8 Times TNA Turned Trash Into Treasure
Those times they made magic from malarkey.
It's now known as Impact Wrestling, because TNA Wrestling is considered a toxic brand. Even in its heyday, TNA Wrestling was regarded as either a laughing stock or a missed opportunity, ripe for mockery.
Has-beens and never-weres ran amok and drew huge paychecks while talented and unappreciated should-be stars were pushed aside time and time again. Questionable booking echoed the waning days of WCW, or WWE at its hokiest, loaded with swerves for the sake of swerves and gimmick matches so incomprehensible that even the announcers couldn't keep up.
Mocking TNA's missteps and bad calls was shooting fish in a barrel with a grenade launcher.
Even the things TNA handled well for the most part - like the dynamic Knockouts division and the thrilling booking of the X-Division - got brushed off as flukes, rather than genuine steps in the right direction.
Even now, with TNA in the rearview mirror and Impact Wrestling stumbling along, it's rare for wrestling fans to admit that, sometimes, TNA managed to follow a major misstep with something brilliant. Cody Rhodes called this the ability to turn chickensh*t into chicken salad.
And, from time to time - 8 times, to be exact - TNA managed to do exactly that.
8. Shark Boy: From Punching Bag To Stone Cold
After a fairly underwhelming run in the X-Division, Shark Boy somehow found himself in a series of hardcore matches with the likes of Abyss, Black Reign (an overweight and bewigged Dustin Rhodes), and Rellik (which is "Killer" spelled backwards, which we knew not only because it was obvious, but because they told us EVERY TIME HE APPEARED).
Practically mummified in fake bandages, Shark Boy was later written off TV with a storyline coma. And that's where things turned around.
Waking up from his coma, Shark Boy, who to my knowledge never actually spoke on camera, was suddenly channeling Stone Cold Steve Austin.
Donning a black leather vest over his regular gear, Stone Cold Shark Boy smashed together and chugged bottles of clam juice, emulated Austin's moveset with stomps in the corner and Thesz presses, and closed matches with a stunner (known as "the chummer"). He went so far as to co-opt Austin's most famous line, declaring that, "And that's the fishing line, because Shark Boy said so!"
It was thoroughly entertaining, easily the high point of his TNA run, and he even garnered a few decent wins under his belt.
A winner all around.