10 Times Impact Wrestling Went Too Far
4. Dix Heads
Hulk Hogan’s tumultuous three-year stint in TNA offered little creative satisfaction for the viewers that gamely clung on to the product during his on and off-screen stewardship. Dixie Carter's physical representation of that ironically served as the moment most right-minded audience members simply let go.
There was perhaps no bigger dissonance between the company’s perception of his importance and actual fan interest in his continued presence than when the company boss literally begged on her knees for him to stay with the company in a segment knowingly designed as his sendoff.
Carter had turned heel weeks earlier in a scathing takedown of best-wrestler-in-the-company/world AJ Styles, reducing his value to pittance as part of an unsavoury public contract negotiation. It was a tired retread of the evil authority figure, and factoring Hogan into her plans was top of the agenda until the exact moment ‘The Hulkster’ himself decided otherwise.
Hogan just wasn't all that bothered anymore. Set to depart the company ahead of a vainglorious return to WWE in early 2014, his final segment couldn't have made the organisation, it's supporters and - tacitly - AJ Styles look any more pathetic. The message, intentional or otherwise, was abundantly clear - TNA needed the stars far far more than they needed TNA. Years later, it's a philosophy the group are still gamely trying to shift.