TNA was meant to be the next major mainstream wrestling promotion in the United States due to their backing and opportunities. The Spike TV deal allowed them to sign a few huge names and make their move in hoping to create competition for WWE. Things didn’t work out in the long run with various management teams making mistakes.
The legacy of TNA featured great moments often evening out with the bad moments. One huge criticism was that TNA was often stuck in the past trying to find success based on outdated concepts. However, there were positive moments of TNA being ahead of its time. Find out which scenarios unfolded for each side. The following memories show the times TNA was ahead of its time and times they were stuck in the past.
10 Ahead of its time: X-Division matches changing the game
The wrestling style in the X-Division was unlike anything in WWE or WCW that fans were used to. An obvious comparison was the WCW cruiserweight division, but the X-Division kicked up the speed to another level.
TNA truly lived by the “no limits” tag line with someone like Samoa Joe joining the X-Division due to his wrestling style. The matches between Joe, AJ Styles, and Christopher Daniels specifically pushed wrestling to the style witnessed today.
9 Stuck in the past: Ripping off legendary factions
TNA tried to recreate past ideas that found success for WWE or WCW. Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff gaining power in TNA led to them expecting to find huge positive changes by recycling ideas from the past.
Jeff Hardy turning heel as the leader of a supergroup called Immortal was a failed rehash of the New World Order. Ric Flair leading the Fortune faction was meant to be a new version of the Four Horsemen. Fans saw through it and both ideas flopped.
8 Ahead of its time: Ranking system
The ranking system in TNA was a polarizing idea introduced by Eric Bischoff. All top main event singles stars were ranked with title shot implications on the line. TNA wasn’t always consistent which hurt the overall concept.
However, this thought process turned out to be ahead of its time. AEW is currently using a weekly ranking system for the male singles division, female singles division, and male tag team division. Tony Khan’s analytic background inspired it, but TNA had a similar idea first even though it missed the mark.
7 Stuck in the past: Using WWE's Hall of Fame rings
TNA spent too much time referencing other wrestling promotions. Hulk Hogan’s WWE Hall of Fame ring became a huge part of Abyss’ character when gifted the ring as a source of inspiration, but it just made WWE seem bigger than TNA in TNA’s own landscape.
Ric Flair left TNA for a weekend to receive his second Hall of Fame ring with the Four Horsemen. TNA once again hyped Flair for being a two-time Hall of Famer providing more importance to WWE’s referencing the past than trying to build their own future.
6 Ahead of its time: Tag team rivalries
Tag team wrestling was put on the backburner in WWE from around 2003 to 2011. Few top teams were elevated, and the genre felt lost. TNA made up for that by having a few legendary tag team rivalries to restart the relevance for tag team wrestling.
Triple X and America’s Most Wanted had a rivalry that showed the importance of tag team wrestling in TNA. Things peaked years later during the best of five series between Beer Money and Motor City Machine Guns. WWE would catch up in the following years with New Day and The Usos having their successful rivalry.
5 Stuck in the past: Booking D-List celebrities
The use of celebrities in wrestling has always been a fixture since WWE moved into the mainstream. Fans started to expect bigger names if celebrities would get involved with the use of D-listers no longer flying starting in the 2000s.
TNA did not take that into account when booking some lower-tier celebrities. Various Jersey Shore cast members received huge money to appear in TNA despite not impacting ratings or revenue. TNA even pushed forgettable football player Pacman Jones even when he wasn’t allowed to get physical as per his NFL contract.
4 Ahead of its time: World Cup tournaments
TNA was ahead of its time with some of the Olympic style tournaments of various wrestlers competing against each other. The United States wrestlers battled with talents from Japan and Mexico before it evolved into America vs The World.
Most of the talents involved were from the X-Division and had superb matches to make it feel important. WWE adopted this concept to an extent by adding the international appeal of talents from various countries for the Mae Young Classic and Cruiserweight Classic.
3 Stuck in the past: Trying to recreate Monday Night Wars
The biggest mistake by Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff when running TNA was expecting people to desire another Monday Night War. Both men agreed that TNA should move Impact to Mondays to compete head to head with Raw.
The fan base of TNA wasn’t strong enough to survive that and lost a lot of money competing with WWE. TNA looked bad when moving back to Thursdays after a few weeks of getting embarrassed by Raw in the ratings battle.
2 Ahead of its time: Diverse women's division
The launch of the Knockouts division saw TNA well ahead of its time with a diverse group of talents with different backgrounds, characters, and styles. Gail Kim and Awesome Kong had the feud that put them on the map, but the entire division worked.
The Beautiful People played over the top heels, Roxxi had the hardcore style, O.D.B brought the loud personality and about a dozen other women all had solid roles. WWE’s women’s evolution saw them taking things to another level, but TNA’s Knockouts division saw them trying to make big changes earlier.
1 Stuck in the past: Making Dixie Carter an authority figure
Authority figures peaked in the late ‘90s for wrestling with Vince McMahon and Eric Bischoff thriving as heels. WWE did have some success with Stephanie McMahon and Paul Heyman, but the idea certainly jumped the shark by the time TNA made a big move.
Dixie Carter slowly became an on-screen character and turned heel in a feud against AJ Styles. The lack of charisma from Dixie and the outdated idea just caused viewers to stop watching with ratings declining. Carter felt like a significantly worse version of Stephanie leading to failure.