1. Naming The Company TNA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asSFAi2HiwM Out of all of the letters that can be put together to form the acronym of a wrestling company, why did Jeff and Jerry Jarrett decide on TNA? Those three initials are the height of the company's sleaziness, and set the tone for the years to come. T & A, of course, refers to a couple of body parts on the female body (it was also a pretty forgettable tag team in WWE composed of Trish Stratus, Test and Albert). There was no word like "championship" or "federation" or even "wrestling" to give this upcoming group some credibility. Instead, it was a bad pun to try and get young male fans to tune in, by thinking they'll maybe see some naked wrestling on pay-per-view. Because of this name, we saw dancing cage girls during the first couple years, among other sexist garbage. It was a company that embraced titillation over athleticism. To this day, it's embarrassing telling a friend or a co-worker that you watch TNA wrestling. They'll probably think you're watching a porno. You can only guess how much it has hurt when they try to pick up sponsors and sign merchandising agreements. And lastly, what does TNA stand for? "Total Nonstop Action." In the good old days, someone could say "I'm the World Wrestling Federation" champion, or "I'm holding World Championship Wrestling gold." But saying "I'm the Total Nonstop Action champion!" sounds ridiculous. If the name went away forever, you can imagine that the company would only be much better off for it, in only a short amount of time.
Andrew Soucek
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
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