10 Fatal Mistakes That Destroyed The TNA Brand

TNA is dead.

It is a phrase many had expected to hear for years, and a reality the company's remaining fans had long learned to accept. When parent company Anthem Sports & Entertainment confirmed they were to rebrand the company under the recently purchased Global Force Wrestling banner, it brought to an end 15 years that came to symbolise the good, bad and ugly of professional wrestling.

There were times, brief and distant at they may now seem, when Total Nonstop Action was the most entertaining wrestling product in the word. However, these flashes of inspiration and moments of glory were inevitably undone in record time, such was the cataclysmic failure of the company to sustain any upward momentum.

Unfortunately, despite glimpses of greatness, TNA became a brand defined more by disaster than triumph. Even during the organisation's embryonic days when the business at large desperately required competition for a freewheeling WWE, the Orlando outfit had a habit not just of dropping the ball, but tripping over it as it tumbled along the floor.

It was perhaps destined for toxicity. Named solely as a not-that-sly reference to the Attitude Era's propensity for scantily clad women, it handcuffed itself from the very beginning, and never truly burst free from the self-imposed shackles as wrestling's easy punchline. And it'll require a 'force' even greater than Jeff Jarrett's latest promotion to wash away the stains left behind.

Back in the dim and distant past, TNA had a creditable habit of subverting traditional wrestling tropes in an effort to differentiate themselves from WWE to casual fans that may stumble across their product.

That resulted in a host of brand new philosophies, divisions, titles and matches, will all had the potential to fall flat despite noble intentions. Such was the case with the utterly horrendous 'Fight For The Right' tournament.

Though nobody formally ever took credit for it, the idea smacked of Vince Russo's WCW booking policy of changing things just for the sake of it, especially if it meant violating the suspension of disbelief required for watching wrestling full stop.

The format was TNA at its convoluted worst. A group of wrestlers (usually 16 or 18) would start on the outside of the ring, and fight to get in. That was it. The problem, had it not been blindingly obvious, was how painfully easy that task was.

The resultant mess saw wrestlers punching, and kicking, and punching and kicking, and punching and kicking, trying to make stepping between the ropes look an arduous endeavour. The first half that got in, had another battle royal fought under traditional rules, until there were two left to compete in a regular one fall singles match.

Astonishingly, the Battle Royal only formed part of a bigger tournament, which made the result of this complete shambles largely redundant.