It was a sad day when ECW and then WCW closed their days in early 2001. Although both companies were long past their prime, they still provided an alternative for WWF fans. If WWF programming sucked or had gotten stale, fans could always check out what was happening in Philadelphia or Atlanta (before realising the WWF was great and switching back). With no competition, WWE didn't have to try as hard. They had the wrestling audience, even if that audience was diminishing. In 2002, NWA: TNA (and, to a lesser extent, Ring of Honor and Major League Wrestling) came along and offered an alternative, albeit a one that was on a smaller scale than ECW or WCW. Using a mix of former ECW/WCW/WWE stars and young up-and-comers, NWA: TNA carved out a niche for themselves and began staging weekly PPVs. Scrapping that model and switching to monthly PPVs in late 2004, the company started to gather a bit of momentum. In 2005, TNA was arguably the better wrestling promotion than TNA. It had great wrestlers like AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Rhino, Raven, Monty Brown, Jeff Hardy and others and was regularly putting on great events. It felt like a proper alternative to WWE. Nowadays, however, TNA (or Impact Wrestling) is a shadow of its former self. It has been losing money for year and, worse (for fans) is that, creatively, it has been seriously mismanaged. Things are a little bit better these days but many fans threw in the towel long ago. When TNA was hot in 2005, WWE probably felt that they had to try harder (why else would Batista try to downplay their talent in interviews?) just in case. That's not the story in 2015.
