10 Ways TNA Totally Screwed Themselves Over

TNA may finally be in the final stages of its existence. The company has been running on fumes for a long time, and while rumours of Impact Wrestling’s imminent demise have circulated for years, the walls are finally closing in.

The company owe an exorbitant amount of money to their debtors. The latest reports suggest that American Express are suing for $270,000 in unpaid travel expenses to compound TNA’s pre-existing $3.4 million lawsuit, and Dixie Carter’s personal debt to Billy Corgan. The Fight Network (who funded TNA’s latest tapings) have offered financial assistance, but it might be too little, too late for the Nashville-based promotion.

The company is hanging on for dear life, and after years of late paycheques and emergency funding, there’s little that can save them. Even if TNA do survive the next few months, very little will change without a complete management reshuffle, which seems impossible given Dixie Carter’s stubborn refusal to sell.

There are countless guilty parties in TNA’s demise, but their reasons for failure are almost all internal. When the company eventually go down the tubes, they’ll have nobody to blame but themselves, and their collapse will come as a result of TNA shooting themselves in the foot far too many times.

Here are 10 ways TNA totally screwed themselves over.

The events of Victory Road 2011’s main event lasted just a few minutes, but they remain one of the most catastrophically embarrassing disasters in wrestling history. TNA have often drawn unfavourable comparisons to latter day WCW, but this event outweighs almost any of that company’s PR disasters, and will forever live on in wrestling infamy.

In March 2011, Jeff Hardy was set to challenge Sting for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship, but something was wrong. It was immediately apparent that Jeff was intoxicated from the moment he shambled out from the backstage area, and TNA reacted in the worst possible way.

With glazed-over eyes and a dead-to-the-world facial expression, Jeff struggled down to the ring, then spent what felt like an ice age trying to remove his t-shirt and throw it to the crowd. He and Sting eventually had a “match,” but it lasted just 90 seconds, and as Sting walked to the back, he was as disgusted as everyone else.

It seems preposterous that TNA would allow a man to compete in such a stupor (especially considering Jeff allegedly had to be carried from his trailer to the gorilla position), but they did it. Instead of coming up with an alternative plan, TNA guillotined their own reputation.