10 Times TNA Went Way Too Far

1. James Storm €˜Kills€™ Mickie James

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r8fKdwyuKA Earlier this year on TNA€™s Impact Wrestling, James Storm €“ who€™d been working under a sinister cult leader gimmick €“ attempted to co-opt TNA veteran Mickie James into his weird-ass faction The Revolution. He€™d already brainwashed Sanada and Manik, and Abyss and others would follow: luring James to Nashville under false pretences, he tried and failed to talk her around. Following this, he took her to the train station for her journey home, and after distracting her, shoved her onto the tracks, crouching down to gloat about how far down it was. The implication was that he€™d attempted to murder her€ the scene was a clear pull from an almost identical moment in the premiere episode of season two of the acclaimed House Of Cards TV series, shown on Netflix the previous year. As you can see from the clip above, video of the incident shown on television was later posted to YouTube, under a wryly mocking title, with nothing to clarify matters in the video€™s description. Part of the problem was that the scene didn't play out backstage or in the ring, but in public on supposedly CCTV footage. The uproar was so huge that police actually visited Storm's home to query what had actually occurred. You just don't show a guy throwing a female friend in front of a train and pretend that it's a real life event. To give you a little context, the same incident occurred a few days earlier in New York, but for real. This news report was posted to YouTube the same day as TNA's own clip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKjmzxxODdE A day, and some significant social media hoohaa later, TNA finally clarified that James wasn€™t actually supposed to be dead in the storyline... she€™d just hit her head, been tested for a concussion and found to be healthy but €˜emotionally disturbed€™. She€™d return to TNA a few weeks later, confront Storm on TV and€ challenge him to an intergender tag match with Storm and Revolution cohort Serena: because attempted murder is best answered by pinning the responsible party€™s friend. Of course, the idea originally had been that the incident would write Mickie James off TNA programming €“ she€™d finished out her dates with the promotion. TNA had no intention of having Storm have his comeuppance or of backtracking until the entire internet collectively gave them a slapping over trivialising violence to women. What€™s the moment in TNA that you think was taking things just too far? There are plenty to choose from €“ let us know in the comments€

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Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.