Since the promotion’s inception two-and-a-half years ago, the Total Nonstop Action promotion has faced a number of problems, among them the reluctance of the market to professional wrestling, challenges in creating a fan base that is willing to buy the product, internal turmoil that has affected the company’s creative end, and perhaps most significantly, the ultimate struggle to make money. But as 2004 comes to a close, the struggles that face TNA, even the very identity of the company, is vastly different from a year ago.
From the beginning of the year, the company focused itself on reforming business. It had been clear for months that the company was losing money far too quickly with no method of bringing that money back. In general, the number of people who pay money to see pro wrestling is decreasing, so in order to make money, a promotion has to be established enough to have some source of revenue that will continue to fuel the company’s success. WWE, for example, has set up an effective mechanism for, at least in the short term, making significant amounts of money even as interest in the product decreases. TNA’s solution was to start running Sunday PPVs, and tentatively scheduled the first for April in Fort Campbell, KY. In what is usually a reflection of the finality of a decision made by the company, Jeff Jarrett announced the PPV to wrestlers in late January, along with the announcement that TNA would only be running three live shows in Nashville per month, doing extra segments at each show to make a themed fourth show of the month, in order to save money.
But as the dichotomy has always been with the company’s business decisions, their cutbacks were coupled with negotiations with talent such as Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, who were asking for upwards of $7,000 per appearance, and Randy Savage, in addition to the signing to a one year contract of Jon Dalton, of “Survivor” fame, as the character Johnny Fairplay in order to create interest, which failed miserably, and Dalton turned out to be a disciplinary problem, but was heavily favored by TNA President Dixie Carter. In another attempted publicity stunt, the company convinced Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher, who is friends with Eric Watts, to participate in a physical angle on the 1/28 TNA PPV. The angle, which involved Urlacher getting beat on and retaliate with a double clothesline and then a press on Johnny Fairplay, was negatively reacted to in the sports community and made several newscasts, but did very little in terms of publicizing the company as anything worth buying.
The company’s first themed taped show since the success of the Super-X Tournament last September, which was among the better PPVs of the last decade, took place on February 11. The theme was a tournament for America’s X Cup, pitting Team AAA (Juventud Guerrera, Abismo Negro, Mr. Aguila, and Hector Garza) against Team TNA (Jerry Lynn, Sonjay Dutt, Chris Sabin, and Elix Skipper), in which Team AAA won. The PPV was of good quality and well received, but a dwindling fan base meant that for the taped show, there were few buys, and PPV quality in general was low. Future shows, TNA planned, would be based on the same theme, featuring Teams AAA (Mexico), TNA, and Canada (led by agent Scott D’Amore: Teddy Hart, Petey Williams, Johnny Devine, and Jack Evans). Live numbers in Nashville were the highest they would be this year, partly because of the use of the Insane Clown Posse and papering. Don Callis, who left the company to pursue a job opportunity, was replaced as TNA Director of Authority by a babyface Vince Russo, who would play a diminishing role in the company during the year, but for the much of the year, would be one of the main characters on the TV show as the babyface authority figure that fights with Jarrett, the heel champion.
The only big plan that the company had for the New Year, the planned 4/4 “Bound for Glory” PPV fell through, when the company didn’t adequately plan for problems that would come up in setting the show up. The cancellation was the third proposed date to iNDemand that the company failed to come through on. Their venue, a Ft. Campbell, KY airplane hangar, was out when the company was told it couldn’t be accommodated. The company couldn’t reach a deal with Randy Savage, who was their main hope for a main event on the show. Joanie Laurer, who was close to being brought in, was pulled after she asked for two first class tickets to Nashville and TNA didn’t feel they could trust Laurer for the length of any sort of program she could be put into (she didn’t want to work with Trinity or do anything physical). On the promotional material the company sent iNDemand, Laurer and Savage were the main advertised participants in the PPV. Nash, who they were also negotiating with, watched the product and felt that, with the exception of Mike Tenay, it was minor league.
Teddy Hart, who always attracts controversy, was brought into the company on February 25, with immediate incident. CM Punk, who had been involved in an internet feud with Hart since his stunt at a 2003 ROH show, was eating lunch at a café near the Fairgrounds that allows wrestlers to eat for free when Hart walked in and asked Punk what his problem was. The situation quickly became a brawl. February 25 was the last night Punk was used. Despite a more than solid performance, after the conclusion of the taping for the X Cup tournament set to air on March 10, Hart was not booked by the company anymore. Hart claimed a knee injury after the match, a dubious proclamation based on his track record. Team Canada would now be comprised of Williams, Devine, Eric Young, and Bobby Rude. The company brought in James Mason, Robbie Dynamite, Frankie Sloan, and Extreme Dean as Team UK in April. The company also grouped Nosawa, Ryuji Hijikata, Taichi Ishikara, and Mitsu Hirai Jr. as Team All Japan in May. Both times, results as far as workrate were varied, and styles clashed. The problems with Mexico would be the relationship with the AAA promotion, and dealing with individual talent such as Juventud Guerrera. The only team that was successful through the year was Team Canada after the initial replacements of Evans (and Hart. Not all members of the team were great, but when the company had little else to rely on for a consistent, good match on PPV, use of Team Canada was successful through summer and the final weekly PPVs, as well as on the eventual TV show. TNA produced a strong candidate for rookie of the year in Team Canada’s Petey Williams (trained by D’Amore), who has been X-Division champion since August, and is an impressive worker. The taped shows were phased out after the May edition.
In what would become the largest story of the year for the company, TNA began negotiations with Fox Sports Network in March for a TV show. The company, as a result of being evaluated by FSN and being serious about the negotiations, moved to change the identity of the product again, announcing “Wrestling Reinvented,” arguing that content had gotten out of hand. At about this time, whether or not this was due to the scandal that rocked Ring of Honor months earlier which involved Rob Feinstein allegedly knowingly engaging in a relationship with a male youth in a TV sweeps sting, TNA classified ROH as competition and pulled their talent from the company’s shows. When AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels, and CM Punk (under contract but no longer being used) came out in support of the promotion, it angered Jeff Jarrett. The move to not allow TNA talent to appear on ROH shows was widely criticized but TNA was in the position of power as it had contracted talent and guaranteed dates, while ROH shows are generally praised by the internet community. TNA has yet to change their policy to ROH, banning AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels for appearing on shows. TNA stopped using Evans because he works for ROH and Hart didn’t want to come without Evans.
The company flew ROH booker and promoter Gabe Sapolsky in to resolve the issues between the two companies. He was asked to sign an agreement certifying that Rob Feinstein was not a part of Ring of Honor Wrestling or RF Video and claiming personal liability for any issues that arose due to Feinstein’s involvement in the company and any damages that may have for the relationship with TNA. Sapolsky told the company that he didn’t run the company or own it. Eventually, Sapolsky, who was at the time hiding the fact that Feinstein was still running the company so that he could organize for a separation, signed the document. TNA asked that Doug Gentry and silent parter Cary Silken, who bankrolled ROH, also sign the documents. Gentry did but Silken, upon review of the documents with legal counsel, decided not to sign the document, and TNA stopped talking to ROH.
The company also instituted a system of how their contracted wrestlers would accept bookings, charging a 15% fee and demanding half of their payoff in advance of the event. According to the Pro Wrestling Torch, many wrestlers have avoided the system by going around TNA and secretly booking their own indy arrangements.
TNA Impact debuted on Fox Sports Network on Friday, June 4, 2004 at 3:00 PM on most FSN affiliates. The one hour show, taped at Universal Studios in Orlando, debuted with four matches, largely showcasing the X Division (there were also Abyss/Shark Boy and Kash-Dallas/AMW matches). The highlights of the show were the main event win of AJ Styles, and the debut of a six-sided ring. The show was an unmitigated success. But the financial realities still existed, the company was paying an unnamed price per week to air on FSN, unsuccessful at selling a large amount of ad space, and between weekly PPVs and TV tapings losing an unnecessary amount of money.
Even though most people felt it would be best for the company to run PPVs periodically and book Impact like WWE does RAW to build up to monthly PPVs, TNA felt different and for the next months made Impact a show with no competitive matches like Velocity. Eventually, the company made the decision to cut the Wednesday PPVs and debuted with Victory Road on 11/7, an underwhelming card that featured Jeff Jarrett and Jeff Hardy in a main event ladder match.
Following the PPV, the biggest news story was the last big creative shakeup of the year. Vince Russo was edged out, months ago, of any position of notability in TNA Creative, but the bigger story of the year would be the rift between Dixie Carter and Jeff Jarrett that would end with him losing his spot as the head of creative (more on that in the Sept. 28 edition of H&S). For reasons that are still not clearly understood today, Jerry Jarrett muscled Jeff Jarrett out of the position as head writer, and encouraged Dixie Carter to replace him with Dusty Rhodes, who is currently the head booker of the product.
TNA’s second PPV was Turning Point on December 5, with the main feuds Diamond Dallas Page/Raven, Williams/Sabin for the X Title, America’s Most Wanted/xXx for the tag team titles in a cage match with the stipulation that the losing team must split up, and a guaranteed loser The Kings of Wrestling (Jarrett-Hall-Nash)/Styles, Hardy, and Randy Savage. After an underwhelming debut the month prior, the feuds gave fans no strong reason to buy the PPV, but no strong reason not to buy it. The promoted main event was hardly strong enough to carry the show in terms of workrate, so instead of putting it on last, the company put it next-to-last, giving the main spot to America’s Most Wanted and Triple X, who had one of TNA’s best matches ever in June of last year in a cage match. Up until those two final matches, the show was a disappointment. The matches, which included a below average thumbtack match between Monty Brown and Abyss, were on par with the quality of matches one would expect on TV, but not in the PPV environment of 2004. The KOW/Styles, Hardy, Savage match was entirely disastrous, as expected, because many of the involved wrestlers (Hall, Nash, especially Savage, and even Hardy) can do so little physically. Three weeks earlier, WWE had tried the same experiment, a mesmerizing cluster where Eddie Guerrero tried to save a match against a rehabbing Kurt Angle, and two limited workers in Luther Reigns and Mark Jindrak. Luckily for TNA, the show was more than saved by a tremendous main event, the best in the history of the promotion, making for one of the strongest PPVs in years. For fans that have largely given up on the company, it can be considered another opportunity to regain the fan’s trust—but trust will take time and consistent quality, which TNA has been reluctant to provide.
Turning Point is the appropriate place to stop for now, I think, and look to 2005 for TNA. The challenges are apparent, and so is the hope. TNA’s next PPV is Final Resolution on 1/16 with Jeff Jarrett facing the winner of a match between Kevin Nash, Diamond Dallas Page, and Monty Brown for the title as well as Ultimate X and Team Canada vs. America’s Most Wanted for the tag titles.
