening match of the show, Candido landed wrong after taking a dropkick from Sonny Siaki and fractured several bones in his leg. He died days later of a blood clot stemming from surgery on his leg. His last actual appearance for TNA saw him celebrating The Naturals's tag title win on the Impact episode after the PPV, which aired after his death due to TNA's taping schedule. TNA used that heartbreaking image for its "in memory of" graphic.
After the death of Chris Candido, TNA refused to pay the money it owed Candido to his then-girlfriend/commonlaw wife Tammy Sytch (which was technically legal, since they were not officially married). Terry Taylor eventually sent her a ham dinner as a condolence gift.
To further exploit Candido's death for fun and profit (especially the profit), TNA held a tournament for the "Candido Cup". Several tag teams comprised of a veteran teaming with a future star competed for the Candido Cup trophy and a future Tag Team Championship shot. Sean Waltman and Alex Shelley won the tourney, but Waltman no-showed the PPV where he and Shelley were entered into a four-way for the tag titles.
And Waltman didn't just no-show -- he disappeared for an entire week, despite having been at a relative's house only about two hours away from where the PPV took place. Candido's brother Johnny was subbed in at the PPV as Shelley's partner midway through the match. (They didn't win.)
AJ Styles finally ended Jeff Jarrett's nearly-year-long title reign at Hard Justice 2005. To capitalize on the triumphant victory, AJ dropped the title to Raven in the "King of the Mountain" Reverse Ladder Match just thirty-five days later.
May 27 saw the final episode of Impact air on FOX Sports Network. TNA was very close to signing a deal with WGN, to the point where it was expected that they would announce a deal atSlammiversary. Negotiations fell through, and TNA was stuck with no TV deal. TNA wound up putting new episodes of Impact on their website for fans to download or stream. When their servers couldn't handle the traffic, TNA asked fans to illegally download the episodes from bit torrent websites.
Raven held the title throughout the summer, then dropped the title back to Jarrett via an AMW heel turn at a house show for another promotion (Scott D'Amore's Border City Wrestling). TNA hyped the holy hell out of this as the "Controversy in Canada" in the first of several attempts at ripping off the Montreal Screwjob.
When TNA landed its Spike TV deal, it decided to ignite a Kevin Nash vs. Jeff Jarrett feud for the title as the main event of its first version of WrestleMania, Bound for Glory. On the day of the event, Nash hurt himself picking up his son's toy chest, so he was out. TNA solved this by holding a battle royal that night to determine a new #1 Contender. Rhino, who had been booked mainly as a midcarder to this point and had already been booked on the card in a hardcore match, won the battle royal. He went on to win his hardcore match and pin Jarrett to win the belt in the main event. Rhino won three matches in the same night and picked up the NWA World Title to boot, so naturally, TNA followed up on this amazing story by...booking Jarrett to win the title back two days later at an Impact taping and shuffling Rhino back down to the midcard.
Hurry! Hurry! We've gotta get a camera out there! And off of us reading the script, preferably.
At Bound for Glory 2005, TNA booked an Ultimate X match to crown a #1 Contender for the X-Division title. Since this wasn't a title match, TNA officials hung a wooden X from the center instead of a belt. As Michael Shane and Chris Sabin were both shimmying on the rope, the X suddenly fell down. This caused the match to be stopped for several minutes as officials hung it back up. Soon after the match restarted, the X fell off yet again. Realizing where this match was going, Petey Williams improvised by catching the X, even kneeling underneath and seemingly praying for it to drop (which was a nice touch on his part). This was not the planned finish, but TNA awarded him the win anyway so it could end the pain. A rematch held on theImpact after the PPV ended with Williams winning, which suggested that he was supposed to win the first match anyway.
The Neilson Corporation offered to buy TNA from Panda Energy in May 2005 for ten million dollars. Morphoplex (a major TNA sponsor) offered Panda Energy twice that amount later that month. Panda Energy passed on both offers.
After Shawn Michaels and Triple H reformed D-Generation X in WWE, the former New Age Outlaws (BG "Road Dogg" James and Kip "The One Mr. Ass" James) rebranded themselves as the Voodoo Kin Mafia, or VKM (Vincent Kennedy McMahon), and participated in numerous unfunny skits mocking both WWE in general and DX in particular. Even though fans panned the angle, during the infamous "Donald vs. Rosie" match on Raw, fans made a point of chanting "VKM" (as well as "TNA").
TNA started a feud between VKM (faces at this point) and Christy Hemme, stemming off Kip James playing an a$$hole chauvinist and talking about how women belong in the kitchen. Christy eventually stood up to Kip, which would be okay if Christy hadn't turned heel by doing so.
Hemme followed this up by bringing in several tag teams to face VKM. She first brought in the Heart Throbs, a jobber team freshly released from WWE. (They lasted all of one show.) She then brought in The Bashams (who were originally intended for the role), whom TNA positioned as Christy's permanent team -- until the company fired them for no-showing a live event soon after their debut.
VKM issued a million dollar challenge to WWE: send stars from the WWE (specifically, DX) to compete in an open challenge match. Thinking Vince would actually respond to this challenge,Dixie froze the million dollars.
At one point, VKM challenged DX to a match outside of the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas. VKM said they would be waiting at "high noon" on a random weekday afternoon. DX obviously didn't show up, and neither did VKM, according to reports from fans who went to the Alamo to see the challenge.
Roxxi Laveaux made her debut as VKM's voodoo priestess valet. TNA Never Explained This™, but given how awesome Roxxi was during her initial run in the Knockouts Division, it doesn't matter much.
BG and Kip James once cut a promo mocking Team 3D. This involved BG sticking a box up his shirt to look like Brother Ray and Kip blacking up to look like Devon (possibly in reference to the infamous "DX Nation" skit). People did not find this amusing.
Orlando Screwjob
Jeff Jarrett became paranoid about losing his job, since he believed people perceived him as a "cancer" behind the scenes. For some reason, Larry Zbyszko thought he would get fired too (in favor of TNA bringing in Jim Cornette) despite having a no-cut contract. The two conspired to get Jarrett the NWA World Heavyweight Championship back to keep their jobs safe. To do so, they rehashed the Montreal Screwjob for the millionth time at Slammiversary.
During the King of the Mountain Match at Slammiversary, Earl Hebner pushed over a ladder that Christian Cage and Sting were climbing on, which allowed Jarrett to become champion. (TNA foreshadowed this at Against All Odds: during Earl Hebner's debut, Jeff Jarrett put Christian in a Sharpshooter while Tenay and West pleaded with Hebner not to call for the bell.) Immediately after the match, another referee took the belt away from Jarrett and handed it over to Jim Cornette while Jarrett knelt at the bottom of the ramp and sobbed.
Cornette fired Hebner on the next episode of Impact, but handed the title back to Jarrett and made him defend it at the next PPV as punishment (which Jarrett would have had to do anyway). Hebner was later rehired by Cornette after he passed a polygraph test proving he wasn't part of the plan. A few months later, Larry Zbyszko would be fired after losing a match with Eric Young (who also was paranoid about losing his job, which led to the fairly popular "Don't fire Eric!" gimmick) at Bound for Glory.
This whole episode was dubbed The Orlando Screwjob and nothing about it made any sense...which is par for the course, when you think about it.
Miscellaneous Shenanigans
TNA signed Samoa Joe in 2005 and built him up as a huge force to be reckoned with. Joe went on an eighteen-month undefeated streak, during which he got a clean win over then-NWA World Heavyweight Champion Jeff Jarrett in a non-title match. Kurt Angle debuted in the fall of 2006 after leaving WWE a few weeks prior, a move that shocked the hell out of everyone. Instead of slowly building up to Angle vs. Joe, said match -- both Angle's first TNA match and the end of Joe's undefeated streak -- took place two months after Angle's TNA debut (Genesis in November 2006). Joe's career stagnated after his follow-up matches with Angle; he didn't win the TNA World Heavyweight Championship until 2008 -- from Kurt Angle, ironically enough -- and by that point, nobody cared.
ROH regulars Austin Aries and Roderick Strong became big parts of TNA's X-Division. They even teamed up with Alex Shelley in what fans referred to as the second coming of their Ring Of Honor faction, Generation Next. After a massive snowstorm, TNA suggested the pair no-show their scheduled ROH appearance so they could make it to Florida in time for a TNA PPV. Aries and Strong stayed true to their ROH commitments, and while they both made it to Florida on time, both served a long suspension for refusing to screw over ROH. Strong was released shortly after the suspension was up, while Aries was repackaged as Austin Starr.
TNA held a Fans' Revenge Match where fans became lumberjacks and surrounded the ring armed with leather belts. Wait, did that say "a" match? Yeah, this actually happened twice -- the first one happened at No Surrender 2006 (Samoa Joe vs. Jeff Jarrett), while the second one happened nearly two years later at Victory Road 2008 (LAX vs. Beer Money). Before the first match, TNA encouraged fans to send in videos to earn the chance to be selected as a lumberjack.
Several of the fan submission videos were awful enough to end up on The Smoking Gun's "Worlds Dumbest Fans" special in 2009.
Jackie Gayda joined Planet Jarrett after being blackmailed into it. After Gayda claimed to have discovered a huge secret about Jarrett, Alex Shelley brought Jeff Jarrett an allegedly incriminating piece of tape involving Gayda that Jarrett used to blackmail her. TNA Never Followed Up On This™ because Gayda took time off after becoming pregnant. She never returned to TNA. (Smart gal.)
Jim Cornette stripped LAX of the Tag Team Championship when TNA deemed the team "unfit" to hold them over an attack on Gail Kim and an attempt to burn the American flag. Cornette later backed down when LAX's lawyer said burning the flag was within their First Amendment rights. In reality, the decision to strip LAX of the titles was unpopular to the point where it almost turned LAX face -- fans even chanted "bullshyt" when the announcement was made.
Abyss won his first and only NWA World Championship by disqualification when Sting pushed referee Rudy Charles. As mentioned earlier on this page, back in the early days of TNA, Bob Armstrong made a rule that said any champion who intentionally disqualifies himself from a match would lose their title. While TNA deserves credit for remembering this rule (and showing actual continuity in the process), nobody in TNA had mentioned the rule since 2002, and TNA eventually did away with the rule after this match. This ending resulted in most of the live crowd and viewing audience having no idea what the hell was going on.
Coming off the breakup of Team Canada, Bobby Roode (now rechristened Robert Roode) was praised as being the future of the industry. Legendary managers such as Bobby Heenan and Sherri Martel actually appeared on Impact to convince Roode to hire them, but Roode hired Traci Brooks as his manager and feuded with Eric Young for over six months because he was jealous of Young's popularity. Both moves killed any momentum Roode may have had coming out of Team Canada and turned him into one of TNA's most boring performers. He wouldn't recover from this period of his career until TNA paired him off with James Storm and the duo became Beer Money.
A "highlight" of this terrible and seemingly never-ending feud was Eric Young defeating Traci in a bikini contestin which Young stripped down to Spongebob skivvies.
Another "highlight" saw Young and Jeremy Borash, with Alex Shelley filming the whole thing, at a convenience store at 4 in the morning looking to buy condoms. Both were then ridiculed by James Storm and Jacqueline for no good reason.
The opening match of Hard Justice 2006 (Johnny Devine vs. Eric Young) was disrupted by a large cloud of smoke, which caused fans to begin chanting "YOU CAN'T SEE US!" (in reference to John Cena's catchphrase) and "THE ROOF, THE ROOF, THE ROOF IS ON FIRE!" (once the cause of the smoke was revealed). A shot of the smoke showed the Impact Zone's roof on fire (caused by the pyro that kicked off the PPV, which ignited a piece of sacking that had been left in the rafters). Devine and Young worked the remainder of the match to a finish -- something both men should be commended for -- then followed fans, other workers, and TNA staff out of the Impact Zone. As the fire department spent a half-hour extinguishing the fire, Tenay and West ran down the rest of Hard Justice's card and held interviews with various wrestlers (including a possibly-high Monty Brown). A multi-team tag match was booted from the card as a result, and TNA didn't use pyro for the rest of the night (which prompted a "No more pyro!" chant when Abyss came out for the next match).
Jackass: Number 2 was heavily promoted for several weeks as many X-Division wrestlers attempted to recreate stunts from the Jackass series (something the opening sequence of the show actually discouraged). Stunts included Senshi (aka Low Ki) popping a blow-up doll by stomping on it, Jay Lethal riding a shopping cart into the ringpost, and Petey Williams being fed laxatives. Displeased fans chanted "No more Jackass" at them. Despite TNA's efforts, Steve-O and Chris Pontius showed up on Raw and had a match with Umaga while nobody from the Jackass crew stopped by the Impact Zone. Soon after Steve-O and Pontius appeared on Raw, all promotion for the Jackass movie died and TNA killed the gimmick along with it.
The Petey Williams laxative incident happened at a PPV during a match with Jay Lethal. What could have been a fun X-Division match for the paying customers turned into a terrible "comedy" match where Petey feigned badly needing to take a shyt bell-to-bell. Don West shouted "THE SMELL! OH GOD THE SMELL!" the entire match, although nobody in the audience seemed too bothered.
WWE resurrected ECW in mid-2006; in an attempt to bring legitimacy to this rebirth, WWE attempted to lure former ECW stars working in TNA into working as part of WWECW. During house shows, ECW alumni who were offered contracts took the time to rip said contracts up in front of a crowd. TNA turned this into a storyline where Rhino bashed both ECW and Vince McMahon; for weeks, Rhino whined about how WWECW was not the original ECW, and the whining culminated in Rhino taking the actual original ECW World Heavyweight Championship belt (which he owned due to his status as the company's last world champ) and tossing it into a burning barrel.
Team 3D got involved in this, too; most notably, they stapled an "ECW fears TNA" sign to Abyss' head during a hardcore match.
During the belt-burning, the belt was kept in a bag and never actually shown on TV, ostensibly for "legal reasons". A year later, Rhino revealed he didn't really burn the ECW belt -- he had used an old replica NWA belt instead.
Shannon Moore came to TNA after a fresh Future Endeavoring from WWE(CW) and began using an exaggerated version of his "Prince of Punk" gimmick. Moore debuted by interrupting what was (at the time) a dream match between AJ Styles and Hiroshi Tanahashi, started a feud with AJ, and even got a clean victory over Styles (back when he was still relatively important to TNA). The week after that win, Shannon left TNA. Since TNA hadn't actually signed Moore to a contract, when WWE came calling again, he headed back north. (Smart man.) He even took a jab at TNA in a WWE.com interview talking about his return.
TNA repackaged Kazarian, Matt Bentley, and Johnny Devine as Serotonin, essentially a new version of Raven's Flock (right down to Raven leading the group). Serotonin did nothing but lose every match they were in and let Raven whack them with a kendo stick after every loss. Devine was inexplicably pulled from a fairly successful pairing with Alex Shelley (Paparazzi Productions) for this.
Christian Cage and Rhino had a big feud that culminated in an "8 Mile Street Fight" (named after the infamous street in Rhino's birthplace of Detroit) at Bound for Glory. Their match was good, and it should have ended the feud, but the feud restarted weeks later when Christian and Rhino had a "Barbed-Wire Cage Match" on an episode of Impact -- a week after competing in a "Weapons Or Escape Pole" Match (where each pole had either a weapon or a tool for escaping which could be used in the cage match) that ended when all four items were torn down (no pinfalls or submissions took place).
TNA held another "8 Mile Street Fight" between Rhino and Tomko as a throwaway match on Impact sometime later.
TNA ended 2006 by rehiring Vince Russo as head writer.
At Genesis 2007, Kaz and Christian Cage competed in a #1 Contendership Ladder Match. During the match, Christian accidentally tore the contract on the clipboard off, leaving Don West and Mike Tenay to cover for it by saying one wrestler must pull down the clipboard to win.
TNA held a "Reverse Battle Royal". This genius concept saw half the roster fight outside of the ring to get into the ring. Once the set number of people had entered, they competed in an actual battle royal until two people remained (at which point the battle royal turned into a one-on-one match). Despite being widely lauded as one of the worst matches of that (or any) year, TNA held another one sometime later.
During Chris Sabin's feud with Jerry Lynn over the X-Division title, Sabin came to the ring wearing a diaper to illustrate how old Lynn was.
The USA Network pre-empted Raw for the Westminster Dog Show, so TNA capitalized by having a two-hour Monday night special show -- which they started by showing Eric Young smoking cigars with dogs.
Rather than air brand new material for this special, TNA decided to show some of their greatest matches and moments from 2006. This would have been fine, but TNA aired all of the matches in a style similar to NFL Films which included random cuts and close-ups during key moments, making the matches difficult to watch.
TNA brought in Rikishi (under the name Junior Fatu) for no reason. He cut a promo where he forgot both Robert Roode's name and the name of the tournament TNA had booked him to compete in. He left weeks later after he asked for more money and TNA said no. (Smart company...for once.)
AJ Styles went from Main Eventer to Christian's goon, along with Tomko.
AJ Styles went from Christian's goon to Angle's bytch, also along with Tomko.
AJ Styles went from being Angle's bytch to "marrying" Angle's bytch -- er, Karen Angle during a vow renewal ceremony between Kurt and Karen, during which Samoa Joe attacked Kurt. (About a year later, Jeff Jarrett married Karen Angle in real life.)
Special mention should be given to Tomko (who had been heavily supported by the crowd prior) turning on Christian and joining Angle for no real reason other than Russo wanting to swerve the fans. This incident caused all of Tomko's crowd support to die and dealt significant damage to his career. He would be booted from the company soon after.
TNA signed a severely out-of-shape Dustin Rhodes back to the company. As a play off his Goldust character, he used the new moniker "Black Reign". Dustin wrestled in a black version of his Goldust outfit, and his entrance involved wearing a black wig and carrying a rat around.
Dustin's addiction to painkillers severely hampered him during his TNA run; he claimed to have taken at least forty pills a day during his TNA run. While still employed by TNA, Dustin eventually entered rehab on WWE's dime. Much like Jimmy Rave (mentioned below), Dustin was released by TNA for a lack of creative plans. For obvious reasons, Dustin refuses to talk about this period of his career.
After the breakup of America's Most Wanted, TNA attempted to rekindle Chris Harris' lost singles push from 2003. He put on a star-making performance against James Storm in a Texas Deathmatch, for which TNA rewarded him with a spot in the King of the Mountain match to crown the first ever TNA World Heavyweight Champion. Harris later had a match with Christian that ended via interference by Dustin Rhodes. After this match, TNA dropped Harris down the card to feud with Black Reign, and because Black Reign feuds always ended up horrible, Harris' momentum hit the skids faster than Nick Hogan on a bender. Harris' next storyline involved him whining about his position in TNA -- and TNA turned this into the storyline reason for legitimately releasing him. As a "thank you" for his five years of service to the company, TNA posted a message on their website that said Harris had quit and called him a gigantic crybaby.
After a hot run of great matches with Christian and Kurt Angle, Kazarian ended up feuding with Black Reign. Their feud included a Rat on a Pole Match (a near-exact replica of an infamous WCW match: out of four boxes hanging from poles, three contained mouse traps, and the fourth contained Black Reign's pet rat).
In an otherwise-hilarious promo that mocked Black Reign into complete irrelevance, Kazarian renamed the rat "Terri" in a reference to Dustin's ex-wife. Nobody cared.
TNA debuts the Elevation-X Match, essentially a scaffold match with two scaffolds forming an "X". The match featured very little action and plenty of reaction shots of people in the Impact Zone covering their mouths in shock. Like the Reverse Battle Royal, this shytty concept match also happened twice.
TNA debuted an animal mascot akin to The Gobbledy Gooker, Stomper the Kangaroo, live on PPV at Sacrifice. Nobody cared and he went away soon afterwards.
Jay Lethal achieved one of the biggest upsets in TNA history by defeating Kurt Angle for the X-Division Championship. To reward him, TNA had Team 3D squash the entire X-Division -- including Lethal -- for a few months.
The Team 3D storyline had an entertaining little angle where they could not weigh in over 275 pounds or they would not be allowed to compete. Jokes were made about them being able to transfer weight between them, since one would always make weight and it wasn't the same one twice. This eventually led to a really entertaining Fish Market Street Fight match between Team 3D and the team of Shark Boy and Curry Man in which fish were thrown and Twinkies were used as bait.
About an hour after Lethal beat Angle, he was dispatched to the ring as part of a group of X-Divisioners for Joe to beat up. This rightfully pissed Angle off, as he'd argued for Lethal to go over him clean (even turning down interference) and felt that it de-valued Lethal's win.
TNA signed former WCW wrestler Johnny "The Bull" Stamboli, who debuted as an ally to Black Reign with a Muta-like mask and the name Rellik. (Stamboli wrestled on the independents with this gimmick, which was originally named "Redrum".) TNA made sure everyone knew about their "clever" name by having Don West or Mike Tenay (and eventually Eric Young) say "Rellik -- that's killer spelled backwards!" at some point during every one of Rellik's appearances until the company released him. (They sometimes said it more than once during a single match.)
Jim Cornette booked a Tag Team Championship match between Kurt Angle (who had won the Tag Team titles by himself) and the Steiners with an extra stipulation attached: if Angle lost, the Steiners would have five minutes alone in the ring with Karen Angle. This begs a simple question: what did Cornette think the Steiners planned on doing to Karen, other than potentially raping her, if they'd won?
Anything involving both Kevin Nash and Samoa Joe always turned out awful. Things never went right between these two, and Joe always looked like a dumbass for trusting Nash despite Nash always turning on him.
Joe stole Angle's clothes while he was tanning during an Impact taping. Kurt hunted Joe down for the rest of the show wearing only a pair of tiny red briefs. Jeremy Borash followed Kurt around for the entire show while Kurt asked him several times if he was looking at his package and yelled about freaks wanting to sell his underwear on eBay.
Andrew Martin (WWE's Test) randomly debuted, picked up the nickname "The Punisher", went over in the main event of Hard Justice, and promptly disappeared from the company.
Martin was likely the only guy in TNA ever fired because he was too muscular. While that would normally sound like one of the dumbest things ever, Congress had put professional wrestling under a microscope regarding steroid abuse in the wake of the Benoit tragedy. Martin was a walking red flag at the time, so TNA told him to come back when he had lost some muscle mass. Martin retired from pro wrestling later in the year and died two years later.
According to a report submitted to the Congressional Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released to the public in 2009, of 60 TNA wrestlers tested in January 2007, 26 tested positive for drugs (with 15 out of the 26 testing positive for steroids).
Spike TV filmed a five-minute western-style "action short" featuring Kurt Angle walking into a bar in Connecticut and getting in a bar-room brawl with low-rent actors doing piss-poor imitations of familiar WWE stars.
TNA created a Women's Division, known as the Knockouts, and held a battle royal at Bound For Glory to crown the first champion. During the match, the Knockouts joined together to eliminate Awesome Kong, whose top fell off as she was thrown over the top rope.
TNA debuted its version of the Money in the Bank Match: "Feast or Fired". Half of TNA's roster fought for possession of four briefcases strapped onto poles situated at four corners of the ring. Some time after the match, the wrestlers who managed to snag a briefcase opened them to find out if they'd won a "feast" (three of the briefcases contained title shots) or ended up "fired" (one briefcase contained a pink slip).
This would also kick off the incredibly unfunny running gag of Christopher Daniels somehow getting the "fired" briefcase regardless of what gimmick he was using. Originally, he didn't get a briefcase, but his Triple-X running mate Low Ki did. Ki left the company shortly after the PPV where the match took place, so instead of just having him be the first victim of the "fired" briefcase, Daniels beat him for the briefcase and was fired instead. It made no sense.
TNA brought back Tiny the Timekeeper, who hadn't appeared in about four years, to copy the schtick of WWE's Big dikk Johnson. As "Big Fat Oily Guy", Tiny participated in lots of unfunny skits and wrestled in a Tuxedo/Evening Gown match with Christy Hemme at Against All Odds 2007 (at the behest of VKM).
Lance Hoyt and Jimmy Rave joined forces to form The Rock‘n’Rave Infection, a heel tag team notable only for their love of Guitar Hero. They were managed by Christy Hemme (who seemed to have trouble finding teams who didn't suck) and came to the ring with Guitar Hero controllers.
TNA hired talented joshi performer Ayako Hamada, pushed her as the most talented Knockout in the division for two months, and...promptly forgot about her existence for damn near the rest of her TNA career.
Glenn Gilbertti said he wanted one last run during an interview with Mike Tenay. He returned to Impact the next week under his Disco Inferno moniker and got squashed by Abyss. He would never wrestle another match on TNA TV.
Sting defeated Kurt Angle for the World Heavyweight Championship at Bound For Glory 2007. Two days later, Sting dropped the belt back to Angle on Impact. Hot potatoes, anyone?
The Prince Justice Brotherhood happened.
The name itself was an unfunny in-joke that nobody got, as Prince Justice was one of Abyss' pre-TNA gimmicks.
Scott Hall no-showed Turning Point 2007. Samoa Joe cut a promo where he branded Scott Hall "the Phantom of the Impact Zone", which legitimately upset Dixie Carter (who sat at ringside during the show). Joe looked at her and shouted, "Are you mad? Go ahead and fire me; I don't care." After the match, Nash and Joe had a fight, as Joe had taken several shots at him as well.
Hall's replacement in the match? Eric Young.
Joe was only supposed to take a few shots at Hall, then introduce Eric Young as the replacement. Unfortunately for Dixie, Joe realized he'd been handed a live mic on a live PPV broadcast, so he decided to air some grievances. Nobody knows why she didn't just send someone backstage to cut his mic.
The promotional poster for this show featured the tagline "Live From St. Louis"; TNA actually held the show at the Family Arena in St. Charles, Missouri.
Chris Sabin won an Xscape Match where the rules said the winner must leave St. Louis. TNA never actually showed Sabin leaving either St. Louis or St. Charles.
Former tag partners Chris Harris and James Storm faced off in a blindfold cage match. Instead of actual blindfolds, they wrestled with cloth sacks on their heads, and the referee spent most of the match trying to put the bags back on. Critics called this the worst match in TNA (and wrestling overall) in 2007.
A month later, both men made up for this shytfest with the aforementioned Texas Deathmatch, which many of those aforementioned critics called one of TNA's best matches of the year.
Team 3D fought LAX in an Electrified Six Sides of Steel Match. Because the cage wasn't actually electrified, TNA simply turned off the house lights and lit the ring with a light bluish glow. Whenever someone touched the cage, the light flickered and the wrestlers squirmed around as if they'd been tazed. None of this stopped TNA from showing close-ups of the wrestlers touching the cage outside of these "shock spots" or Hernandez wearing gloves in order to climb the cage.
While the crowd fairly screamed "Fire Russo" during this, Dixie later blamed Dutch Mantell for it. Dutch thoroughly denied being involved in this one as well.
"Pretty much every time the crowd chants 'Fire Russo', I can tell you, it wasn't him who wrote that segment."
— Dixie Carter, during her YouShoot Abyss, Sting, and Judas Mesias
Abyss lost the NWA World Heavyweight Championship in a Three-Way Elimination Match after Sting eliminated Abyss first, so Abyss repaid Sting by costing him the match. For this reason alone, Sting looked up Abyss' public records and found out Abyss had served time for shooting his father in the back. After both a "Prison Yard Match" and the Last Rites Match (see below), Abyss' longtime manager/controller/possible live-in lover James Mitchell appeared on Impact with Abyss' mother. As it turns out, MommAbyss shot Abyss' father, and her son took the blame for her. Mitchell could control Abyss because he knew the truth about the shooting (presumably because he later revealed his identity as Abyss' real father) and threatened to call the police.
For some reason, Tomko was involved. TNA Never Explained This™.
At one point, Sting practically said he wanted Abyss to die; this led to the first -- and if there's a God, only -- Last Rites Match at Destination X. The two fought in TNA's version of a casket match, which involved obnoxious and unnecessary theatrics such as candelabras placed on every ringpost, headstones placed around the ring for use as weapons, and a casket (referred to as a "deathbed") lowered from the ceiling before it was raised back up after the conclusion of the match. Sting won, by the way, and Abyss' "death" lasted eleven days.
This match was especially noteworthy for the first use of the "Fire Russo" chant. Dixie responded to this by threatening to fire someone other than Russo every time it was chanted. Fans kept the chant going. Dixie never followed through on her threat.
Abyss' feud with Sting ended up humanizing "The Monster", which killed any remaining mystique to his character -- especially when he started talking.
TNA practically ripped off the entirety of The Undertaker/Kane/Paul Bearer storyline with a storyline centered around Abyss, Judas Mesias, and James Mitchell. Judas Mesias sucked more balls than Pat Patterson and was far too short to be any real threat to Abyss. The feud itself also featured a number of terrible gimmick matches. While Dutch Mantell received the blame for this crapfest, Dutch said Russo deserves it.
Mesias was injured in a gimmick match in Mexico during this feud, so TNA threw Black Reign and Rellik (which was still "killer" spelled backwards) into the feud for no reason to stall for time until Mesias could return. Mesias didn't last long with the company after returning, however, as TNA wasn't willing to pay him what he was making in Mexico.
For the record: according to the kayfabe of this storyline, James Mitchell became a father at the age of nine. Even the awfulness of Claire Lynch can't top that insane bullshyt.
Pacman Jones won the TNA Tag Team Titles despite doing little more than standing on the apron for his "matches".
Disgraced NFL player Adam "Pacman" Jones signed a deal with TNA. Despite sundry off-field shenanigans, Jones managed to stay under contract with the Tennessee Titans, who scored a court order forbidding Jones to become physically involved in any wrestling match in any way whatsoever. (Leapfrogging someone a couple times and throwing a football at someone's junk must not count as "being physically involved".) TNA paired Jones off with Ron Killings, and the pair defeated Sting and Kurt Angle for the TNA Tag Team Championships without Jones doing any wrestling at all. Yes, you read that right: a man not allowed to wrestle in any way won a wrestling championship. Thankfully, TNA picked an upstanding celebrity for this role instead of hiring a man who'd been arrested five times, investigated eleven times by the police, and involved in a shooting incident that left a man paralyzed...oh. Jones' pre-debut vignettes even said he was coming into TNA to prove he was the best team player there.
Jones and Killings continued to successfully defend the Tag Team Championship with Killings handling all of the wrestling. In typical TNA fashion, the company waited until Jones' final night as a tag champion to do what they should have done in the first place: they added another member to "Team Pacman" (the debuting Consequences Creed), who became Truth's partner and made Jones simply a manager. Creed and Killings lost the tag titles on the same night Creed debuted.
Killings disappeared from TV after Jones left TNA; when he started appearing again months later, he only showed up in fake movie trailers during episodes of Impact. What was the purpose of these trailers? TNA Never Explained This™, because Killings left TNA shortly after the last trailer aired. (Smart man.) Consequences Creed disappeared for a long while, then came back to team with Jay Lethal for a brief time and wrestle in the X-Division. He later left TNA and signed a developmental deal with WWE, where he eventually became Xavier Woods.
As a prelude to bringing in Pacman, NFL star Frank Wycheck made a handful of appearances with the promotion a mere month before the company signed Jones. Killings somehow ended up in this feud as well, as Wycheck tagged with Jerry Lynn to take on Killings and James Storm atSlammiversary. Wycheck -- in his first wrestling match -- hit Storm with a cradle piledriver and nearly killed him.
But the biggest bummer about all of this? TNA never once referred to the Creed and Killings team as "Truth and Consequences".
At least we got this GIF out of the ordeal.
The Holiday Specials Impact 11/22 - Even Native Americans Didn't Suffer This Much at the First Thanksgiving
The Angles, dressed up as pilgrims, welcomed everyone to their home for Thanksgiving.
Throughout the night, numerous TNA wrestlers made appearances at the Angle house in comedy vignettes. Such gems included Robert Roode making Ms. Brooks sit at the kid's table, Black Machismo confusing Awesome Kong for Kamala, and the inevitable food fight (which included a bit where Awesome Kong caught a turkey leg tossed her way).
The Outsiders showed up late to Angle's party. Nobody was really that upset, but everybody was surprised Hall decided to show up.
TNA debuted the Turkey Bowl. Throughout the night, three triple-threat matches were held involving one X-Division wrestler, one tag team wrestler, and one heavyweight wrestler. The winner of the triple-threat involving the winners of the qualifier matches received a $25,000 reward, while the loser of the match (the person pinned or submitted) had to wear a turkey suit. The night closed with Samoa Joe pinning AJ Styles and Styles dressed up in a turkey suit trying to imitate Bobby Heenan in the weasel suit.
Impact 12/20 - TNA's Christmas Story (from Hell)
Unlike the Thanksgiving Party, the Christmas party took place at Eric Young's house.
Jim Cornette had the week off, so bodyguard Matt Morgan booked the show, and "The Blueprint" had a thing for gimmick matches:
Beer Money and The Rock‘n’Rave Infection faced LAX and Scott Steiner/Booker T in a Christmas Cage Match (a steel cage match with the cage draped in Christmas lights).
The Motor City Machine Guns and Jay Lethal fought Team 3D and Johnny Devine in a Double North Pole Match, a "stipulation on a pole" match with two poles (each pole was decked out in Christmas lights) where the winner got to pick their stipulation for their match at the PPV.
Abyss, Black Reign, Rellik, and (for some reason) Shark Boy competed in a "Silent Night, Bloody Night" Match. This hardcore match featured a barbed-wire Christmas Tree with presents underneath that contained weapons. The Christmas Tree was suspended from the ceiling like a pendulum and was hyped as the most effective weapon. All four competitors initially ignored the tree and ran right for the gifts. At one point, Abyss unwrapped a barbed-wire baseball bat and responded gleefully despite having an entire tree made of fukking barbed wire right next to him. Because the tree was hanging from the ceiling and had nothing anchoring it down, the tree swung all over the ring. Shark Boy was struck by the tree as soon as it came into play...and the tree casually bounced off of him (which shredded any chance of it being taken seriously). Regardless, a highlight of the match was when the tree was swung into the corner and Black Reign had to hug the tree to keep it from bouncing off of him in an attempt to execute the spot correctly.
The Knockouts competed in a Santa's Workshop Knockout Street Fight. Except for Awesome Kong and Gail Kim, who left the match right at the beginning to brawl backstage. The rest of the match consisted of slow brawls between the various Knockouts with a big obnoxious box in the ring while the ladies waited for Kong to come back and win the match.
AJ Styles vs. Kaz competed in a Ladder Match with a reindeer suit hanging above the ring. Styles lost and closed his second 2007 holiday special in an animal costume. (Maybe he's a fan of THE FURRY COMMUNITY.)
The show closed with Tenay saying "something like this can only happen in TNA" as if that's a good thing.
Derek Graham-Couch (aka Robbie, one-half of WWE tag team The Highlanders) attended a live Impact in March 2008. He had been backstage visiting some friends and stuck around to watch them perform. TNA deliberately decided to show Robbie onscreen (they used his real name to avoid a trademark lawsuit with WWE), and when he noticed, he tried to hide himself (to no avail). Tenay and West proceeded to brag about a WWE jobber being in the crowd, thus completing Robbie's public humiliation, before a WWE official called Robbie and told him to leave the arena. This happened right beforeWrestleMania (which was that weekend in Orlando), so both Robbie and his tag team partner lost their WrestleMania bonus as punishment. WWE kept The Highlanders off TV for months, and the team was eventually released later in the year -- but not before they jobbed out to Cryme Tyme. Way to be dikks, TNA.
TNA also gloated about this on their website until a good portion of the TNA roster got pissed enough about the dikk move to force the company into taking said gloating down.
Christian went through a glass table during a match. In a great piece of theater, TNA prepped a towel with fake blood to make Christian's injuries look worse (despite showing the "blood" already on the towel). Christian stayed out of action for three weeks as a result of his "injuries". Homicide went through a glass table the week afterwards, then showed up at TNA's next PPV with a band-aid over his eye.
Bill and Doug, two of the most (in)famous "Youtube Shooters", gave incessant praise to TNA and nonstop criticism to WWE for weeks. Viewers of the duo's YouTube show began to believe they were on TNA's payroll -- especially after TNA's official Youtube page subscribed to their channel. Bill and Doug would eventually be hired by TNA to host the short-lived online radio show TNA Addicts. The duo later left the company after losing faith in its product (citing major problems in the creative process), and the videos made after their leaving TNA became progressively more anti-TNA to the point where the duo told their audience not to watch Impact.
After the duo was hired by TNA, their YouTube channel was hacked. The culprit? Self-proclaimed "YouTube Shooter" and noted small-name/big-ego Kent Jones. The reason? Jealousy over TNA hiring Bill and Doug instead of him.
To hype TNA's first video game, the company debuted Suicide, a character based on the fictional charater of the same name from the game's single-player story mode, six months after the game's release. Before his debut, split-second footage featuring a link to a nonsensical in-character blog was spliced into TNA shows (and even a PPV). This blog was never even mentioned post-debut, making it completely pointless. By the time TNA retired the character for two years in 2011, at least three different people had played the role (including Christopher "I deserve so much better than this" Daniels).
On the upside, the initial pre-debut push resulted in /wooo/ is Suicide.
TNA signed Bobby Lashley and hyped him with videos discussing his crossover into MMA. Instead of putting over TNA, Lashley did nothing but talk about how much he wanted to fight Brock Lesnar in UFC. Lashley's MMA career turned out to be a bigger joke than this.
Lashley brought his then-girlfriend Kristal (who TNA billed as his wife) with him. He promptly entered into an awful feud with Scott Steiner over her.
Daffney's Sarah Palin ripoff gimmick, "The Governor", debuted after the 2008 American presidential election and lasted for nearly four months before TNA figured out Daffney didn't need it.
At one point, TNA actually invited Sarah Palin to one of their PPVs, offering to donate to a charity if she showed up. She didn't. (Smart...ish gal.)
In an actual meeting discussing production values and cutting costs, Mike Tenay failed to defend broadcast colleague (and friend) Don West when the idea of running the show with one commentator came up. In true Russo fashion, TNA decided to turn West heel by having him bring up the actual meeting and call Tenay "a selfish prick" on-air before storming off. TNA later replaced West with Taz at the commentary table, while West returned to shilling merchandise (better known as "a job promotion").
Ironically enough, turning West heel actually made him a better commentator, to the point where people were annoyed when Taz replaced him a month ahead of schedule.
TNA paired Petey Williams up with Scott Steiner with Petey serving as Steiner's protégé; this resulted in Petey riding with Steiner between house shows. On one of these journeys, Steiner drove the wrong way into a drive-thru order at the pay window, and then ate his food in the park-and-wait bay.
Williams also became "Maple Leaf Muscle" during his run with Steiner, and the gimmick started getting him over with fans again. TNA promptly fired him for daring to get over with the help of a veteran instead of, you know, putting the veteran over.
After leaving WWE, Mick Foley -- one of the nicest, most liked, and most respected personalities in the industry -- went to TNA. After TNA gave him a World Championship reign for no legitimate reason, TNA proceeded to piss Foley off to the point where he openly bashed the company on his Twitter while still under TNA contract.
At Destination X 2008, Eric Young debuted his superhero alter-ego, Super Eric. At Lockdown, Young and Kaz won a "Cuffed in a Cage" match to earn a future Tag Team Championship match. On the April 17th episode of Impact, Young -- who left the match and returned as Super Eric -- and Kaz won the World Tag Team Championship. TNA stripped the duo of the titles after Young refused to admit Super Eric's true identity (Eric Young, which anyone with half a brain already knew). Super Eric disappeared for good when Young started appearing in segments where he tried to find Elvis. Why? TNA Never Explained This™.
A match between Daffney and Taylor Wilde ended up getting the highest ratings of any segment of the episode of Impact it aired on. TNA followed up this success by rarely putting either Knockout on TV again.
Speaking of Taylor Wilde, she inadvertently became the focus of one of TNA's first major pay scandals. Despite her status as both a performer on a primetime cable network television programand the then-reigning Knockouts Champion, Wilde had to work a second job at a local Sunglasses Hut to cover her living expenses because TNA paid her far less than she needed. When a fan recognized her at the second job, she quit out of embarrassment. She also left TNA later in the year, presumably also out of embarassment. The Taylor Wilde fiasco allowed critics to turn the disparity in pay between male and female performers (as well as the generally low pay of TNA in and of itself) into a legitimate criticism of the company.
ODB also revealed that she had to work a second job as a bartender.
The low pay extended to the male side of the roster, as well. Several midcarders have admitted to having second jobs while TNA continued paying big bucks for ex-WWE "big names". The company eventually shelled out $4 million for the contracts of half a dozen people, none of whom were midcarders or Knockouts.
After Jay Lethal's "Black Machismo" gimmick got over, TNA decided to make SoCal Val his valet and onscreen love interest in an attempt to mirror the Miss Elizabeth/Randy Savage romance. The two had a mock wedding at Slammiversary akin to the Savage and Elizabeth wedding at Summerslam 1991. Sonjay Dutt, Lethal's best friend and occasional tag team partner, became jealous of their relationship and the two feuded for several months. SoCal Val eventually betrayed Lethal at No Surrender and claimed to be with Dutt for the money, as his father was one the richest men in India.
A highlight of this feud included the "Black Tie Brawl & Chain Match" at Hard Justice 2008. The match was a Tuxedo Match where the two guys were chained together for some reason. We'd go into further detail here, but we think the name alone speaks for itself.
After that crapfest, the feud was rescued by a "Ladder of Love" Ladder Match at No Surrender the following month, which actually turned out to be pretty good.
A further additional, hindsight-driven feud highlight included the build for Lethal's wedding to SoCal Val. During the feud and wedding, Lethal's family was shown in the crowd in support of Lethal for some matches during the feud with Dutt -- including Lethal's then real-life girlfriend, future WWE Diva AJ Lee, posing as his sister. She was, shall we say, visibly not related to "Black Machismo's" family.
The Sonjay/Val relationship was dropped about two weeks after Val's betrayal. Sonjay wasn't with the company for very long after that.
TNA brought in Frank Trigg, a moderately famous MMA fighter, to hang around Kurt Angle due to their resemblance. Trigg faced AJ Styles at No Surrender in a "MMA fight" that ended in a DQ. The match was shyt on by the live audience in the Impact Zone with chants like "This is bullshyt", "We want wrestling", and the infamous "FIRE RUSSO!"
On several cable providers, the feed cut to softcore pornography during this match. No one took responsibility. TNA Never Followed Up On This™.
After the match, AJ went over to the announce table, expressed his own displeasure, and said "I'm a wrestler!". Despite this stinker of a match, Trigg remained employed for a while longer because he was friends with Angle.
The Turkey Bowl returned; this time around, Alex Shelley was forced to don the turkey suit.
Shane Sewell debuted as a referee who attacked people that refused to respect his authority, especially Sheik Abdul Bashir (formerly Daivari in WWE). TNA eventually dropped this after Sewell had a couple of matches, and the company later released Sewell.
Don West briefly referred to Gail Kim's finishing manuever as the "Happy Ending" (a phrase that refers to an often-illegal service offered in certain seedy Asian massage parlors where a male customer is masturbated to orgasm after a massage).
As if that wasn't bad enough, Christy Hemme's legdrop finisher was referred to as the Flying Firecrotch Guillotine.
TNA signed Cheerleader Melissa, considered one of the best female wrestlers in North America, and placed her into the role of Awesome Kong's mouthpiece -- a hijab-wearing foreigner named Raisha Saeed. Melissa made the best of a bad situation and actually managed to get the borderline-racist heel character over. TNA eventually re-debuted her as Alissa Flash; after spending time hyping her as one of the best women wrestlers on the roster -- she also referred to herself as a "Future Legend" -- TNA proceeded to do absolutely nothing with her. Melissa eventually left the company and returned to the indies under her Cheerleader Melissa schtick, though she also portrayed Raisha Saeed in several indy matches (alongside Awesome Kong) and portrayed both Saeed and Flash in Ring Ka King.
Sheik Abdul Bashir made his TNA debut in June, and someone thought it was a good idea to put the sound of a plane crash in his entrance music. It was eventually removed following them being called out on it.
TNA rehashed the Millionaire's Club idea from WCW with the Main Event Mafia (MEM). This went about as well as one might think a year-long storyline involving a supergroup of Booker T, Scott Steiner, Kevin Nash, Kurt Angle, and Sting trying to teach the TNA Originals about respecting veterans would go.
The group of TNA Originals (plus Team 3D and Rhino) who banded together against the MEM -- the "TNA Frontline" -- stayed together as a cohesive unit for all of three weeks before everyone went off to do something else. TNA eventually resorted to having the MEM feud with itself to salvage something out of the broken storyline.
Eric Young formed the World Elite stable partway through the storyline. This group of random wrestlers from non-US countries later joined forces with the MEM near the tail end of the storyline. They turned on the MEM and then -- similar to Frontline -- broke apart unceremoniously to be in separate angles, though this only happened after Hogan and friends arrived (meaning that World Elite actually outlived the MEM).
Joe returned to TNA following three months of recovery after being beaten down by the MEM. Video packages hyped his return with a new look and threats of introducing the MEM to the "Nation of Violence". He feuded with the MEM for about six months after this, only to turn heel by betraying AJ Styles and handing Kurt Angle the TNA Championship at Slammiversary. This was especially stupid because Joe was the MEM's first target back in 2008. MEM explained that they couldn't beat him, so they just paid him off. Joe went from having main event matches to wrestling in the X-Division again during this run.
Rather than attempting to use the MEM angle to put younger stars over, the stable eventually imploded and feuded with each other, which eventually led to the MEM feuding with itself over control of TNA (as everything in TNA so often does).
The angle ended the night after Bound For Glory 2009 with Kurt Angle saying the group had accomplished its goal. In reality, Booker T had left the company and Sting had taken his annual time off.
Booker's last appearance was supposed to have him lose to Matt Morgan. Upon hearing this, he reportedly threw a gigantic hissy fit. He ended up doing a stretcher job. No surprise that it was soon revealed that Booker had been called the most selfish man in the company during his run.
Despite the angle being over, Steiner continued to wear MEM shirts and complained about young talent having no respect. TNA Never Followed Up On This™ because Steiner left soon after the angle's end.
Destination X 2009: Going Nowhere Fast
A preface: notable wrestling journalist Bryan Alvarez tried to get a refund for ordering this PPV.
During an interview segment with Jeff Jarrett and Mick Foley, the sound continually dropped and rose before the words "BRUTUS MAGNUS" flashed on the screen.
Cody Deaner defeated Shark Boy and some guy from New Mexico in a "Win a Date with ODB" dating show segment. There was no reason for this to be on PPV. The only reason this segment even existed was so Russo would have an excuse to write some dikk jokes.
Samoa Joe faced Scott Steiner in a match that went to a no-contest when Joe dragged Steiner out of the building. Minutes later, Joe reappeared in the parking lot with a bloody machete, and Steiner was nowhere to be seen. When questioned, Joe said "this is the start of his Nation of Violence" and threatened to kill the rest of the MEM. Fans almost immediately updated Steiner's Wikipedia page to say Steiner he had been killed by Samoa Joe. Heel commentator Don West said Joe had gone too far while Tenay justified Joe's attack by saying it was Steiner's fault.
On the episode of Impact after this PPV, Steiner appeared wearing a hoodie with a full-face covering. The week after that, he appeared in his normal attire with no visible marks or scars on his body from Joe's attack.
AJ Styles defeated Booker T for the TNA Legends Championship, a fake title Booker introduced as part of his run in the Main Event Mafia. Tenay attempted to push this as a major win for a former World, Tag Team, and X-Division Champion.
Rumors suggest Booker was allowed to introduce the Legends Championship as a way of shutting up his complaints about not having a title. The person who supposedly let him do it? Why, Vince Russo, of course!
Team 3D put their careers on the line to face Beer Money in a match for the Tag Team Championship. The match ended in a disqualification, so Jim Cornette restarted the match with a No Disqualification stipulation attached. Less than ten seconds later, Roode and Storm ran to the back, causing a No Disqualification Match to end in a count-out. Don West called this "disappointing".
Christopher Daniels portrayed Suicide (due to Kazarian suffering an injury) and won an Ultimate X match in exactly the same way he won one as himself a couple of years prior. Fans chanted "Fallen Angel" during the entire match.
The show's main event, Kurt Angle vs. Sting, featured Jeff Jarrett serving as a Special Guest Referee and Mick Foley acting as a Special Guest Enforcer. Foley, Jarrett, and Sting were all faces, which forced the crowd to boo Angle as a heel (despite Angle getting screwed over by three other people). Highlights of this match included Jeff Jarrett -- a trained wrestler -- taking a ref bump from Angle (and staying down for ten minutes) as well as Foley failing to call Angle submitting but counting a pinfall against Sting. Victory Road 2009: MINUS! FIVE! STARS!
MINUS! FIVE! STARS!
Tara (formerly Victoria in WWE) vs. Angelina Love (formerly a non-plastic human being) opened the show. Angelina won despite Tara sliding her foot under the rope (which should have negated the pinfall attempt). The loss ended Tara's first reign as Knockouts Champion, which she'd started less than a month earlier by beating Angelina on Impact.
TNA showed a segment later in the show featuring referee Slick Johnson emerging from the showers with Angelina's Beautiful People comrade Madison Rayne -- and despite being live on PPV in front of a working camera, Madison told backstage reporter Lauren to not tell anyone about this rendezvous with Slick. Despite Slick's questionable actions, he refereed two other matches on this show and was never punished.
At the last minute, Dr. Stevie (Stevie Richards as Abyss' psychiatrist/therapist) turned his match with Abyss into a No Disqualification Match. Jim Cornette never announced the change and Stevie didn't have the authority to make the change, but everyone went along with it anyway. TNA only changed the match so Abyss could use a tazer on Stevie to knock him out and win the match -- even though Abyss had already hit him with a Black Hole Slam. The tazer spot itself looked like something out of the Electrified Steel Cage Match mentioned earlier: a loud, phony "BZZZZZZT" sound played while a ton of smoke shot out from the tazer and Stevie sold the spot like death.
Kevin Nash announced a "Big Sexy Tour Valet Search" earlier in the year and scheduled it to start a few months after Victory Road -- which spoiled the stipulation of a match against AJ Styles (if AJ wins, Nash retires). Nash easily defeated Styles with a chokeslam, won the Legends Championship, and went on to do his valet tour, which led to TNA bringing in Jenna Morasca, a reality show contestant who'd won Survivor six years prior, for a couple of months. Hardly anyone, fans and employees alike, could figure out why TNA hired her in the first place; she stuck around the Main Event Mafia and did absolutely nothing, then antagonized the hell out of Sharmell and ended up booked in a match against her on this pay-per-view. After eight agonizing minutes of two non-wrestlers delivering one of the worst in-ring performances in women's wrestling history, fans knew it deserved the label of "worst match of the year". Some fans still think of this match as the worst worked match in the history of pro wrestling. The Wrestling Observer gives the match a "MINUS! FIVE! STARS!" rating, and the match soon found its way into both Botchamania (which later included a clip of the match in its intro) and our own Disasterpiece Theatre (as that collection's third entry and the second entry from TNA).
[/spoiler
TNA reportedly paid Morasca half a million dollars for her TNA appearances -- reportedly soon after TNA rejected a small pay raise for Gail Kim (a move which caused her to leave TNA for WWE). While some people claim Dixie Carter's obsession with reality show stars led to Morasca's signing, Kurt Angle had also starred with her in the horrible direct-to-video movie End Game. (Angle starred in a handful of low-budget movies around this time, thinking they would lead to bigger acting roles. Hollywood Never Followed Up On This™.)
[*]The rest of the show was so underwhelming that numerous wrestling critics referred to the whole show as the worst TNA pay-per-view of all time. Many of those same critics also called this PPV one of the worst shows in industry history.
Mick Foley had a match with a Rocky Balboa cutout. That isn't a joke.
Remember the Dupps, mentioned up near the top of this page? One of them, Stan Dupp, managed to shed the gimmick and have a fairly successful run in WWE under the name Trevor Murdoch. He returned in April 2009 as Jethro Holliday, teamed with Eric Young for a while, turned heel, jobbed to all and sundry, and was out the door in November.
At Lockdown 2009, these things happened: Bobby Lashley showed up at the end of the PPV, Mick Foley won the TNA World Heavyweight Championship, and the Main Event Mafia suffered a major defeat. TNAWrestling.com ran the following stories as its top stories of the week: promotion for Sacrifice (the next PPV), a story on AJ Styles vs. Kevin Nash on Impact, an ad for Team 3D's new shirt, and an ad for Jeff Jarrett's new DVD.
Kurt Angle stole the keys to Mick Foley's office and Foley fought to get them back in a Keys on a Pole match on Impact.
Jimmy Rave claimed he was a complete drug addict during his 2007-2009 run in TNA. Despite knowing of Rave's painkiller addiction and how it affected his in-ring performance, TNA did absolutely nothing about it. The company eventually released Rave in 2009...because Creative had nothing for him to do.
Rave eventually returned to ROH, but after a few months, that company released him...because of his painkiller addiction. Rave went to rehab after that.
Traci Brooks returned after a long absence to face off with Alissa Flash. Flash worked Traci's arm the entire match, and at one point, Mike Tenay said Traci had a birth defect in the same arm Flash worked over -- then said Traci specifically told him not to mention it on-air. While fans were left wondering why Tenay would reveal something he was asked not to, Traci lost via submission. She proceeded to beat Alissa down after the match while screaming about her arm. Nobody in the live audience had any idea what Traci's beatdown and yelling meant. Traci wrestled another match with ODB, where the exact same thing happened. After the second match, Traci disappeared from TV. TNA Never Explained This™.
Terry Taylor asked Daffney to let Abyss chokeslam her off the ring apron and onto a barbed-wire board. Daffney reluctantly agreed to perform the stunt, and for her trouble, she suffered a concussion. Since Spike TV refused to let TNA show any form of man-on-woman violence, TNA cut the stunt from broadcast. To complete Daffney's humiliation, TNA refused to pay for her medical costs -- and the company sent Terry Taylor to deliver the news.
TNA called AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels vs. Samoa Joe for the X-Division Championship at Unbreakable in 2005 "the greatest match in TNA history", so it repeated the match at the end of 2009, this time with the World Heavyweight Championship on the line. Fans called the Turning Point 2009 match TNA's best match of the year. Within the next year, all three men would flounder in virtual obscurity (even by TNA standards).
Fans chanted "Screw Hulk Hogan" during the match. TNA brought him in anyway.
Between his TNA debut and the end of 2009, Earl Hebner was involved in three separate screwjob angles -- and nobody cared about any of them.
Traci Brooks posed for Playboy's October edition, but when the magazine hired new editors, said editors nixed the pictorial from the magazine in an attempt to completely distance Playboy from wrestling. Playboy published Traci's pictorial on its website and replaced her magazine appearance with a "pictorial" of cartoon character Marge Simpson. None of this mattered anyway because TNA didn't promote Traci's pictorial in any way.
TNA did rip off WWE's "Playboy Push" for her, though. TNA didn't explain why she was suddenly so heavily featured, and when the pictorial was kicked to Playboy's website, her push died and she was again removed from TV.
Taz joined TNA in 2009; months later, he replaced Don West as color commentator. Instead of improving the announce team, Taz made Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler seem like a godsend in comparison.
Police arrested Kurt Angle for stalking TNA performer Rhaka Khan, driving with a suspended license, and possession of HGH the day before Hard Justice 2009. At Hard Justice 2009, Angle retained the TNA World Heavyweight Championship by winning a Triple Threat against Sting and Matt Morgan. Fans chanted "You got arrested!" at Angle throughout the match.
Cody Deaner, ODB's male manager, pinned Knockout Champion Velvet Sky, which made ODB the champion. ODB was later stripped of the belt as Deaner claimed himself to be the actual champion. At No Surrender, ODB would defeat Deaner and become the undisputed Knockout's Champion.
YOU STILL GOT IT! *clap clap clapclapclap* YOU STILL GOT IT!
Jay Lethal began challenging "legends" to matches. In his first match, he faced off with Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart. As the fans chanted "You still got it!" to Neidhart -- who had a beer gut big enough to make him look pregnant -- Lethal lost the match clean. Lethal disappeared from TV for a month, then repeated the schtick with Tatanka (who also beat Lethal clean). TNA never brought Neidhart and Tatanka back again. TNA Never Followed Up On This™.
TNA held a one-night tournament (the "Championship Series") over an entire episode of Impact. Eight wrestlers from different "divisions" fought in a single-elimination tournament, and the person who won the tournament would earn a title shot within their respective division. The idea made little sense from the get-go, as it meant Robert Roode would earn a Tag Team Championship shot instead of a World Heavyweight Championship shot for winning the tournament (despite having beaten the likes of Kurt Angle and Bobby Lashley in one night). In the end, Lashley won the tournament, but after this victory, TNA never mentioned the tournament again and Lashley never received his title shot.
Hernandez won a Feast or Fired world title shot in December of 2008. He tried to cash in the month afterward, but it didn't work, so he was able to hold onto his shot. He was injured for some time afterward, so he didn't get to cash his shot in until No Surrender in September 2009 -- and instead of waiting until after what was supposed to be a Fatal Four-Way to cash in, he cashed in before the match and made it a Five-Way. Rumors say TNA completely forgot he still had the briefcase and had him drop it in the stupidest way possible so he wouldn't look like a threat.
After the public announcement of TNA signing of Hulk Hogan in October, the TNA locker room remained split over the decision. Dixie Carter decided to address the roster like a mother scolding her children: she delivered a speech about the state of the company while the entire TNA roster sat in bleachers and watched (while also appearing to be bored out of their fukking minds). The overall tone of the speech was essentially "it's my way or the highway". Despite this being a legitimate message to TNA's employees and not an actual part of any ongoing storyline, a video of the speech actually opened an episode of Impact. It was widely mocked and criticized by everyone who watched it.
Hulk Hogan's signing was announced in October. The fact that he was coming to TNA was mentioned every five minutes on every Impact from the date of his signing until his debut in January 2010, with commentary on already taped shows re-dubbed to mention it. Even Rellik didn't get that much airtime (and Rellik is still "killer" spelled backwards, by the way).
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