8 Great Ideas TNA Gave Up On

8. The Paparazzi Championship Series

Goofiness is king in wrestling right now. Just look at the popularity of Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho acting like children, the surprise success of James Ellsworth and basically everything Matt and Jeff Hardy are doing.

In late 2006, TNA began the Paparazzi Championship Series, which was a ridiculous tournament highlighted by a series of hilarious skits. They should have made it a yearly deal.

One of the most common complaints launched at the Cruiserweight/X Division wrestlers is that they don’t have much of a personality. But personality and charisma have no correlation to size, just look at Conor McGregor, he’s the most entertaining act in UFC and he’s half the size of their heavyweights. But he also makes the most money.

It was Kevin Nash, of all people, who interjected himself into the X Division to try and help bring out those personalities. When he came to TNA, they originally pushed him as a top guy, but when that ran its course he formed an alliance with Alex Shelley in Paparazzi Productions. The two were a blast together, and soon the rest of the X Division cast got involved in their antics.

Not all of it was great, but the idea of just giving these guys some time every week to do some comedy, and experiment with their characters was exactly what was needed. Every year they should have let either Shelley or Nash bust the tournament out again, and just allow it to be its own thing.

Instead, Nash was split up from Shelley. A fantastic pairing gone way too soon, and along with their break-up went any future tournaments.