Thoughts on the stupidity of TNA
A massive part of being a true New Yorker/New Jerseyan is living and dying with your favorite sports teams. I am a diehard fan of the New York Yankees, and I root for the Knicks and Giants (I don't have time for hockey). I've been fortunate enough to witness my teams win 5 World Series Champions and 2 Super Bowls (can the Knicks please win the NBA Finals already?); then again, I've seen a lot of heartbreak. The Yankees haven't won a World Series in 17 years, the Knicks are hot-and-cold with a dickhead owner, and the Giants are a dumpster fire with a co-owner named in the Epstein Files.
But I also tend to pay close attention to a couple of other New York-based teams: the Mets and the Jets.
It's almost impossible to not pay attention to those two organizations, because trouble follows them everywhere. It doesn't matter which billionaire owns them, nor the quality of talent on their roster. If something can go wrong, it will for the Mets and Jets. I liken their fanbases to an army of masochists, the type of people who give their hard-earned money to live their worst nightmares. Funnily enough, most Mets fans are Jets fans (and vice versa), so they can't even take refuge from the horrors their poor eyes have endured for decades.
Total Non-Stop Action wrestling is the Jets/Mets of the professional wrestling industry.
TNA has existed for 24 years. It has been owned and operated by a spectrum of entities, which have all failed in taking the promotion to the next level. They have regularly featured some of the best talent throughout their 2+ decades of existence, yet none of them have taken TNA to the promised land.
They are remarkably resilient. This is a company that should've been dead and buried on numerous occasions, with WWE picking at its bones, yet it's still somehow alive. They made the decision to "partner" with the biggest Sports Entertainment promotion on the planet, and landed an AMC TV deal that is producing consistent, if unremarkable, numbers. They have a dedicated, passionate fanbase who will always choose to look at the promotion through rose colored glasses. The perception of TNA should have changed from being the punchline of jokes to being a legitimate third national promotion.
Except it's TNA.
Their new TV deal evidently does not pay well, as a number of their talent have jumped to AEW or WWE (and their debut episode on AMC was embarrassingly bad and bush league). They have decided to partner with a company being sued for a multitude of sex crimes against women and children, in hopes of benefiting from their fading success.
And they keep shooting themselves in the foot.
The big story of the week: TNA has pulled Leon Slater, Moose, and Nick Nemeth from competing in the annual Mark Hitchcock Memorial, citing a new policy that prevents their talent from sharing a ring with talent from AEW.
There's quite a bit to unpack, but here's the short of it:
1) TNA is finished if this particular call came from WWE. I've always been skeptical of their "partnership," because WWE does not care one iota if TNA thrives. From my point of view, TNA is a convenient tool for WWE to wield in their ongoing efforts to suppress talent wages and mess with AEW. Hell, TNA is more associated with WWE's developmental brand NXT (which has apparently been dog shit for months) rather than the RAW or Smackdown brands.
2) If this is a call solely from TNA, then it's the wrong one to make. You come across petty, and you have now allowed Tony Khan to demonstrate even more goodwill by offering AEW talent as replacements for the ones pulled by TNA (please do this, Tony!)
Either way, it's another moment in lolTNA lore.
Like the Jets and the Mets, there simply isn't anything TNA can do but dust itself off and try to fight a hopeless battle. They are beyond cursed. They are stupid. They have created a Culture of Stupidity that they will never shake. The lolTNA moments will continue to grow until the company is finally and mercifully put down by their grand old partner. It will never change. TNA gets on a hot streak, at least hot enough to offer a glimmer of hope that change is actually happening, and then POW POW! Self-inflicted shot to the foot. The cycle never ends.
There is undoubtedly heat between AEW and TNA; in fact, I was told a few months back that Tony Khan enjoyed signing away talent from TNA. There are other aspects at play, too, but that's a story for another time.
A new story will eventually break, and life will move on. AEW will continue to exist, if not thrive, and WWE is still comfortably ahead of the pack.
TNA will be lolTNA.
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