Was TNA actually good or were we just starved for a WWE alternative? | Opinion
Let me preface this by saying that I was a big fan of TNA from around 2003-2009, or pretty much until the moment they took away the six-sided ring. After watching the first episode of the Dark Side of the Ring special on the company, I wanted to really think about my fandom from that time and actually assess whether it was a good product to actually watch, or whether the lack of major competition to WWE made me latch on to anything with half decent production.
Like many wrestling fans in the UK I had access to The Wrestling Channel on Sky (channel 427 between bouts of Extreme on 419, P-Rock and Kerrang) and the product I watched on there more than anything was Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. Up to that point, I had been a fan of WWF up to around the end of the Invasion angle, but I really lost touch with the product when the Channel 4 deal was up and the PPVs moved back to Sky Sports (which I did not have). TNA looked and felt at the time like a ‘proper’ wrestling show…do I wish I could go back and tell myself as a teenager to get over myself and watch more indies like ROH? Of course I do, but at that time I enjoyed seeing people I already knew like Rhyno, Raven, Jarrett and the newer crop of talent like AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels, Petey Williams et al presented in a format I was already used to.
Revisionism
There’s a lot of revisionist history now when it comes to TNA, same as there is for anything from the 2000s to mid-2015-ish, because there are a large group of wrestling fans that didn’t grow up with anything else and that is the product they were used to. Take for example CM Punk’s 2011 pipebomb that has been referenced to death in recent years…one of the reasons that was so different and fresh at the time was because the WWE product was mostly awful. Ask some fans now, and they will tell you they enjoyed WWE in the early 2010s, which is their prerogative, but it just wasn’t for me (apart from Punk, I watched his segments every week back then).
For me, TNA had a lot of issues in terms of the on-screen product that harkened back to WCW. Yes, I know TNA/WCW comparisons can feel lazy, but when you think of a great lower card (X Division/Cruiserweight Division, Knockouts and Tag teams) and a main event held together mostly by older performers (Jarrett, Nash, Steiner etc), the comparisons don’t feel completely off-base.
WWE-Lite?
I think it’s unfair to say that TNA was only watched because we had nothing else challenging the international grip of WWE, but I also think that there were a lot of mistakes made, as well as a lot of positives. The Unbreakable ’05 triple threat was my favourite match of that year, and if I really think about it, it might still be my favourite full stop.
Having now watched most of the products that I missed in that mid-2000s timeframe (like ROH), I do think that the ‘alternative’ to WWE of TNA didn’t go far enough to lean into that truly alternative angle. WWE-lite isn’t a phrase I like when it comes to the way TNA was presented, but there were a lot of attempts to recapture the feeling of the late 90s with Vince Russo at the helm. I don’t think Russo is a completely terrible writer, I think he had a formula that worked for a time and struggled to recreate that down the line. On top of that, there were a lot of people in the company that had been at WCW in the late stages and had worked for WWE/WWF, so it’s not that surprising that there were a lot of storytelling and production elements that felt close to the bigger and more established product.
But the thing is, the presentation with the decent production and names I knew were exactly what dragged me in originally, because I enjoyed seeing some performers I knew from the late 90s/early 2000s. It’s a contradiction for me to complain about the WWE-lite styling, when in essence, it WORKED on me as a viewer and I became a fan. Draw me in with Raven, keep me there for the X-Division.
Was TNA just good, or a good alternative?
I think, ultimately, that TNA wasn’t awful from the mid-2000s up to IMPACT branding change. But, I do think that there was a lot left on the table when it came to trying out new things, looking at ways to differentiate from the biggest company in the world and how they told stories on a weekly televised show. So in essence, I think TNA was very good in parts, the way they presented Knockouts helped to change the perception of female wrestling in the United States (even if there was still some weird spill-over from the late 90s at times), the X Division felt completely different and helped make AJ Styles and Samoa Joe plus and the Tag division had America’s Most Wanted, LAX, Triple X, MCMG, Beer Money and a litany of quality talent having matches that we just weren’t seeing on WWE programming at the time.
If I had to grade TNA as an alternative? I’d probably give it a C. But, would they have been as successful as they were and still be around now if they didn’t try to tap into an audience like me back then? I honestly don’t know. Would I have watched Ring of Honor with great production in 2004 or would I as a casual fan then have switched over? I can’t really answer that.
Jake is the Head of Audience at F4WOnline, having previously worked as a Combat Sports, Gaming and Pro Wrestling writer, successful Editor in Chief and Sports Coordinator for NationalWorld. He has more than ten years of experience covering mixed martial arts, pro wrestling, football and gaming across a number of publications, starting at SEScoops in 2012. His work has also been featured on Wrestling Headlines, Wrestlingnewsco, HotNewHipHop and The Hard Times.
Previously, he worked as the Editor in Chief of 24Wrestling, building the site profile with a view to selling the domain, which was accomplished in 2019. Jake was previously the Editor in Chief for FightFans, a combat sports and pro wrestling site that was launched in January 2021 and broke into millions of pageviews within the first two years. He previously worked for Snack Media and their GiveMeSport site, creating Evergreen and Trending content that would deliver pageviews via Google as the UFC and MMA SEO Lead. Jake managed to take an area of GiveMeSport that had zero traction on Organic and push it to audiences across the globe. Jake also has a record of long-term video and written interview content with the likes of the Professional Fighters League, ONE and Cage Warriors, working directly with the brands to promote bouts, fighters and special events.
He previously also worked for PROGRESS Wrestling, as PR Head and Head of Media across the social channels of the company.