Over the past 12 years, there have been hundreds of men and women who have competed inside of a Total Nonstop Action ring. Some of these wrestlers were the type youd like to forget ever worked there like the massive Cheex, Eric Bischoffs favorite son, Garett Bischoff or the currently employed Rob Terry. Others who have wrestled in TNA possessed incredible talent with plenty of memorable matches to their name like A.J. Styles, Samoa Joe and Christopher Daniels. And then, there were former and future stars that you just don't remember ever being there. Many of these wrestlers joined the company before their days on Spike TV, where they were only seen by a fraction of their current audience. TNA started as a $10 a week two hour pay-per-view (same price as an entire month of the WWE Network as Michael Cole would say), then moved to an online company for a few months before Spike TV picked them up. Now most fans seem to be familiar that Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair and Kevin Nash spent time in Dixieland, but plenty of other big names have been forgotten. Fear not, former legends and heroes of wrestling! Now is your time to shine as we look back at 10 wrestlers you didnt know were in TNA.
11. CM Punk
Just imagine if TNA had held onto CM Punk, how different the past few years in professional wrestling would have been. Instead of handing out big contracts to the likes of Booker T, Scott Hall, and Bobby Lashley, they could have given that money to Punk. Well, unfortunately they didn't and let him go. Luckily, they held onto Shocker! Punk could have been a true original of the company had he stayed on, as his first appearance was on their 12th weekly pay-per-view. He teamed up with Ace Steel to win a three way tag match. It wasn't anything fancy, but Punk was exposed to a national audience in September of 2002. Over the next year-and-a-half, Punk had a couple dozen matches with the company, often while teaming up with Julio Dinero. Punk was cast as a lackey of Raven's, along with Alexis Laree, the future Mickie James. So much talent! How could the company possibly screw it all up? It was ultimately a backstage fight that did CM Punk in. Teddy Hart and him started to brawl outside of The White Trash Cafe (yes, seriously) in Nashville. Sabu had to break them up (probably by using an Arabian Facebuster, at least in my imagination). After that, Punk was gone and Teddy Hart went away soon after. Punk is barely remembered for his time there, because he was basically a mid-carder and appeared before they ever landed on TV. Still, he remains one of the few big stars in all of wrestling to have appeared in TNA before WWE.
As Rust Cohle from True Detective said "Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you're good at."
Sadly, I can't solve a murder like Rust...or change a tire, or even tie a tie. But I do know all the lyrics to Hulk Hogan's "Real American" theme song and can easily name every Natural Born Thriller from the dying days of WCW. I was once ranked 21st in the United States in Tetris...on the Playstation 3 version...for about a week.
Follow along @AndrewSoucek and check out my podcast at wrestlingwithfriends.com
