6. Their WrestleMania Has Become A Joke
Of course, the most well known wrestling pay-per-view event is WrestleMania. Nothing else in the WWE even comes close. But for a few years, NWA and WCW's Starrcade was also a big draw. The first Starrcade was available via closed-circuit television, and it actually predates WrestleMania by two years. The main event saw Ric Flair battle Harley Race in front of a hot crowd. Further Starrcades saw WCW's most successful pay-per-view in all time with Sting vs. Hulk Hogan at the 97 event, and they had another big show the following year with Kevin Nash vs. Goldberg. However, the final Starrcade saw Scott Steiner take on a well past his prime Sid Vicious in match that was definitely not the biggest one of the year. The 1999 main event saw Bret Hart battle Goldberg (in what would be the match that led to Hart's retirement due to a careless kick to the head from his opponent) with an ending that had Vince Russo recreate the Montreal Screwjob with Roddy Piper ending the match without Goldberg giving up. Imagine WrestleMania XXX ending that way. Fans would be pissed off. To put things in perspective, Starrcade 1997 drew a 1.9 buyrate (about 700,000 pay-per-view buys). Starrcade 2000 drew a .11 (about 50,000 buys). Of course, TNA has never drawn anywhere near WWE or even WCW numbers during its existence. Part of that reason is due to the pay-per-view industry declining over the past few years. But most of the blame is just due to bad booking on TNA's behalf. Bound for Glory is considered the company's biggest show of the year. It's what they build towards throughout the summer. Most years, they try to put on the biggest main event they can. Kurt Angle vs. Sting headlined in 2007, followed by Samoa Joe vs. Sting the following year. Things only got worse, as Bound for Glory 2013 had Bully Ray battle A.J. Styles in a match that was poorly built. Bully had been feuding with Hulk Hogan throughout the year, and Styles had been battling depression. The two had no beef with each other, and it felt more like a mid-card match than the headliner on the company's WrestleMania. It was even a step down from the year before that saw Austin Aries battle Jeff Hardy. That match actually saw Hardy, who was supposed to be the company's biggest babyface, getting booed by a majority of the crowd. Most years, WWE plans out the biggest Mania matches a few months ahead of time. It feels like TNA plans out Bound for Glory about a week ahead of time the past couple years, which is also part of the laziness that helped ultimately undo WCW.