Ranking Every TNA Era From Worst To Best
8. The Destination America Era
After getting booted from Spike TV, TNA landed on Destination America. Despite the channel being available in roughly half the homes that Spike had, Dixie Carter touted this as a BIG DEAL.
Destination America was a new network of the successful Discovery brand, and her hope was that TNA would become its flagship show, and would be heavily promoted on other Discovery networks. It didn’t happen.
Beyond the struggling ratings, what we got was a painfully bland product. It was the perfect time to make big changes, but it felt like a continuation of the end of their run on Spike. Yes, Mike Tenay was out, and Josh Matthews was in, and The Pope replaced Tazz. But those minor cosmetic changes were at best a lateral move, and may have actually been a downgrade.
During TNA's year on Destination America, The Beat Down Clan was a featured act, Bobby Lashley became champion, Dixie Carter was an amazingly terrible heel, Samoa Joe was a virtual non-factor and we got a ridiculous Global Force Wrestling invasion angle that flopped.
Only nine months into the run at their new home, TNA found out they wouldn’t be renewed (though they vehemently denied it at the time).
The last couple months of television featured matches that had been taped many weeks prior without any storyline support. It was all for a gigantic, insanely long and complex tournament to become Heavyweight Champion at Bound for Glory. Nobody cared by the end of it.
The Destination America run was just awful all round, and was often sadder to watch than WCW in its final year.