10 Times TNA Went Further Than The WWE Attitude Era
2. An Even Worse Cage Match Than The Worst Cage Match Ever
In WWE, the worst impulses of Vince Russo were filtered by Vince McMahon.
In WCW, Russo was allowed free, horrifying reign, but was tempered by the Warner conglomerate standards and practises department.
In TNA, Russo did whatever the f*ck he wanted, and what he wanted to do was create the worst f*cking gimmick matches of all time.
Vince Russo perfected "Sounds cooler in a 15 year-old's head" booking.
"Bro. Bro. What if there were two freakin' cages instead of one? That's literally twice as good, bro!"
Except the Kennel From Hell at Unforgiven 1999 was twice as sh*te as the usual WWE cage match because it necessitated double the amount of climbing, with which Russo was utterly obsessed. The spate of Pole matches in WCW support this. If he loved climbing so much, couldn't he have found a nice rock and spared us?
He actually tried to do that once, but his answer to Dwayne Johnson was Buff Bagwell, who he told Dave Meltzer was actually more charismatic.
Russo went even further in his idiocy by presenting an Electrified Cage match between Team 3D and LAX, which was just as tedious as the Kennel From Hell but even more disastrous than it being quite literally sh*t on; the "electricity" was akin to asking the audience to turn around when performing a magic trick; frazzlesounds.wav played over the speakers as the lights turned on and off.
Mainstream North American wrestling spent so long telling you that you're stupid that it's a wonder it exists in such good health in 2022.