10 Dumbest Decisions In Wrestling History
4. The New Monday Night War
It's probably for the best that, thus far, Eric Bischoff appears to have done nothing since being hired as an 'Executive Director' in WWE.
His vision for TNA was beyond putrid.
Defined by lazy hubris, Bischoff, in league with Hulk Hogan, performed nothing in the way of creative due diligence. They didn't make an effort to understand what worked for the existing fanbase, and instead imposed an ancient-feeling product on them to disastrous effect. It was an exercise in total nonstop nepotism, one that exposed Bischoff's apathy towards modern wrestling. The man who made it big by expertly plagiarising the cult reaches of the industry arrogantly deemed that he himself was the best mind to plagiarise. TNA became WWE-lite in the process, or more accurately, WWF-lite.
The Nasty Boys stunk up pay-per-view as if it were an airport, and not a platform on which to draw money from a current fanbase. Attempts were made to get 'The Band' back together. AJ Styles wasn't enough of a star, and so was dressed up as Ric Flair, as if his robe possessed magical powers.
Astonishingly, Hogan's WWE Hall Of Fame ring actually did possess magical powers; Abyss became a better wrestler by wearing an achievement in earnest awarded by the competition. This was apparently the opposite of a tribute show. It was with this outrageously sh*tty product, pathetically indebted to the God-like competition, that TNA launched a war against them on Monday nights. It did not work.
It stigmatised TNA as a joke, only it wasn't even perversely funny anymore.