History Horrible / TNA

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->''"As an omen of things to come, TNA used the first segment on its first ever PPV broadcast to show a group of older wrestlers talking."''
-->-- '''''[[ImageBoards Taimapedia]]''''', "LOLTNA History"

Total Nonstop Action (Wrestling/{{TNA}}) may be somewhat more hardcore than Wrestling/{{WWE}}, but it certainly shares its propensity for idiotic ideas. Of course, having your show staffed top-to-bottom with Wrestling/{{WCW}} alumni isn't a recipe for success.

'''''Important Notes''''':

# If something bad was an isolated incident or simply stupid, it does not make the whole thing Horrible. Merely being offensive in its subject matter is not enough to justify a work as So Bad It's Horrible. Hard as it is to imagine at times, there's a market for all types of deviancy (no matter how small a niche it is). It has to ''fail to appeal even to that niche'' to qualify as this.

# If you're here to mention the fact that TNA isn't hardcore all the time and proceed to say that's not how Wrestling/{{ECW}} played (as TNA had most of the same wrestlers), please don't--despite its name, ECW wasn't always all hardcore all the time, as evidenced by the Malenko/Guerrero matches. It's pointless to even talk about TNA vs. ECW since it was always a ReplacementScrappy for WCW.

----
!!Examples:
[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Pay-Per-Views]]
* The ''Lockdown'' 2005 PPV. The idea originally came as a joke during a booking session in which Wrestling/DustyRhodes suggested that every match on the card be contested inside a cage. Dixie, unaware he was joking, jumped at the idea. ''Lockdown'' became a staple of the TNA PPV as a result.[[note]]Though the company did the smart thing in 2013 by abandoning the "all matches in a cage" format and limiting the gimmick to specific matches.[[/note]]
** The very first ''Lockdown'' is remembered for playing host to Wrestling/ChrisCandido's last match. In the opening match of the show, Candido landed wrong after taking a dropkick from Sonny Siaki and fractured several bones in his leg. He died days later of a blood clot stemming from surgery on his leg. TNA refused to pay the money it owed Candido to his then-girlfriend/common law wife Wrestling/TammyLynnSytch (which was technically legal, since they were not officially married), paying his parents instead. Terry Taylor eventually sent her a ham dinner as a condolence gift.
** To further exploit Candido's death for fun and profit (especially profit), TNA held a tournament for the "Candido Cup". [[Wrestling/XPac Sean Waltman]] and Alex Shelley won the tourney, but Waltman no-showed the PPV (and disappeared for an entire week) where he and Shelley were entered into a four-way for the tag titles. Candido's brother Johnny was subbed in midway through the match as Shelley's partner. (They didn't win.)
* TNA brought in Jenna Morasca, a reality show contestant who'd won ''{{Series/Survivor}}'' six years earlier, for a couple of months. She stuck around the Main Event Mafia and did absolutely nothing, then antagonized the hell out of Sharmell and ended up booked [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4MceD3fHHU against her]] at ''Victory Road 2009.'' After eight agonizing minutes of two non-wrestlers delivering one of the worst in-ring performances in women's wrestling history (or wrestling history, period), ''[[Wrestling/TheWrestlingObserverNewsletter The Wrestling Observer]]'' gave it a "'''MINUS! FIVE!! STARS!!!'''" rating, and the match soon found its way into ''Website/{{Botchamania}}'' (which later included a clip of this match in their intro) and [=420chan's=] ''Disasterpiece Theatre''. TNA reportedly paid Morasca half a million dollars for her TNA appearances. Soon after, TNA reportedly rejected a small pay raise for Wrestling/GailKim, which led her to leave for WWE.
** While some claim Dixie Carter's unhealthy obsession with reality shows led to Morasca's signing, Wrestling/KurtAngle had also starred with her in the horrible direct to-DVD movie ''End Game.''
* Wrestling/SeanWaltman no-showed ''Lockdown'' 2010. This made PPV #3 that Waltman no-showed. However, management knew weeks in advance that he would not be able to participate: Waltman had tested positive for Hepatitis C, and Missouri wouldn't give Waltman a license to wrestle as a result. Rather than remove Waltman from the card and pull him from all advertisements, they waited until the PPV went on the air to announce Waltman's no-show, and [[{{Wrestling/Tazz}} Taz]] was told to say (against his will) that it was "just X-Pac being X-Pac". Waltman later said he had been clean for many years, yet he didn't hold a grudge against Taz, because he was aware of the way TNA buries people.
** The policy of giving ex-WWE wrestlers a push while taking potshots at them is also stupid, even if they deserve it sometimes. That's rich considering these wrestlers are playing more or less the same character from WWE, tweaked to avoid legal problems.
* Wrestling/PaulHeyman was in talks to join the company. He reportedly wanted both a) full creative control and b) the immediate firing of all but one of the former WWE talent so he could build a younger roster to carry the company forward. Both Spike TV and TNA management reportedly had no issues with the deal, but Dixie Carter refused out of loyalty to these veterans as well as other people Heyman would likely fire (e.g. Wrestling/VinceRusso). The failed Heyman deal may have helped Dixie come up with a unique idea, though. She decided to put together an ECW "reunion" of her own. Weeks later, Wrestling/TommyDreamer announced that the stable of ECW originals would be called [=EV2.0=]. Because the word "dub" is slang for two, people were supposed to chant "E-V-Dub!" so it sounded like fans were chanting "E-C-W" or "E-C-dub" without getting TNA into legal trouble. Few fans caught onto the joke.
** Despite being an ECW throwback, it was held at TNA's standard venue, with weird blue lighting (they couldn't find a blue ringmat?) and only Taz on commentary. Many of the old ECW stars had to change their names in order to avoid trademark infringement; even then, Mike Tenay and Taz regularly slipped up and said the wrong names. And since WWE owns ECW lock stock and barrel, no footage of them could be shown, no entrance music could be played. Tommy didn't book any of the great cruiserweights and, due to various contractual obligations, could not book many of the best ECW alumni, leaving the PPV card full of past-their-prime brawlers. Only two matches were announced prior to the PPV, and one was changed when one of the wrestlers hurt himself while training. Tommy bladed for his match with {{Wrestling/Raven}}, a match whose premise was built on contrivances and retcons. (Tommy's children were also in the front row, and they had to be escorted out.)
** In 2010, for the second year in a row, TNA held the title of "Worst PPV of the Year": Wrestling/BallsMahoney (wrestling under the name "Kahoney") and [[Wrestling/TheDudleyBoys Team 3D]] had a toy lightsaber duel in the middle of their match. This was simultaneously the most entertaining and the most embarrassing spot of the whole show.
** Some of the ECW Originals were reportedly paid around $250 for their appearance. Many in the industry were critical of Dixie Carter because this PPV was estimated to have sold at least three to four times better than the average TNA PPV.
* ''Victory Road 2011'': For the third year in a row, TNA captured the title of worst PPV of the year. A World Title match lasting only 90 seconds, as one of the contenders was strung out to the point of immobility (see "Matt Hardy" below). RVD faced off with [[Wrestling/KenAnderson Mr. Anderson]] for a World Title spot at the next PPV. The match ended in a double countout and left no clear contender. Half the audience chanted "RESTART THE MATCH" in disgust, while the other half chanted "NO" for fear of having to watch these two wrestle again. Also included were: Wrestling/AJStyles demoted to bumping and selling because an out-of-shape Wrestling/MattHardy dictated the pace; an opener between two aging wrestlers that, at one point, saw the two attacking each other with blow-up dolls and plush toys; wrestlers obviously blading and covered in dye; multiple screwjob finishes (including a double count-out); and a Women's Wrestling match below the standards of even the WWE Divas.
** TNA placed Kurt Angle on the PPV poster by himself. Kurt didn't even appear at the event.
* ''No Surrender'' 2011 featured '''FIVE''' blinding spots in the course of three hours. Three matches ended with a blinding spot, including the main event: Wrestling/JamesStorm lost to Bully Ray via DQ when he accidentally spat beer in the referee's face, Wrestling/MickieJames lost her match with Winter by getting blood sprayed in her face, and Sting lost his title match after getting blinded by Wrestling/HulkHogan.
** TNA held this PPV on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Rosita appeared on the show as part of the racist anti-American stable Mexican America; later in the show, she gave a sincere and emotional interview where she revealed that her father died during the tragedy and how she used his passing as inspiration. Rosita continued to appear as part of Mexican America after this show.
* ''Lockdown 2011'' managed to top Victory Road's record for having the shortest championship match by having one (with two in-ring promos that outpaced it) that lasted only ''40 seconds''. Thankfully it was for the Knockouts title instead of the World Heavyweight title this time, but it gets worse considering the champ lost to Mickie James ''with a broken arm.''
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Gimmick matches]]
TNA is known for its gimmick matches, which tended to favor uniqueness over logic.\\\

* TNA held a "Reverse Battle Royal" in which half the roster fought ''outside'' of the ring in order to get ''into'' the ring. Once the set number of people had entered, they competed in an actual battle royal until two people remained (at which point the battle royal turned into a one-on-one match). Despite being widely lauded as one of the worst matches of that (or any) year, TNA held another one some time later.
* That same year, TNA debuted the Elevation-X Match, essentially a scaffold match with two scaffolds forming an "X". The match featured very little action and plenty of reaction shots of people in the Impact Zone covering their mouths in horror. Like the Reverse Battle Royal, this stupid concept match happened twice.
* The King Of The Mountain match which, as ''Website/WrestleCrap'' explains, went like this:
-->"The match begins with five men, all of whom are 'ineligible.' For what, we will explain later. Anyway, to earn eligibility, a competitor must score a pinfall or submission. Now, if you get pinned or submit, you must go into a 'penalty box,' like in hockey. You will stay in there for two minutes, at which point you can come back out and attempt to become eligible. Oh yeah, eligibility...we should probably talk about that. See, you become eligible to take a title belt, which you must retrieve from a TNA official. Whoever is eligible can take the belt. Oh yeah, and find a ladder. And then climb the ladder and hang it above the ring. Oh, and if the belt is dropped, then the official gets it back."
* Former tag partners Chris Harris and James Storm faced off in a blindfold cage match. Blindfold matches are pretty much doomed by default, but the 2007 Six Sides of Steel blindfold match at ''TNA Lockdown'' failed even on its own rules. Instead of actual blindfolds, they wrestled with cloth sacks on their heads, and the referee spent most of the match trying to put the bags back on. Critics called this the worst match in TNA (and wrestling overall) in 2007; Dixie Carter had the balls to call them idiots for their disapproval.
* Team 3D fought LAX in an Electrified Six Sides of Steel Match. Because the cage wasn't actually electrified, TNA simply turned off the house lights and lit the ring with a light bluish glow. Whenever someone touched the cage, the light flickered and the wrestlers seized up as though they'd been tazed. None of this stopped TNA from showing close-ups of the wrestlers touching the cage outside of these "shock spots", or Hernandez wearing gloves in order to climb the cage. While the crowd fairly screamed "Fire Russo" during this, Dixie later blamed Dutch Mantell for it. Dutch vehemently denied being involved in this one.
* The Christmas episode had Wrestling/{{Abyss}}, Black Reign, Rellik, and (for some reason) Shark Boy competing in a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opM6eyjIYH0 "Silent Night, Bloody Night" Match]]. This hardcore match featured a barbed-wire Christmas Tree with presents underneath that contained weapons. The Christmas Tree was suspended from the ceiling like a pendulum and was hyped as the most effective weapon. All four competitors initially ignored the tree and ran right for the gifts. At one point, Abyss unwrapped a barbed-wire baseball bat and responded with glee despite having an entire fucking tree made of barbed wire right next to him. Because the tree was hanging from the ceiling and had nothing anchoring it down, it swung all over the place. Shark Boy was struck by the tree as soon as it came into play...and the tree casually bounced off of him. Regardless, a highlight of the match was when the tree was swung into the corner and Black Reign had to hug the tree to keep it from bouncing off of him, as well.
** The Knockouts competed in a Santa's Workshop Knockout Street Fight. The match consisted of slow brawls between the various Knockouts with a big obnoxious box in the ring. AJ Styles vs. Kaz competed in a Ladder Match with a reindeer suit hanging above the ring. Styles lost and closed his second 2007 holiday special in an animal costume. The show closed with Mike Tenay saying "something like this can only happen in TNA". And that's a good thing.
* On the January 4, 2010 edition of ''Impact'' (which started a multi-week run of the show airing on Mondays against ''Raw''), an X-Division Asylum match opened the show. To win the match, one of the participants had to climb up the domed cage structure and through the hole on the top. The cage's blinding red color made it nearly impossible to see anything going on in the ring, and even if you could see anything, the incompetent cameramen missed every single spot. Homicide attempted to climb out of the cage, but when he failed, he dropped down to the ring and hit everyone with a baton, causing a cage match to end in a No Contest. This resulted in very loud "THIS IS BULLSHIT" chants from the audience. Once Homicide was eventually able to climb out (after getting stuck midway through the second try), he was attacked by Jeff Hardy. As Hardy didn't appear on TNA TV again until March, this was never explained. TNA did this as its first salvo in a "New Monday Night War".
* In 2012, TNA decided to hold a program called "Gut Check" where an aspiring rookie/newcomer would receive a tryout match with the possibility to be signed to TNA. Good in theory, but in practice...
## The first edition of Gut Check featured Alex Silva. After jobbing to Robbie E, his performance was graded by Bruce Prichard, Wrestling/AlSnow, and Wrestling/RicFlair in a segment that could best be described as ''American Idol'' meets ''Tough Enough''. The plan for this segment was to have Flair and Prichard give Silva the thumbs down, but, for reasons known to only him, Flair deviated halfway through. Nonetheless, Silva was kept in OVW after his signing, made a few other appearances, and was fired just before several other Gut Check contestants. Flair's antics caused TNA to pull him off the Gut Check judging, and Flair ended up leaving the promotion soon after. He was replaced by Taz, which only furthered the similarities to ''Tough Enough''.
## The next Gut Check featured Wrestling/JoeyRyan facing off against Wrestling/AustinAries. The booking made sense because both made their name on the indie scene and had wrestled each other before. Internet voting was 87% for Ryan getting a contract. Prichard and Taz voted no. He would eventually win a contract in a match vs. Al Snow, then be put in a directionless tag team with the directionless Matt Morgan before being released.
## Taeler Hendrix: made three appearances, released. Actually promoted a month before her release with an inspirational video package regarding her beating cancer.
## Sam Shaw: made two appearances, fall guy for Jay Bradley, repackaged. Feuded with Wrestling/KenAnderson over Wrestling/ChristyHemme, then teamed/feuded with Gunner, and released once the latter ended. Brought back again almost two years later, only to be booted again. Ended up in Wrestling/{{WWENXT}} after a spell with Corgan's NWA.
## You -- yes, you! -- could sign up for a Gut Check tryout! All you had to do was send TNA a $250 processing fee for them to delete your application, since it's the only way to disguise the fact that the contestants were all from OVW and [=Team 3D=]. TNA ''did'' try to make Gut Check seem legit by bringing in contestants who weren't from either of those schools, something which didn't last long.
## Evan Markopolous' selling point was "He's only 18 years old!". He wasn't very good and was turned down, though TNA would fund OVW training for him and he'd turn up again later on as part of the poll mentioned below.
## Kris Lewie (the absolute worst of the lot) put on what could easily have been called [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVPfg06iFwU one of the worst matches in TNA history]] against Gunner. He was turned down and has since disappeared from wrestling entirely.
## Jay Bradley: pushed for a few minutes, went to Japan, released, eventually brought back and repackaged as Aiden O'Shea, then quietly left with Billy Corgan.
## Brian Cage: turned down.
## Wrestling/IvelisseVelez: turned down, which made several heads bang against the wall and made one appearance as a temporary Aces and Eights member.
## Wrestling/LeiDTapa: appeared on Impact as bodyguard to Gail Kim, turned on her, lost their one match, released.
## Adam Pearce: turned down.
## Magno: turned down after botching some of his moves during his match against Adam Pearce.
## The Big O: turned down despite placing in the Top Six when TNA held a voting for who fans wanted to see come in for it. Likely only given the nod due to his appearances on WebVideo/ZTrueLongIslandStory.
## Ryan Howe: turned down. And then it was never brought up again.
## John "Bad Bones" Klinger: The actual winner of the vote mentioned above, promised a Gut Check match for winning. Did not receive said match, and only appeared on Impact to receive a random beatdown. Wasn't mentioned again after that.
## Eventually, a Gut Check contestant did win their match. Unfortunately, it was Wes Brisco, with his opponent being Garett Bischoff. The match opened an ''Impact'' episode, and was treated pretty much as an afterthought, since it was really bad. Additionally, it was only used to further the Aces & Eights story, as both Brisco and Bischoff were bit players in that, plus when it came time to vote Al Snow was "mysteriously" absent and was replaced by D'Lo Brown. That was the moment that everyone pegged D'Lo as being involved with the aforementioned faction, something that took TNA several more months to actually reveal.
** That's 6/14, less than 50%. And only two enjoyed lasting employment for any span of time, so less than 10%. What's even worse than all this? Go look on the [[https://web.archive.org/web/20150203054433/http://tnagutcheck.com/contestants/gut-check-participants/ Gut Check website]] at the sheer amount of talent that had tried out yet got turned down. For those who follow indie wrestling and recognize even some of the names, this is teeth-grindingly horrible.
* On the April 26th edition of ''Impact'', TNA held its first "Open Fight Night". Under the rules laid out by Hogan a week prior, on an Open Fight Night, anyone would be allowed to challenge any other wrestler on the roster, including any given champion. While setting this up, Hogan demanded that a title shot must be included. Hogan, in his infinite wisdom, paired off Mr. Anderson and Wrestling/JeffHardy and gave them a TNA Tag Team Championship shot -- instead of giving a shot to The Motor City Machineguns, Wrestling/ChristopherDaniels & Kazarian, or even Eric Young & ODB. The May 24th edition of Open Fight Night also saw Hogan throw out a #1 Fatal Four-Way which had been booked from four matches the week prior...just so he could pick the #1 Contender.
** Hogan would also mandate weekly TV title defenses around that same time, which TNA forgot about after just two weeks. Then-champ Devon ended up in a dark match on the third week instead of defending the title.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Angles]]

* Mr. Wrestling III, who previously helped Jeff win his first NWA World Title, unmasked to reveal his true identity: Vince Russo. On the following PPV, TNA gave Wrestling/RoddyPiper a live mic to plug his book. Piper pulled a shoot promo on Russo. "Hey Russo, did you book my cousin [[Wrestling/OwenHart Owen's]] death?". Everything went real quiet while Piper continued to rant, until Russo came out to calm Piper down. Piper refused to give Russo the mic, hit him with the book, and verbally berated him. After a tag match, Russo came out and responded to Piper's comments. He talked about how he gave the fans everything they wanted (hahahahahahahaha).
** A video package of Mike Tenay interviewing Vince Russo opened a show intended to introduce Russo to new viewers. During the worked shoot, Russo defended putting the WCW Championship (which he referred to as a "prop") on David Arquette, defended ruining the cruiserweight division with the likes of Ed Ferrera and {{Wrestling/Madusa}}, and provided one of his most infamous quotes ever ("If you want lucha libre, GO TO JAPAN!"). Fan signs clearly shown throughout this segment included "WHO CARES?" and "THE 'TOTAL NON-STOP ACTION' HAS OFFICIALLY STOPPED".
* In December 2004, WWE traveled to Orlando to film the commercial for its 2005 Royal Rumble event. A few TNA stars and a camera crew headed over to the WWE filming set to offer a "welcome wagon", but they were kicked off the set. TNA turned this into a "storyline" where the footage of what went down would be shown at the PPV in an attempt to make WWE look bad. To hype up how scandalous this footage was supposed to be, a fake Wrestling/VinceMcMahon and Wrestling/TripleH began roaming the Impact Zone to find and destroy the footage while "Fiiiiirrrrring" several TNA employees. When it aired, the footage ended up making TNA look like fools: BG James, Wrestling/ShaneDouglas, Ron Killings, Wrestling/{{Konnan}}, Abyss, and Traci Brooks walked onto the set with balloons and cookies, repeatedly asked to speak to [=Vince McMahon=], ate food off the craft services table without asking, filmed several WWE wrestlers without permission (including an unmasked Wrestling/ReyMysterioJr), and acted offended when WWE officials told them to leave.
* Wrestling/SamoaJoe's 2009 FaceHeelTurn. It started with him turning into a textbook WildSamoan with a phallic tattoo on his forehead. At the start of 2010, Joe was involved in another ridiculous angle--[[{{Narm}} he got kidnapped by ninjas]]. This ultimately amounted to nothing, and the announcers barely discussed it, and he returned without any explanation.
** According to Joe's official article on Wiki/{{Wikipedia}}, the original plan was to introduce a "psycho" gimmick, although it didn't clarify if it meant having Joe turned psycho or said psycho being the person behind everything. However, the show had a small pool of main event faces due to Joe's absence, so Russo cancelled it and brought him back without any fanfare.
** Just over a month after the kidnapping, a pretaped vignette aired, featuring an obviously-distressed Joe screaming that "They have spoken". After Joe was brought back in April, this was never mentioned again. Several months later, Abyss would start saying those words. Rumor had it that Joe was indeed meant to herald the formation of Immortal, but his involvement was dropped due to, of all things, him still getting cheered for beating people up.
** On the first Impact of 2011, Samoa Joe confronted a paranoid Pope backstage and accused him of spending his charity money on strip clubs and pit bulls, and claiming that the Pope was receiving noise complaints at his mansion. (This was a reference to the then-current Michael Vick controversy.) This was mercifully dropped without much further mention, but the resulting feud was not. Lowlights included Pope making fun of Joe's family by showing pictures of pigs on the video screen (including of pigs mating) and Joe hiring Wrestling/KazuchikaOkada (repackaged as a [[Radio/TheGreenHornet Kato]] ripoff named Okato) to follow Pope around with a camera filming his every move.
* Orlando Jordan started using an extremely over-the-top bisexual gimmick -- a version of which he'd been pitching to WWE before it let him go. His antics included spraying lotion all over himself, wearing a diaper on New Year's Day, rubbing himself with a Samoa Joe action figure. descending from roof while wrapped in caution tape, and talking dirty to a cardboard cutout of Rob Terry. Jordan (who is actually bisexual) defended the gimmick by saying he hoped it would "help troubled teens." Of course, Jordan was portrayed as a freak while Tenay and Taz both acted completely disgusted by everything he did.
* WWE banned chairshots to the head and issued fines to wrestlers who did it from then on. TNA responded by having a chairshot to the head happen every two or three matches. Turns out WWE banned them because of the, ahem, potential health hazards with repetitive concussions (see: Wrestling/BretHart, Wrestling/ChrisBenoit, Wrestling/ChrisKanyon, Dixie Car--oops). TNA's repeated chairshots resulted in Mr. Anderson getting an actual concussion from Jeff Hardy braining him with a chair. To their credit, TNA banned all chairshots to the head after the Anderson incident. Matt Morgan then began a kayfabe crusade for concussion awareness stemming from the fiasco, even though he had been kicking people's heads into the ringpost (and bragging about it) weeks earlier. Around this time, Eric Young had a gimmick where he'd gone insane (again) after being knocked from the top turnbuckle by Suicide and hitting his head. TNA treated Young's brain injury as comedic.
** Homicide delivered a brutal unprotected chairshot to the head of Rob Terry (which also busted Terry open without him having to blade) as a means of putting Terry over as a monster. The segment caused controversy since it aired two days after the suicide of Wrestling/ChrisKanyon, which many speculated was linked to concussions suffered throughout his career. Lance Storm quit watching TNA after the incident and wrote a blog about it entitled [[http://www.stormwrestling.com/040610.html "TNA: I'm Done"]]. Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez called for whoever wrote the segment to be fired during their podcast. TNA also did this segment not long after WWE had banned chairshots to the head over concussion fears, so some fans saw this as a potshot at the well-being of WWE wrestlers.
* The acquisition of Adam "[=Pacman=]" Jones, a pro-football player who got suspended from the NFL after he paralyzed a man in a strip club shooting. He was only signed because Wrestling/JeffJarrett was a huge fan of his team. Contractual obligations related to the above suspension meant he couldn't do any wrestling; all he did was toss a football and do a leapfrog before tagging in his partner, [[Wrestling/RonKillings Ron "The Truth" Killings]]. Despite all this, he was still paid through the nose and even got the Tag Team Championship belt.
* Throughout 2007 and 2008, Wrestling/{{Christian}}'s Coalition dissolved in the worst way imaginable. First AJ Styles and Tomko cost Christian a world championship opportunity and then helped Kurt Angle win the title in the same night, with it being heavily implied that Kurt's wife seduced and conned AJ into it as a way to start the new "Angle Alliance". AJ is later humiliated by losing matches at the cost of having to wear reindeer and turkey suits, with Kurt yelling at him the whole time. Karen seduces him yet again, this time in a bathroom stall, to get him to screw Christian over in a match against Kurt. After this, Tomko starts teasing a face turn in which he would come at odds with Angle, make peace with Christian and AJ, and go off on his own, only for Tomko to also betray Christian in another title match and align himself with Angle. At this point Tomko's character fell down the crapper, lost all sense of virtue or momentum, and became nothing more than a cheap bully and jobber before being released. Note that immediately prior to this, and even earlier than that, Tomko was the darling of the audience, which included active duty service members. This was so horrible that it was most likely the last straw that caused Christian to decide he wasn't staying in TNA past his contract end date in 2008.
* Derek Graham-Couch (aka Robbie, one-half of WWE tag team The Highlanders) attended a live ''Impact'' in March 2008. He had been backstage visiting some friends and stuck around to watch them perform. TNA deliberately decided to show Robbie onscreen (they used his real name to avoid a trademark suit, but misspelled it), and when he noticed, he tried to hide himself to no avail. Tenay and West proceeded to brag about a WWE jobber being in the crowd, until a WWE official called Robbie and told him to leave the arena. This happened right before ''[=WrestleMania=]'' (which was that weekend in Orlando), so both Robbie and his tag team partner Rory lost their ''[=WrestleMania=]'' bonus as punishment. WWE kept The Highlanders off TV for months, and the team was eventually released later in the year. TNA also gloated about this on their website until a good amount of the TNA roster demanded that it be taken down. Graham-Couch would later comment in an interview that "I was very unhappy in WWE, and in retrospect I think it was kind of my way to get fired."
* TNA approached [[UsefulNotes/SarahPalin Governor Palin]] to make a guest-appearance, but she declined, so someone hired {{Wrestling/Daffney|Unger}} as a Palin lookalike. After the election, she was shunted off to the Knockouts division as a comedy jobber. TNA then signed Rosie Lottalove (Betsy Ruth), an obese Knockout fresh out of Team 3D's wrestling school who Bully Ray had sold to them as his best student, and gave her a tryout match with Daffney. Rosie seriously injured Daffney in the match by sitting on her face, but TNA hired Rosie anyway. She wrestled a few more matches for the company before they released her (because she was terrible), something which Bully Ray allegedly blamed Daffney for to the point of screaming at her backstage over it. TNA refused to pay for Daffney's medical bills as well as a barbwire board shot she had suffered a few months earlier (because TNA is terrible). Daffney filed a lawsuit as a result, which was eventually settled out of court a day before the case was supposed to start (because the American legal system is terrible). The Daffney incident was a huge black eye for Dixie Carter and all of TNA management: they put the blame on Terry Taylor, Head of Talent Relations and one of Dixie's known stooges. TNA released Taylor and replaced him with Bruce Prichard.
** TNA subjected the Knockouts to the Lock Box Challenge on an episode of ''Impact''. Early in the night, the Knockouts fought for keys that would open boxes in which a Knockout could win one of four "prizes": an open contract for a match of their choosing, Tara's pet tarantula, the "right" to perform a striptease in the ring (or be fired), or the Knockouts Championship. Wrestling/AngelinaLove unlocked the box with the title and became champion as a result. [[Wrestling/LisaMarieVaron Tara]] unlocked the box with her tarantula; she was forced to treat it like it was more important than the title (Apparently Russo and his cohorts didn't learn from the infamous '49ers Match from 2000, in which Booker T won the WCW World Heavyweight Championship out of a box.) Meaning that not only could the champion lose the title without being pinned, but she could also lose it ''despite winning the match''. Which is exactly what happened to Tara. She may have been able to win back Poison, but she lost her title to Angelina Love to basically the luck of the draw! Daffney unlocked the striptease, but was attacked by Lacey Wrestling/{{Von Erich|Family}} midway through. Lacey, who had indicated earlier in the show that she wanted to do the striptease despite not even being in the match, then obliviously started stripping as a brawl erupted around her. Despite it being mentioned above that failing to do the striptease would result in being fired, Daffney was not fired. Oh, and the whole "unlocking" segment closed the show.
** The contract allowed the holder to book any match of their choosing. For some reason, Wrestling/VelvetSky booked herself into a non-title match with the reigning Knockouts Champion, in what was originally supposed to be something called a "Leather and Lace" match. It was soon turned into a standard I Quit match, which somehow ended in a no contest. ODB's infamous "''What is happening to our division?!''" tweet was sent during this match.
* Kurt went back on his promise to retire if he lost a match due to the ending of ''Bound For Glory''. Jeff Jarrett came out to shoot on his affair with with Kurt's wife, Karen, thus beginning a feud which would last for nearly nine months. They were exploiting a custody battle in-progress, with Karen mentioning how much happier the kids were in Jeff's care, followed by them entering his house and filming their (real life!) children. Kurt Angle vs. Jeff Jarrett was a huge grudge match where Kurt could regain custody of his children if he won, and ended with Jarrett pinning Kurt -- clean. At the end of the match, Angle took off his boots and left them in the ring as a sign that he had retired, four months after Kurt said he'd retire if he lost at ''Bound for Glory''. Kurt was then forced to give Karen away at her and Jeff's wedding. Is it better or worse that the fallout is completely ignored afterward (with the trio forming a faction without any ill will between them)?
* [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Mexican America]] was a rehash of LAX, even down to the theme song. Unlike LAX, though, it featured Mexican gimmicks exclusively, the majority of which were given to wrestlers who weren't even Latino, let alone Mexican. Only one member, Wrestling/{{Sar|ahStock}}ita, was any good, and she got the least time out of any of them. The others were fatally reckless (Hernandez), inexperienced ([[Wrestling/TheaTrinidad Rosita]]), or remarkable only in their annoyance factor (Anarquia). Oh, and their lazy entry gimmick (involving a giant Mexican flag) blocked a good quarter of the Impact Zone.
* Eric Young is as loyal as a guy can be and has done and put himself in silly angles and gimmicks for years in TNA. In 2009, TNA decided to let him have a shot and he turned himself around, dropping the goofy character he had been and became a hated heel as the leader of World Elite. But what happens in 2010 when Hogan comes around? Eric is dropped on his head and becomes a dumbass again, gets put in a team with Orlando Jordan, and somehow gains strength when he pulls down his pants. Needless to say, fans crapped on it and it was a Gooker contender.
** Eric Young seemed to have finally been rewarded for his efforts by winning the TNA World Heavyweight Championship. Of course, this might be because he's one of the only TNA originals left as several other of the companies most recognizable names, most notably Christopher Daniels, Chris Sabin, Kazarian, and AJ Styles.
** Eric Young becoming World champion. First of all, he was still doing the stale "comedy" character, which makes it the equivalent of WWE having Santino win their world title - i.e. the one guy who shouldn't be the face of the company. Secondly, there was no build to the title match, since it all happened on one show. It was just rehashing Daniel Bryan's title win from ''[=WrestleMania=] XXX'' a few weeks earlier, and everyone promptly called TNA on this. [[note]](Bearded underdog wins opening match for title shot, goes into title match with injured arm but still wins title on same night he became #1 contender. The big difference being people were screaming at WWE to let Bryan be champion for a year while TNA fans were hoping Young would get time to rebuild after being one half of the Knockouts Tag Team Champions)[[/note]].
* In July 2012, a mysterious masked gang showed up in TNA attacking wrestlers during or before matches. Their symbol was the DeadMansHand and called themselves the Wrestling/AcesAndEights. At ''Bound For Glory 2012'', two members faced off against Sting and Bully Ray. During the match another member interfered allowing them to win. Afterwards his mask gets pulled off and is revealed to be...Devon. You could literally hear the air being sucked out of the arena (and the angle) afterwards. The whole gang was a joke when it was revealed who the members were. You had Devon, a past his prime D'lo Brown, ''Garrett Bischoff'' and Wes Brisco (only employed because of their dads). Garrett and Wes wound up getting wins over Kurt Angle in singles competit--wait, no, [[FanonDiscontinuity that never happened.]]
** Anyone remember the summer of 2013 when the Main Event Mafia feuded with the Aces and Eights? Remember when TNA added Rampage Jackson into MEM, and that video teasing August 1st which was the debut of someone new in TNA? Do you then remember that person being [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRAdWcfpM_Y Tito Ortiz?]] Yup, Tito joining the Aces and Eights was just a stunt for their upcoming fight in Bellator. This is why both of them got pulled from TNA to avoid injury. The kicker? Tito got injured anyway, making everything involving them pointless.
* This wasn't TNA's first attempt at having the Main Event Mafia "regrouping", just the first that wasn't simultaneously much-hyped and mishandled. Back in 2011, TNA were advertising the MEM's return and even had Wrestling/ScottSteiner make his triumphant return to TNA the week before the reveal. In the meantime, however, TNA had not secured the contract of Wrestling/BookerT, kept fumbling with Wrestling/{{Sting}}'s (see below), and they granted Wrestling/KevinNash his release for whatever reason, allowing Booker and Nash to make their even more-triumphant returns to WWE at the ''Wrestling/RoyalRumble'' three days after the Steiner return aired. This of course, left TNA scrambling for alternates at the eleventh hour, and they instead pulled a face turn with Fortune (which was a better move for the company anyway, as it put four TNA originals in the spotlight for a change, and was what fans had wanted all along). Of course, this would have made more sense if TNA had not ran a segment where Crimson choked out AJ in the back, as well as another backstage segment in which Kurt Angle completely waffled Styles with a baseball bat.
** The last-minute switch from the MEM to Fortune had the unfortunate side-effect of castrating the Immortal [[PowerStable super-stable]]. By removing Styles, [[Wrestling/FrankieKazarian Kazarian]], and Beer Money, the only active wrestlers left in Immortal were Jeff Hardy, Matt Hardy, Jeff Jarrett, Abyss, Rob Terry, and Gunner and Murphy. In addition to losing the talent of the team, Kaz and Beer Money were the X-Division and Tag Team champions respectively, which means that there was no payoff to Immortal losing those belts, and the ramifications of Immortal losing the belts was hardly even brought up, if at all. On a side note, Kazarian won the belt from Wrestling/JayLethal after [[DudeNotFunny completely disrespecting Jay's entire family]], and not even a month later, Kazarian became a card-carrying babyface, even invoking Lethal's legitimate release as partial reasoning for the turn. It also forced Ric Flair to speed through an angle which would have made sense running over several weeks; what resulted was him icing all the members of Fortune in the back, then costing AJ Styles a match in the very next segment of the show. You would think Flair would have a harder time backstabbing the stable he created in the image of Wrestling/TheFourHorsemen!
* At the beginning of 2015, yet another stable looking to take over TNA was formed: the Beat Down Clan, with MVP, Low Ki, Samoa Joe, and Eric Young, the last of whom appeared in every segment the other three were in despite having been claimed to not actually be a member. This stable is most notable in how it ended, as Hernandez was brought on-board midway through the year. While he had told TNA that he was free and clear to return, Wrestling/LuchaUnderground would quickly send TNA a cease and desist, as he was still contractually obligated to them until their first season finale had aired. All the footage they had filmed involving him could no longer be shown, the Beat Down Clan (which he had become heavily involved with) was killed off, and MVP was later fired for recommending they re-hire Hernandez, all because nobody in the TNA front office bothered to check if he really was able to be signed without problems.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Hulk Hogan Comes to TNA]]
Hogan and [[Wrestling/EricBischoff Bischoff]] are those kids in your class who thought they were hot stuff because they were older than everyone else. Yeah, they're older and probably tougher than everyone else, but in the end, you can't help but pity them because they've been held back so many times.\\\

* TNA showed Hogan's arrival via limousine on its way to the Impact Zone. The footage clearly showed the limo driving around Universal Resort. Hogan arrived and said "I've been in the back all day". (That line was edited out of the repeat showing.) During Eric Bischoff's first promo with the company, he asked [=SoCal Val=] to bring him the script for the night, ripped the script up and threw it into the crowd, then gave Val his version. Security went into the crowd during commercial and asked the fans to hand the ripped pages back (since Bischoff had ripped up a real script). Fans booed Hogan, who was still supposed to be a face, after he verbally attacked Jeff Jarrett (who was supposed to be the heel but acted like a face) following a heartfelt speech. More irony ensued as Hogan accused Jarrett of being a famewhore who held young talent down for his own gain.
** Wrestling/BobbyLashley came out, turned heel for no reason, and left the company. After firing Lashley, Hogan and Bischoff proceeded to tell Ric Flair (who had also arrived during the January 4th ''Impact'') that they couldn't fire him because he'd signed his contract before they'd arrived -- which made absolutely no sense. Side note: When Lashley first joined TNA, an agreement between Strikeforce (the MMA promotion Lashley worked for) and TNA said Lashley could appear on either company's programming so long as he cross-promoted both companies. When rumors about Hogan and TNA began, Hulk appeared at a UFC event and put over the company. UFC planned on moving to Spike, and Strikeforce considered Hogan's appearance a breach of its verbal agreement with TNA. Strikeforce disallowed Lashley from promoting TNA, then later pulled him from the show altogether. Lashley left TNA a few weeks later.
** TNA hired radio host/Howard Stern wannabe/(now-former) friend of Hogan "Bubba the Love Sponge" as the show's interviewer. He used the whole show to get himself over, as opposed to the people he was supposed to be interviewing. ** Wrestling/MickFoley spent the whole show trying to get into the Impact Zone despite security doing its best to keep him out -- all while other uninvited guests (including Wrestling/ScottHall, Sean Waltman, and the Nasty Boys) managed to get in with little problem. Hall and Waltman actually attacked security (and were not punished for doing so), while Bubba the Love Sponge ran interference for -- get this -- the Nasty Boyz.
** The Nastys would return, in no condition to bump, let alone wrestle. They engaged in an awful feud with Team 3D, with one particular low point being [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhZyMKxC7Ic Brian Knobbs getting winded just delivering a promo]]. Taz, who's supposed to be putting them over, spoke for all of us when he said:
--->[Knobbs and Saggs flee the ring] ''"I like their strategy here."\\
"I wonder how many times Knobbs has applied an abdominal stretch in his career. Well done."\\
"Like lifting a small foreign car."''
* Hogan and Bischoff opened ''Genesis 2010'' by introducing the traditional four-sided ring. The crowd shit all over the entire segment, loudly chanting "WE WANT SIX SIDES", as it furthered TNA's degeneration into a WWE knockoff. Hogan responded by burying TNA's history (much like he did on January 4th with Jarrett), which resulted in more boos. Hogan and Bischoff resorted to insulting [=Vince McMahon=] so the fans would cheer again. No one on the roster was informed of the ring change prior to their arrival at the arena. This was gross negligence on TNA's part, as matches had to be changed to accommodate the new ring and injuries may have resulted from the roster not being prepared for the switch. The change was made to appeal to the new talent Dixie hired (Hogan and his buddies).
** To reward Christopher Daniels for MOTY main events at the turn of 2010, Hulk Hogan brought in Sean Morley (WWE's Val Venis) to feud with him. The former WWF enhancement talent, now severely out of shape, beat Christopher Daniels clean at ''Genesis''. Even though Morley was playing the face and Daniels the heel, several fans even turned their backs on the ring, as if they were turning their backs on TNA. (Morley had two more matches after this before leaving, while Daniels was reduced to obscurity before getting released.) TNA was so butthurt over the reaction they got at ''Genesis'' that Senior Director of Production Steve Small went out to address the crowd. Small explained to the live audience that they must tell a story to the (home viewing) audience by reacting to the show properly. He also addressed the crowd as "cast members". This drove away of the Impact Zone regulars, many of whom had attended it for years. TNA later stacked the thinning crowd with obvious plants (most noticeably, several hot girls in the front row who would only cheer when the camera was directly on them, which resulted in [[http://i.imgur.com/6KvrF.gif this]] at one point). The formerly-rowdy Impact Zone crowd soon became dead enough that TNA would pump in hair dryer noise during taped shows. The 2013 move to finally leave the Impact Zone and go on the road was greeted with wide approval.
** The match between Angle and Styles at ''Genesis'' (2010) had a stipulation attached: if Angle lost, he would never get a TNA title shot again as long as Styles was champion. Angle lost. The next night, Hogan changed his mind on the stipulation and booked Angle vs. Styles for the third consecutive time. This one ended in Montreal Screwjob Rehash #139 with, of course, Earl Hebner as referee.
* TNA tried to reenact the Monday Night Wars in the first half of 2010. The angles that were run at the time were easily the worst in years (Abyss donning Hulk Hogan's ring, Orlando Jordan's perversions, Bubba the Love Sponge being there at all, etc). From the 3rd of March 2010 to the 17th of June 2010, Impact failed to get a 1.0 in the ratings. Three shows managed a 0.99, and the lowest of these numbers was a 0.62 (the episode that went up against the post-''[=WrestleMania=]'' 26 episode of '''Raw''). Within six months, TNA had to switch back to Thursday nights, and actually lost viewers due to this decision.
* It was also around this time that Ric Flair returned to wrestling, despite the profound, beautiful, heart-wrenching farewell he gave and received less than two years prior. To elaborate on why this was such a failure: the general idea of Flair's return and his role in TNA was to have him "mentor" AJ Styles and help AJ grow beyond "I am TNA" and become a household name...Except Flair and Hogan used Styles and Abyss as proxies of themselves:
## AJ was billed as "The New Nature Boy" and wore flamboyant robes to the ring. The gimmick didn't stick since it didn't suit Styles and there was little chemistry between him and Flair. AJ Styles went from the "household name" to midcard goon as both the TV champion and a member of Fortune. (Still better than being Angle's bitch, though.) Three months after the angle began, Hogan and Flair leapt back into the ring to resume their feud. At one point, TNA management actually had to tell Flair to keep his clothes on while on TV, as they'd been getting complaints from...well, everyone, really.
## During a radio interview, Hulk Hogan claimed with a straight face that Abyss was the next John Cena. (In this same interview, Bischoff decided to bash Wrestling/ChrisJericho and say that he never drew a dime.) Abyss became Hulk Hogan's buddy on TV following that interview, and Hogan rewarded Abyss with his WWE Hall of Fame ring. While Abyss was holding the ring, he was imbued with Hulk's personality. But if that wasn't bad enough, Ric Flair got into this feud, too -- which led to a match where he challenged Hogan and Abyss to put Hogan's Hall of Fame ring against Flair's. That's right: TNA hyped up a main event match where the main prize was possession of two WWE Hall of Fame rings. After Hogan and Abyss earned Flair's ring, they gave it to Jay Lethal. Jay Lethal was promptly given a push against Flair and got quite over...only for Creative to run out of ideas and send him straight back into the X-Division (and jobbing to Robbie E). He was eventually released a few months later, which pissed off much of the roster and was later used as a reason for the above-mentioned Fortune face turn.
** In the ''Impact'' before ''Bound for Glory'', Ric Flair and Mick Foley had a pretty gruesome Last Man Standing Match. These two veterans were given more time than any other singles match on the card.
** Ric Flair admitted to having sex with a horse during a promo on the November 18th episode of ''Impact''. On that same episode, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SapQIU601is Hogan cut an promo dripping with hypocrisy]]. ("If you don't draw money, you get fired around here.") He destroyed the fourth wall, said they were throwing kayfabe out the window, said "34 fake titles" mean nothing, and buried Team [=3D=] (the winners of every major Tag Team Championship in American pro wrestling and then some). Once ''Victory Road'' '11 came along and Jeff Hardy made an ass of himself, Hogan chose Bully Ray of Team [=3D=] to push as the next big thing, with his prior burying of him and Devon going completely unmentioned.
** The October 14, 2010 episode of ''Impact'' is a dumpster fire of its own. The show opens with Hogan talking...and talking....and it would be almost an hour of promos and non-wrestling segments before the first match. In total, TNA had about 16 minutes of wrestling on a two-hour show — and since the main event bled into the aftershow, ''[=ReAction=]'', it's more like a 3-hour show. Flair comes out to interrupt Hogan's promo, getting a huge pop, then he throws it all away by aligning his group Fortune with Immortal. Not only did this invalidate much of the angle, it ignored Flair and Hogan's decades-long feud. It also yielded a group consisting of what was then around 2/3 of their whole roster, all of whom were heels. Not even Russo could get behind this one (it was more Hulk and Bischoff's idea than his), and Fortune later ended up betraying Immortal, anyway. (There is also RVD and [=EV2.0=]. So now you've got ''three'' different stables being the focus of every show.) The postshow, ''[=ReAction=]'', was dedicated to showing how Immortal was formed. When you need an hour just to explain an angle, on top of a two-hour show filled with nothing but promos...
** TNA was banking on them to draw more eyes to ''Impact''--which failed, thanks to both Hogan's and Creator/SpikeTV's utter lack of interest in actually promoting the company. Not one iota of the ratings spike would last for long: The decision to keep Ric heel after Fortune had turned face left him with no foundation for over a year. Their enemies included Dixie Carter and the creaky EV 2.0 faction, which worked harder against them. Flair was released and returned--no, fled--back to WWE having accomplished absolutely nothing in TNA save for a few memorably insane promos.
* The Wrestling/{{n|ewWorldorder}}Wo reformed yet again under the name The Band and won the Tag Team Championship belts, even though key members had pretty much lost it following years of drug abuse. After weeks of suffering abuse at the hands of The Band, Eric Young joined them. Why did he join? Who knows. Young went on to hold the TNA Tag Team Championship with The Band. That's right, Hall and Nash were tag team champions in an actual wrestling promotion in the year 2010.
** The Band weren't the champs very long, though, as Hall was arrested ten days after they won for disorderly conduct. When asked where Hall worked, he replied that he was unemployed -- despite being a reigning champion in TNA. TNA released him and stripped Nash and Young of the titles, even though Nash and Young handled nearly all of the action and Hall contributed little to the action.
** After returning in March, Sting turned heel and began spouting off cryptic nonsense every week. He donned the red Wolfpac facepaint to boot. Sting was also in the worst shape of his entire career, forcing him to wear a t-shirt in every match. He was supposed to warn us about the formation of the Immortal faction, but TNA dragged it out for over half a year. By the time everything came to fruition, nobody cared. Sting then spent an entire year trying to wrest control of TNA away from Hogan and back into the hands of Dixie. In 2012, Sting began campaigning for Hulk Hogan to run TNA again, so Sting could step down from the position and wrestle again. Yes, after nearly a full year of Sting and Dixie Carter challenging Hulk and finally taking the reins of power from him, they gave it right back to him a few months later. To make matters worse, ''Lockdown'' 2012's hype revolved around this storyline instead of the long-awaited Storm v. Roode.
* Wrestling/RobVanDam debuted in ridiculous fashion: after being revealed as a mystery opponent for Sting, the excitement was killed stone dead when Sting grabbed a baseball bat and delivered a beatdown lasting nearly ten minutes. Sting then hit Hogan with the bat to end the segment, leaving the focus squarely on Sting and Hogan. Way to debut a big name acquisition. (Post-show dirtsheets revealed Sting was rehabbing from shoulder surgery and Hogan was late to the ring, so facepalms all around.)
** It was later revealed that RVD was signed to a contract where he was only contractually obligated to make a certain number of appearances. That didn't stop TNA from making AJ Styles (the longest reigning TNA Champ in history at that point) drop the belt to Van Dam on a random ''Impact'' with zero hype. As a result of RVD getting "injured" by Abyss, TNA vacated the World Title, but RVD miraculously recovered and beat Abyss without much difficulty. He spent the next several months whining about how he never lost the belt and demanding a title shot. In an interview that took place during his reign as champ, RVD said he would not lose to anyone who didn't work during the Attitude Era, then compared himself and Jeff Hardy to rock stars (and buried the rest of the TNA roster in the process). Nice choice of champ there, TNA.
** Eric Bischoff debuted a ranking system to be voted on by TNA fans: the person who ended up at #1 would earn a title shot. Fans were quick to give [[Wrestling/NigelMcGuinness Desmond Wolfe]] a landslide victory, mainly because the system allowed for multiple votes. Bischoff's response to that? He had Wolfe get squashed by RVD in mere minutes. The fans tried again the following week and Wolfe won again, only to get squashed again. The ranking system was then discontinued and Bischoff then took every opportunity to trash wrestling fans in every interview he did. Wolfe was rarely ever seen around the main event after this. (Where did Abyss, the guy Hogan said would be the next John Cena, rank in the fan poll? Dead last. Even Rob Terry had more votes than Abyss.)
* After nine years of promoting the X-Division with the {{tagline}} "It's not about weight limits; it's about no limits", TNA imposed a weight limit on the division. (THOSE CRUISERWEIGHTS CAN CRUISER-WAIT, BROTHER.) Almost immediately, the weight limit was ignored, as Doug Williams (who was just over the limit) continued to compete in X-Division matches. It was finally abolished when RVD won the X-Division title. Zema Ion, who RVD had won it from, took to Twitter to complain about RVD being over the weight limit. Nobody cared.
* Hogan went on a media run on the weekend before ''Bound for Glory'' 2011, which featured Kurt Angle vs. Wrestling/BobbyRoode in the main event for the World Heavyweight title. On ''The Howard Stern Show,'' Hogan hyped his match with Sting while saying Angle would face "some other guy" (Roode). In another radio interview, someone asked Hogan about Bobby Roode. Hogan said Roode's "not ready", then said he would have preferred to see James Storm in Roode's position. Hogan then went on Twitter and referred to fans angry with what he'd said as "marks" and claimed to be working them all. He also proceeded to re-tweet every positive reaction to his comments for a few hours. Angle ended up defeating Bobby Roode at ''Bound for Glory'', despite the massive amount of hype TNA put into Roode's push.
** Making matters worse: the injured Angle could barely wrestle a full match, which cut the main event of TNA's "[=WrestleMania equivalent=]" down to less than 10 minutes. TNA's long-term plans had Roode winning the title at the PPV -- apparently, TNA had this plan in place since the summer -- but these plans mysteriously changed after Hogan's media run. Several Australian radio stations assumed Roode would appear on several of their shows as part of a promotional tour for a future TNA house show run. These stations confirmed Roode's appearances had been canceled on Monday (the day after ''Bound for Glory'') and TNA hadn't booked anyone to fill the gap, furthering the theory of Roode's push getting pulled days before the biggest moment of his career. Numerous dirtsheets (and, later on, TNA performers) credited Hogan as the major campaigner in getting the finish changed at the last minute. After the show, fans once again took to Twitter to express their anger. Hogan spent most of the night re-tweeting celebratory comments (again) and calling anyone who criticized him a "mark" (again). Bischoff chimed in the following morning with this gem: "''Having a blast watching Internet marks react. Candy from a baby!''"
** Hogan also took a potshot at AJ Styles during his tirade by blasting AJ for not attending a meet-and-greet on the weekend of ''Bound for Glory.'' (AJ had told TNA he wouldn't attend these events due to his father passing away.)
** Some believe Hogan gave Roode the shaft so Hogan's big face turn wouldn't be overshadowed by the most-anticipated title change in TNA's history. The following episode of ''Impact'' featured less than 7 minutes of actual wrestling. (A similar thing happened with the ''Impact'' following ''Bound for Glory'' 2010.) The opening video package focused specifically on Hogan vs. Sting, and nobody made any mention of anything else that happened at BFG. TNA also aired two video packages dedicated to Hogan vs. Sting after commercial breaks. The episode's overall rating was a 1.35. While TNA did earn its highest TV rating of the year with this show, the rating only tied ''Impact''[='=]s overall highest all-time rating. Back on Twitter, Bischoff crowed, "''Ever notice how the shows that the dirt sites put over get the lowest ratings and the ones they bury get the highest? hmmmm.''" The next episode of ''Impact'' dropped back down to normal ratings levels, meaning TNA lost whatever buzz it had post-''Bound for Glory'' because of this episode.
** Hogan defended the booking by claiming that Roode would be better off as a heel. To play up Bobby Roode's heel turn after he (eventually) won the title, TNA established Roode as a neglectful father and husband. The main event of ''Slammiversary'' was Sting v. Roode. Hogan called Sting the top man in TNA. Nice way to build up Roode, Hogan. He also casually tossed Mr. Anderson under the bus, since the latter was originally going to have a title shot against Roode. Instead, Anderson was put in a three-way with RVD and Jeff Hardy to determine who would face the TNA Champion on... the episode after ''Slammiversary''. Yes, they were still pushing the same old contenders from 2010 because "NOT READY, BROTHER."
* In May, Dixie announced via Twitter that Brooke Hogan would join the TNA roster as the Executive in Charge of the Knockouts Division. We'd make a joke here, but that's enough of one as it is. On the 7th of June (the night Brooke Hogan debuted), Scott Steiner proceeded to trash TNA via Twitter: He accused Hogan and Bischoff of doing the "same bullshit they did to destroy WCW", confirming Hogan as the one behind the last-minute change at BFG.
** The February 28th, 2013 edition of the Gut Check saw the judges decide between Ivelisse Velez and Lei'd Tapa. Despite having the majority of the offense during their match, big pops from the fans, and name recognition from her run on ''Tough Enough'', the judges picked Tapa over Velez. This was met with boos from the fans in attendance, who probably would've booed harder if they'd known that Tapa was the niece of one of Hogan's good friends (Wrestling/TheBarbarian).
* August 29th 2013 saw Hogan attempting to book a match between Bully Ray and Sting for the title, despite a stipulation made earlier in the year that Sting could no longer challenge for the title. It was later revealed that the match was non-title and that Hogan had made a mistake, but it couldn't be edited or re-shot before broadcast.
* '''Result''': His presence barely improved TV ratings (and sometimes even hurt them), and [=PPVs=] scheduled to feature the Hulkster did no better than those without him. Hogan's "retirement" angle (he announced his retirement from wrestling in order to avoid a match with Sting), which TNA greatly hyped up, ended up getting the lowest ratings of 2011. Hogan made sure to rarely mention TNA in outside interviews; he also hosted another wrestling show (for midgets) and appeared in a wrestling game that licensed his likeness (and failed to mention TNA in any way). How did TNA penalize Hogan for failing to improve its situation? It re-signed Hogan to a two-year contract as soon as his old one expired. Hogan earned $2 mil per year, making him one of the highest-paid performers in the industry. From mid-2012 on, ''Impact'' generated the lowest overall viewership in years. Hogan took to Twitter, praising everyone in TNA for staying positive, with the ratings being a reflection of their hard work. Shortly after the tweet, the rating for that week's Impact was posted (0.97) and other data showed TNA had received the lowest viewership number since switching to live broadcasts. Oops. Hogan's contract expired on October 1st 2013; despite financial woes and constant roster cuts, TNA was still interested in renewing his $35,000-per-appearance contract.
** Hogan's final appearance on TNA saw the Hulkster quit the company, and when he tried to leave, a crying Dixie clutched at his leg and begged him to stay. Rumors have it that Hogan invoked a creative control clause so that he wouldn't have to put TNA over on his way out. Bischoff himself was removed from the creative process soon after Hogan's departure, and his contract was allowed to expire. He would later sue TNA in conjunction with his business partner Jason Hervey, alleging that TNA had not paid them what they were owed for their production work.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:"Championships"]]
* What the hell happened to the X-Division? Once regarded as the gold standard in wrestling (similar to where NXT was in 2010), it's been going downhill since 2007. X-Division matches are rarely seen on TNA anymore, and even the champion (whoever they are) isn't even in the top contenders for the World Title. Let's not forget, it once went to Abyss, who lost it in a fluke. It was only then that the Network established a weight limit (which was periodically ignored), ensuring only cruiserweights (who never get booked for main events, thanks to Bischoff) could contend for it. Then they ruled that the title must be fought exclusively in triple-threat matches, a rule which was soon discarded, as well as instituting a referee headcam which made everything look sickly yellow, and was kiboshed two weeks later.
* The TNA Legends Championship, which later became the Global Championship, then the Television Championship. Confused yet? This title, pretty much willed into existence by Booker T, is easily the most pointless, extraneous, and convoluted yet. It was loaded with bullshit rules that, among other things, prevented huge chunks of the roster from competing, much less getting the belt. Many of these rules were utterly arbitrary or based on things that could not be quantified, making the belt inherently pointless: for example, Eric Young, then a nigh-unknown, won it during the Legends era, when only "legends" could compete. Americans couldn't win the title in America during the Global period, but Rob Terry, a Welshman, won it in Wales, then lost it to AJ Styles, an American, in ''Florida.''
** It was then {{retcon}}ned into being the Television title, which would have to be defended each week, though that detail was quickly forgotten about. Rob only defended it five times total, the fifth on Pay-Per-View, before his contract expired. In the meantime it was passed between wrestlers for the most pointless of reasons. After Abyss won it at ''Slammiversary'' XI in June 2013, it wasn't referenced until Kurt Angle declared the title inactive on an episode of ''Impact'' the following year, despite it still being listed with the rest of the active titles on the website.
** In July 2015 it would resurface in the hands of Jeff Jarrett as "The King Of The Mountain" title and would have one more run in Global Force Wrestling during a talent exchange partnership, before being retired yet again and replaced with the GFW Grand Championship in '16. Thus ends the TNA Television Championship's confusing, contrived and nonsensical 8 year long odyssey. But you never know, it is TNA after all.
* Rob Van Dam won the TNA World Heavyweight Championship. RVD then says in an interview that he won't drop the title to anyone who didn't work in the Attitude Era, then compared himself and Jeff Hardy to rock stars and buried the roster in the process. Not so good. TNA nearly uses up all the guaranteed appearances for RVD in his contract, so they book him into an injury angle which lets him vacate the title without having to lose a match to anyone. (Made worse when he showed up a month later, completely peachy, on the same night they crowned a new champ!)
* The TNA Knockouts Championship deserves its own page given the amount of times the creative team have played hot potato with it. The infamous Lockbox fiasco was bad enough, but what's worse is that they counted both title reigns instead of just admitting their mistake. In 2012, when Wrestling/MadisonRayne beat Miss Tessmacher for the belt at ''Hardcore Justice'', She '''immediately dropped it back to Rayne''' on the following ''Impact'', seemingly for no reason but to put over Brooke Hogan and ex-WWE jobber Wrestling/{{T|arynTerrell}}iffany.
** The establishment of the Knockouts Tag Team Championship was a good idea, executed far too late. There are only nine people left in the division, and yet they still managed to get ''three people'' to hold the belt at the same time. TNA has lost six of their best Knockouts. The major storylines have only been driving the wedge further, with the whole Knockout division showing no real concept of priorities and a bounty on all the titles except the tag team one.
* Oh, and by the way, Eric Young is one of the final Tag Team champions, and he and ODB are the longest reigning champs in the belt's history (mostly because they never got screen time).

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Jeff Hardy, TNA Champion]]
A reign so inept, it deserves its own section.\\\

* Jeff Hardy debuted at TNA's anniversary show in 2004, which he and his then-girlfriend chose to spoil on the internet. In his first run in the company, Hardy no-showed two PPV events and had a habit of sleeping in during ''Impact'' tapings. Jeff also brought the "Hardy Party" -- a bunch of overweight, hair-dyed groupies who hung out with him after show was over -- to the Impact Zone. They typically hogged up the front row to watch Jeff's matches, and left when those matches ended. Universal Studios eventually banned the leader of the pack for a year when he shoved people in the crowd to get front row seats, which led to much rejoicing among non-Hardy Party members. On October 10th, 2010, Jeff Hardy wins the TNA World Heavyweight Title... after the title was vacated for what ended up being a pointless reason: a heel turn with no foreshadowing, and a replay of the formation of the nWo (said rehash being named Immortal), thus guaranteeing a certain tangerine-hued jackhole more air time.
** And it goes without mentioning that if you put the belt on a potential drug convict, then you shouldn't be surprised when he proceeds to remodel it into a silver Aztec sun belt. When you are competing against the #1 wrestling company in the world and you are turning your World Heavyweight Championship into secondary silver, you know you've found the right face for your company.
* OK, so we've gone a while with Jeff Hardy as champ. Even if you ignore the incredibly stupid stuff that got him there. The past couple pay-per views have had Matt Morgan and Hardy fight it out for the Championship. Then, at the Final Resolution pay-per-view on Sunday, Dec 5, 2010 Hardy shows up and is messed up, allegedly from [[BlatantLies traveling too much]]. Also, on Wednesday of that week he's got a court date where he is facing serious charges for possession of opiates and cocaine. So, might TNA have him drop the title in order to ensure that their World Champion not suddenly find himself in jail? No, they don't--they let him keep it, and then tape the next few weeks of Impact in advance so they can go on Christmas break.
* Angle went on a pointless one-month leave of absence in 2010, and then said that he would mow through the Top 10 Heavyweight Title contenders in order to prove that he was the best. TNA set up a tournament to decide on the champion, even though the Top 10 Contenders system was put up to avoid the need for such a tournament. Angle said that the next match he lost would result in his retirement. (Nobody bought it.) Angle wound up wrestling Jeff Hardy in the semifinals. This would've been a good match, but TNA ended it due to time expiring because they didn't want to have either man lose momentum. This set up Angle vs. Hardy vs. Anderson as the main event of ''Bound for Glory'', which Angle only avoided losing thanks to a contrivance.
* 2011 saw the return of Wrestling/{{Sting}}, who, at this point, had faded into obscurity. (His trailer ripped off the "2.21.11" tagline WWE used to hype Wrestling/TheUndertaker's return, to the point where many thought Sting was joining WWE.) On the night proper, Jeff Hardy defended his title against a mystery opponent (Sting) and lost, nullifying several storylines and teasing which most likely would have lead up to Hardy defending the title against somebody who didn't come out of nowhere.
* Advance one month to TNA's first PPV of 2011, ''Genesis'', on January 9, 2011. To start things off, Jeff Hardy was not billed as defending his title on the PPV at all. However, immediately after a mediocre #1 Contender Match that saw Ken Anderson defeat Matt Morgan, Eric Bischoff came out and announced the title match would occur immediately. Anderson then proceeded to no-sell two Twists of Hate and a Swanton Bomb (and Mr. Anderson was in the middle of a concussion storyline) before pinning Jeff Hardy for the title. All to cap off a PPV that's been largely derided as a contender for Worst PPV of 2011. Hilariously enough, Anderson wore Jeff Hardy's customized clown-shaped belt as TNA World Champion. What happened to the old belt? Eric Young found it in the trash (sounds about right) and now considers himself the TNA World Champion because this is exactly what your title needs to build legitimacy.
* As a prelude to ''Victory Road'', TNA officials almost pulled Jeff Hardy from the main event of ''Turning Point'' after they suspected him of being unfit. Hardy told officials he was just exhausted from being on the road. Matt Morgan was able to carry Hardy through a match, though Hardy spent a sizable portion of it laying on his back. On January 4th, TNA sent Beer Money, Rob Van Dam and Jeff Hardy to New Japan Pro Wrestling's ''Tokyo Dome'' show. While the Beer Money and Rob Van Dam matches were at least watchable, Jeff Hardy's TNA World Title defense against No Limit member Wrestling/TetsuyaNaito was crap-tastic. This was the last straw for NJPW, as they had previously had problems with TNA doing unauthorized IWGP title changes, not allowing IWGP titleholders to go on tours, and treating Kazuchika Okada like crap, and they cut all ties with TNA as a result.
** Jeff Hardy and Mr. Anderson wrestled each other in a Ladder Match: These two botched the finish to the point that it nearly killed them. Anderson fell off the ladder, Jeff reached out and got dragged over with him, and the two men clattered to the floor between the ladders. Jeff then got up and just yanked down the belt.
* ''Victory Road 2011'': In the now-infamous [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uTCHS8KHdE main event]], Sting defeated Jeff Hardy to retain the TNA World Heavyweight Championship in less than ninety seconds. Jeff came out to the ring looking exhausted and stumbling drunkenly around. (Bruce Prichard refers to it as "''Weekend At Bernies''"-bad because he saw two guys literally dragging Jeff around backstage.) The referee noticed Hardy flailing about and raised the "X" arm signal to call the thing off. Bischoff came out to make a last-minute audible (ostensibly telling Sting to end the match as quickly as possible). Sting then forced Hardy into the Scorpion Death Drop and pulled him into a pin, which Hardy actually struggled to get out of, as evidenced by scratch marks on Sting's neck. When fans started chanting "BULLSHIT" post-match, Sting turned to the crowd and yelled "I agree!" on camera. It was loud enough for even the home audience to hear. Because the PPV ended far earlier than expected, TNA played a recap of the PPV after the main event finished. That recap lasted longer than the actual main event. TNA also gave people who paid for the PPV a "refund" in the form of six months of free access to its On-Demand service.
** More specific to TNA's dysfunctional nature: They had a road agent meeting with Sting and Hardy to plan the match. If Jeff wasn't there for their meeting and wasn't seen all day then what did they think he was doing? Jeff just kept walking out of the building without anyone talking to him, suspending him officially, etc. According to Bruce, it might have been WEEKS before anyone from TNA talked to him in any official capacity. (Joke of an organization.) Why wasn't Jeff fired after this match? He was probably one of the top 5 merchandise sellers for TNA at the time. Losing him could have cut into their cash flow badly. (Difference between losing $5 million a year vs losing $6 million a year.)
** Sting wasted his sunset years in TNA when TNA was at its less than best. This was the same time Sting could've jumped to WWE for a match with Taker at Mania (remember the promos with the rainy cabin) and went to TNA ostensibly because he thought a title match with Hardy were worth it. His face says it all: Sting wasn't just disappointed in Jeff, he was disappointed with this whole damn business.
* As a post-script to all of this, Hardy returned to TNA later in the year (after his drug case had finally been settled) to begin a feud with Jeff Jarrett. Jarrett is the co-founder of the company, and in various promos done after Hardy's return, he ragged on Hardy and told the audience that nobody had any confidence in Hardy any more. Hardy -- who was not only allowed to work a match while he was in no shape to do so, but now has what amounts to a ''felony drug conviction'' on his record -- was ''cheered by TNA crowds upon his return'' (though how much of the cheering was real is debatable, since TNA is known for using "canned" crowd reactions on taped shows). To recap: Jeff Hardy, a perpetual fuck-up who very nearly gave TNA the worst PR black eye since Jesse Neal said he was on food stamps, is ''the good guy'' -- and Jeff Jarrett, one of the founders of TNA and a man with a vested personal interest in seeing the company succeed, is ''the bad guy''.
** Amusingly, the live audience for the ''Bound for Glory'' PPV may have shown how bad this return feud is. In a promo given by Jarrett where he berated Hardy for coming back to TNA, Hardy comes out (in a shirt with his own mugshot, which says a lot about his sense of humor or that he still isn't taking the whole "convicted for drug felony/ruining his career/ruining his reputation" thing seriously). They come to blows, and have to be separated by event security. So what gets the most heat in this? Cheers for Hardy "trying" to atone for his mistakes or Jarrett standing up for his company? Boos for Hardy being selfish or Jarrett for being a complaining heel? If you said the biggest moment was the crowd chanting for [[Wrestling/DLoBrown D'Lo Brown]], well, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=QmP8tQfu6Dk#t=239s you would be right]]. At this point, the only way this feud would be worse is if the two men fought for the right to use the name "Jeff", but [[OlderThanYouThink that's]] a [[Wrestling/VinceRusso ridiculous]] [[Wrestling/{{WCW}} idea]], [[Wrestling/BookerT right]]? This segment took 10+ minutes, time that could have been used for the main event which barely lasted 13 minutes. Then on the following ''Impact'', they had another confrontation which played out the same way, leaving many people wondering why they wasted time on this at the PPV if they were just going to do a rehash on free TV.
** The feud ended with Wrestling/{{Sting}} firing both Jeff and Karen Jarrett and giving Jeff Hardy a future title shot.
* Jeff Hardy is not allowed in the UK, due to his felony conviction. TNA, in their infinite wisdom, decided to keep advertising him for their 2013 UK tour anyway when tickets went on sale eight months beforehand. A few days before the tour is scheduled to begin, Hardy is pulled from it, with TNA citing an "injury" (which turned out to be caused by a Nancy Kerrigan-esque strike with a hammer, which was undersold like crazy). Normally this wouldn't be such a bad thing, but Hardy's still their world champ (despite TNA having had an opportunity to pull the title from him immediately before the "injury") and TNA's taping a month of Impact episodes on that tour, meaning that the world title won't be on Impact for a solid month. At the UK shows, his absence was not addressed beyond flyers. Nobody was fooled.
** What makes it worse is that immediately before he was {{kayfabe}} injured, Hardy defended his title against Wrestling/ChristopherDaniels, a man who (along with his tag team partner, Wrestling/FrankieKazarian) was one of the most entertaining performers in TNA during 2012. Not only that, Daniels is a longtime veteran of TNA who has always worked his ass off to give the fans a good show. If anybody ever deserved a run with the world title, it's Daniels. Prior to this, TNA seemed to want to keep the title on Hardy to keep him happy so he wouldn't go and sign with WWE. That's likely the reason they had the previous champ, Wrestling/AustinAries, drop it to him. Since Hardy wouldn't be able to visit the UK, however, there was no reason not to have him drop the title to Daniels (which would have made [[SmartMark smarks]] everywhere ''ecstatic'') right before the UK tour, let Daniels go into the UK as champ, and then have him drop the title back to Hardy immediately upon TNA's return to the United States. That way they could keep Hardy happy (probably), mollify the UK fans by at least giving them ''a'' world champion even if it wasn't the one advertised, and show some gratitude to a man who's done a lot for the company over the years. Instead? They let Hardy beat Daniels clean and then hog the belt for the next few weeks while doing absolutely nothing.
* With his contract expiring by the end of 2012, TNA did its best to make Jeff Hardy happy so that he would re-sign with them. This all took place while a restraining order was in place keeping WWE from signing TNA talent, as they previously saw with Matt Morgan. Fast-forward to ''Bound for Glory''. Are you thinking Bully Ray won? Samoa Joe? James Storm? Nope: Jeff Hardy won and became the #1 Contender. At the ''Impact'' prior to BFG, Austin Aries turned heel at the end of the show by taking a script out of his trunks, going against it, and shooting on Jeff. Ultimately, Jeff won the belt in a match where more than half of the audience was against him, partly due to TNA jumping the gun on Aries' heel turn.
* On the October 25th episode of Impact, Hulk Hogan told Jeff he would pick one of the following opponents for a title shot: Bully Ray, Kurt Angle, James Storm or Mr. Anderson. After leaving Hogan's office, the home audience actually heard Jeff's inner monologue on the possible opponents. Suspension of disbelief, what's that? (On that same episode, Mr. Anderson was challenged by Austin Aries and attacked Aries shortly thereafter. Before the segment ended, a production team member could clearly be heard saying "Cut! Ok!") Hardy's inner monologues, always delivered in the same bored monotone, would become a weekly thing for a while, prompting many a telepathy joke at Hardy and TNA's expense.
* After winning the world title, TNA allowed Hardy to carry around a custom belt around similar to the one he used in 2010, as well as holding the real world title belt. TNA never explained this (and neither did Jeff), though the reasoning was clear: make Jeff Hardy happy at all costs. Kicking off the first ''Impact'' of 2013 was the 2012 Impact Wrestler of the Year Award, with fans "voting" for the winner. Despite not doing much until being pushed to the moon so he would renew his contract, Jeff won it. Austin Aries against the decision, saying it was rigged. (At least TNA admitted it.)
* "The Road to Lockdown" U.K. tour was heavily promoted, but due to his felony drug conviction, then-TNA world champ Jeff Hardy was not permitted into the country. Instead of taking the opportunity to put the belt on another wrestler (e.g. Christopher Daniels, who Hardy wrestled right before the tour), TNA explained Hardy's absence from the tour and a month's worth of television with an "injury" caused by an attack from the Aces & Eights after the match with Daniels. TNA eventually revealed that Hardy wasn't actually injured and would be back after TNA returned to the US.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Dixie Carter]]
Dixie Carter shouldn't be allowed near anything bigger than an Etsy store or a lemonade stand; and even then, it's possible that in a few months, the lemonade stand would be several million dollars in debt and the subject of many legal battles.\\\

* After the public announcement of TNA signing of Hulk Hogan in October '09, the TNA locker room remained split over the decision. Dixie decided to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn13PwaRQ6s address the roster]] like a mother scolding her children while they sat in bleachers and watched (while also appearing to be bored out of their minds). The overall tone of the speech was "my way or the highway". Despite this being a briefing to TNA's employees and not a wrestling promo, a video of the speech actually opened an episode of ''Impact''. It was widely mocked and criticized by everyone who watched it.
* In 2012, TNA "pulled back the curtain" on the industry to coincide with ''Impact'' going live. The Gut Check suffered the worst of this as Taz, Prichard, and Snow were shown watching clips of Joey Ryan as they criticized him for his "gimmick" and being "in-character". (Dixie thought this would bring in fans of reality television.)
* Dixie Carter went back on her promise to never become an onscreen character. Her performances made Linda [=McMahon=] look like Meryl Streep in comparison. Aside from the Immortal thing which has already been covered, there was the Bad Influence storyline with AJ Styles in 2012 as well as her Dixieland heel turn in 2013.
** First for 2012. The angle began where [[Wrestling/FrankieKazarian Kazarian]] and Christopher Daniels tried to prove AJ was having an affair with Dixie, his boss, including a segment where AJ, professional athlete and all, was knocked out by Dixie's non-wrestler husband Serg. Faced with these accusations, AJ and Dixie decided to go public with the "actual" big secret a few months later. When AJ tried to convince Dixie not to reveal it (despite initially wanting to come clean in the first place?), a hysterical woman entered the ring. She identified herself as a pregnant drug addict trying to get clean with the help of AJ and Dixie. Fans reacted with predictable bewilderment as to who the pregnant junkie is and why they should care about her. At the end of the next episode, Daniels told Dixie that AJ had fathered the junkie's baby. TNA felt proud enough of this angle to praise Eric Bischoff for coming up with such a compelling twist and rewarded him with a raise.
** In later weeks, AJ challenged Daniels to a match in which AJ would own up to fathering Claire's baby if he lost, but take a paternity test if he won, à la Maury Povich. In the weeks to follow, Claire cut a heel promo in which she was supposed to be smoking a cigarette while pregnant. TNA abruptly ended the storyline when Julia Reilly — the actress who played Claire Lynch — left the company after fans found some of her other acting jobs on [=YouTube=] and left harsh criticism on her work. The whole thing turned out to be a wash as a result, as Claire's attorney (played by Janice Carter, Dixie's mother) informed everyone that Daniels paid Claire to make the whole story up, so it was never mentioned again. The angle ran away with Website/WrestleCrap's [[http://www.wrestlecrap.com/inductions/claire-lynch-the-2012-gooker-award-winner/ Gooker award for the year]]. (Photos eventually surfaced of Ms. Reilly at her day job: playing Olive Oyl at the Popeye ride in Universal Studios.)
** According to Bruce Prichard, the original plan for this was to reveal that AJ and Dixie were indeed having an affair, but it was nixed after Dixie's parents kept getting asked by friends at their country club if they had hooked up for real. Before Claire Lynch's involvement, the plan seemed to have been a surprise party for Serg (something supported by a doctored phone conversation which was later revealed in full on TNA's website), but that was never mentioned again, nor did Serg apologize for knocking AJ out.
** Cut to late 2013, during AJ Styles' contract negotiations, she responded to a blistering worked shoot promo by AJ calling her out on her nonsensical shambles of a long-term business philosophy (chasing away most of the home-grown talent by putting too much focus on outside saviors who would never stick around) with a heel turn that was so bad that [[http://www.wrestlecrap.com/inductions/induction-heel-dixie-carter-2013-gooker-winner-winner-turkey-dinner/ it won the 2013 Gooker]] by a landslide. That same year, Dixie got her very own action figure. TNA promoted the release on Twitter with a contest to take pictures with the figurine; responses included the figure at the inaugural NXT PPV and being stood on by a Vince [=McMahon=] figure. According to Bruce Prichard, Dixie wanted commercials to promote her action figure, and that they went to a strip club and put the action figure next to a pole. And speaking of Vince [=McMahon=], Dixie's lame attempt to be a Vince-like heel figure, despite playing on things that are unfortunately said to be true about her behind the scenes, did nothing more than contribute to the MotiveDecay of the Wrestling/AcesAndEights as well as completely ruin the main event surge of her Dixieland stable's heel centerpiece Nick "Magnus" Aldis, whose undisputed championship match with AJ to send the latter out of the company saw Magnus infamously require a nine-member gang of heels to beat AJ while keeping Sting down and not hit a single offensive move in the entire match.
** This all led to [[Wrestling/MontelVontaviousPorter MVP]]'s arrival in TNA as a "new investor" in 2014 intending to keep Heel!Dixie from abusing her power over the company. In the lead-in to his introduction, Dixie outright admitted she had no idea who had been investing in her company, despite him having been said to have invested for months at that point. After his team beat hers at Lockdown to take power over wrestling operations, he initially supported Eric Young as he beat Magnus and became the World Champion, but was turned heel a little while later to take his own shot at Young for the belt, becoming the very same person he was meant to stop. Despite this, Dixie returned to television after a month and was still a very prominent part of Impact, antagonizing Bully Ray for turning against her team as the guest referee at Lockdown and pushing him through a table to help Wrestling/EC3 beat him. Comparisons to WWE's [[Wrestling/TheAuthority Authority]], an already miserable stable, were inevitable, at least before MVP's schemes saw him abuse his directing power to the point of sacrificing it so that Lashley could become World Champion on the Impact after ''Slammiversary''. Eventually Dixie was taken off-screen by being sent through a table by Team 3D — and yes, two men sending a woman through a table was a ''celebrated highlight in TheNewTens'' simply because of how absolutely horrible she was — and the MVP stable was salvaged by him becoming a competent supporting mouthpiece to a credible world champion without the authority over the product.
* Russo left TNA in February 2012. In 2014, after months of rumors and denials, he was confirmed to be working for TNA as a consultant when he accidentally cc'd an email to ''[=PWInsider=]''. After trying to spin it as a swerve on his Twitter, Russo [[http://i.imgur.com/MFxZfw5.jpg came clean on his website]], an admission he'd soon delete as well. But in trying to keep Russo's job a secret, TNA also had to lie to the roster and its business partners about his involvement. Not long after this came to light, news came out that Spike had pulled the plug on their association with TNA. Not only did Dixie lie to damn near everyone about bringing Russo back, she was determined to lie about being cancelled, as she reportedly told everyone that TNA was voluntarily leaving Spike due to lack of promotion. In a true scumbag move, people in the TNA front office told indie promoters to wait until the Monday after the news broke to book TNA talent, as "they'd likely be cheaper" then. Just when people thought it was over, the cockroach of professional wrestling found a new home to infest: Destination America. It was later revealed that Viacom was willing to keep TNA around and transition them to CMT, another network under their umbrella, but Dixie jumped into bed with Destination America after being promised multiple shows.
** Those "multiple shows" mentioned above were quickly cancelled due to poor ratings, and Destination America would boot TNA after just over a year. Besides ratings issues, their decision was influenced by difficulties with Dixie, who sent an email ranting about unmentioned DVR numbers (Dixie had attempted to inflate viewer numbers by demanding that DVR numbers be incorporated into them) and deriding Destination America and Discovery Networks (which Destination America belongs to) executives as "dummies", accidentally CC'ing at least one of those executives in the process. She would also no-show a quarterly meeting with the network the week afterward.
* An infamous promo after ''Bound for Glory 2009'', where she told the roster to "step it up" and improve their game, in a time when TNA was working to restore itself and had been putting on rather good shows and matches. Then came the four-sided ring: Carter was promised a new Monday Night War and big money in exchange for handing creative control of her company over to Bischoff and Hogan. Any amount of research beyond "''Hulk Hogan! I know that name!''" would have made her think twice.
* Severe talent and money mismanagement. In interviews, she always goes on about how [[{{Hypocrite}} loyalty is important in TNA]] when she's never shown any of that to the roster. Wrestling/TaylorWilde admitted as Knockouts Champion that her pay was so marginal she had to work a second job (as did several others), and Jesse Neal qualified for food stamps to support himself and his fiancée. Even Gail Kim was paid not even a third of what WWE had offered to pay her in 2008, during her amazing feud with [[Wrestling/KiaStevens Awesome Kong]].
** [[http://www.cagesideseats.com/2011/7/12/2272422/nightmares-in-nashville This article is one defining example of how abysmally poor Dixie is at managing TNA]].
** Most of the money that ''should'' go to the wrestlers goes to a bunch of Z-list celebrities and past-their-prime wrestlers who don't add anything to the product -- Hulk Hogan in particular was paid $140,000 a month - more than most guys on the roster make year-round; Jenna Morasca, who competed in '''that''' ''Victory Road'' match, was paid $500,000 during her time in TNA; and J-Woww from ''Series/JerseyShore'', who showed up for one night to stink up the joint, was paid $10,000 at a minimum. While J-Woww and the other ''Jersey Shore'' cast members originally encouraged curious fans to tune into TNA before watching their show, this crosspromotion was quickly rendered pointless when her segment was pushed back due to the neverending introduction of Immortal and actually ended up in the same timeslot as ''Jersey Shore'' itself. Despite this, TNA would try to bring her back to feud with another ''Jersey Shore'' cast member, Angelina Pivarnick. Pivarnick got $7000 to be in what turned out to be the lowest rated segment of the Impact she participated in.
** Jesse Sorensen's case is a notable one. He was signed in 2011, being built up as a strong contender to Austin Aries' X Division Championship. But then at the 2012 edition of ''Against All Odds'', Jesse got his neck damaged by a top-rope moonsault from Zema Ion. This caused panic among his fans and family, fearing he would never walk again. Soon after, Dixie approached Jesse's mother, assuring her that TNA would take care of the situation. But it was not to be: She never did anything about it, leaving Jesse and his family to pay his medical bills, which amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars. While he was still employed in TNA's management, his pay was so low that he had to work two different jobs as well, just so he could cover the expenses. His mother had to sell her restaurant and file for bankruptcy. And then Jesse was [[ShaggyDogStory fired in 2013]] because of budget cuts. All this while Hulk Hogan, his daughter Brooke, and Eric Bischoff were being paid $35,000 a week. With a company that treats the people who work for and sacrifice their bodies for them that way, the hopes for them going out of business aren't without merit.
* [[http://411mania.com/wrestling/new-details-on-tnas-possible-investorsbuyers/ Her business plan to get TNA more investors]] was to offer them 10% of TNA's shares for investing so she can keep the controlling stake. That's basically asking people to donate money — something no one is going to do thanks to Dixie's history of terrible business decisions.
** You'd think that once [[Music/TheSmashingPumpkins Billy Corgan]] took over, things would get better, right? Not a chance. It was revealed that TNA is 3.4 million dollars in debt, and they're getting sued from all sides. Taxes, credit card bills, hell, '''Corgan himself sued her and the company!''' While Corgan lost the case, this resulted in Dixie finally, '''''finally''''' being ousted from being in charge of TNA, as she sold majority ownership to Anthem Sports and Entertainment (the owners of Fight Network and partial owners of the Pursuit channel, which they'd move Impact to in 2019), who left her with a '''''5%''''' ownership of the company and a token position within the company as far away from any actual corporate decision making as her only remaining tie to it. Bye, Felicia.
[[/folder]]
----

* TNA held a "Reverse Battle Royal" in which half the roster fought ''outside'' of the ring in order to get ''into'' the ring. Once the set number of people had entered, they competed in an actual battle royal until two people remained (at which point the battle royal turned into a one-on-one match). Despite being widely lauded as one of the worst matches of that (or any) year, TNA held another one sometime later.

* On the January 4, 2010 edition of ''Impact'' (which started a multi-week run of the show airing on Mondays against ''Raw''), an X-Division Asylum match opened the show. To win the match, one of the participants had to climb up the domed cage structure and through the hole on the top. The cage's blinding red color made it nearly impossible to see anything going on in the ring, and even if you could see anything, the incompetent cameramen missed every single spot. Homicide attempted to climb out of the cage, but when he failed, he dropped down to the ring and hit everyone with a baton, causing a cage match to end in a No Contest. This resulted in very loud "THIS IS BULLSHIT" chants from the audience. TNA did this as its first salvo in a "New Monday Night War".

* Derek Graham-Couch (aka Robbie, one-half of WWE tag team The Highlanders) attended a live ''Impact'' in March 2008. He had been backstage visiting some friends and stuck around to watch them perform. TNA deliberately decided to show Robbie onscreen (they used his real name to avoid a trademark suit), and when he noticed, he tried to hide himself to no avail. Tenay and West proceeded to brag about a WWE jobber being in the crowd, until a WWE official called Robbie and told him to leave the arena. This happened right before ''[=WrestleMania=]'' (which was that weekend in Orlando), so both Robbie and his tag team partner lost their ''[=WrestleMania=]'' bonus as punishment. WWE kept The Highlanders off TV for months, and the team was eventually released later in the year. TNA also gloated about this on their website until a good amount of the TNA roster demanded that it be taken down.
* TNA approached [[UsefulNotes/SarahPalin Governor Palin]] to make a guest-appearance, but she declined, so someone hired {{Wrestling/Daffney|Unger}} as a Palin lookalike. After the election, she was shunted off to the Knockouts division as a comedy jobber. TNA then signed Rosie Lottalove (Betsy Ruth), an obese Knockout fresh out of Team 3D's wrestling school, and gave her a tryout match with Daffney. Rosie seriously injured Daffney in the match by sitting on her face, but TNA hired Rosie anyway. She wrestled a few more matches for the company before they released her (because she was terrible). TNA refused to pay for Daffney's medical bills as well as a barbwire board shot she had suffered a few months earlier (because TNA is terrible). Daffney filed a lawsuit as a result, which was eventually settled out of court a day before the case was supposed to start (because the American legal system is terrible). The Daffney incident was a huge black eye for Dixie Carter and all of TNA management: they put the blame on Terry Taylor, Head of Talent Relations and one of Dixie's known stooges. TNA released Taylor and replaced him with Bruce Prichard.
** TNA subjected the Knockouts to the Lock Box Challenge on an episode of ''Impact''. Early in the night, the Knockouts fought for keys that would open boxes in which a Knockout could win one of four "prizes": an open contract for a match of their choosing, Tara's pet tarantula, the "right" to perform a striptease in the ring (or be fired), or the Knockouts Championship. Wrestling/AngelinaLove unlocked the box with the title and became champion as a result. [[Wrestling/LisaMarieVaron Tara]] unlocked the box with her tarantula; she was forced to treat it like it was more important than the title (Apparently Russo and his cohorts didn't learn from the infamous '49ers Match from 2000, in which Booker T won the WCW World Heavyweight Championship out of a box.) Meaning that not only could the champion lose the title without being pinned, but she could also lose it ''despite winning the match''. Which is exactly what happened to Tara. She may have been able to win back Poison, but she lost her title to Angelina Love to basically the luck of the draw! Daffney unlocked the striptease, but was attacked by Lacey Wrestling/{{Von Erich|Family}} midway through. Lacey, who had indicated earlier in the show that she wanted to do the striptease despite not even being in the match, then obliviously started stripping as a brawl erupted around her.
** Oh, and the whole "unlocking" segment closed the show. The contract allowed the holder to book any match of their choosing. For some reason, Wrestling/VelvetSky booked herself into a non-title match with the reigning Knockouts Champion. ODB's infamous "''What is happening to our division?!''" tweet was sent during this angle.

** It was then {{retcon}}ned into being the Television title, which would have to be defended each week, though that detail was quickly forgotten about. Rob only defended it five times total, the fifth on Pay-Per-View, before his contract expired. In the meantime it was passed between wrestlers for the most pointless of reasons. After Abyss won it at ''Slammiversary'' XI in June 2013, it wasn't referenced until Kurt Angle declared the title inactive on an episode of ''Impact'' the following year.
** In July 2015 it would resurface in the hands of Jeff Jarrett as "The King Of The Mountain" title and would have one more runin Global Force Wrestling during a talent exchange partnership, before being retired yet again and replaced with the GFW Grand Championship in '16. Thus ends the TNA Television Championship's confusing, contrived and nonsensical 8 year long odyssey. But you never know, it is TNA after all.

** That's 6/14, less than 50%. And only two enjoyed lasting employment so less than 10%. What's even worse than all this? Go look on the [[https://web.archive.org/web/20150203054433/http://tnagutcheck.com/contestants/gut-check-participants/ Gut Check website]] at the sheer amount of talent that had tried out yet got turned down. For those who follow indie wrestling and recognize even some of the names, this is teeth-grindingly horrible.

** After returning in March, Sting turned heel and began spouting off cryptic nonsense every week. He donned the red Wolfpac facepaint to boot. Sting was also in the worst shape of his entire career, forcing him to wear a t-shirt in every match. He was supposed to warn us about the formation of the Immortal faction, but TNA dragged it out for over half a year. By the time everything came to fruition, nobody cared. Sting then spent an entire year trying to wrest control of TNA away from Hogan and back into the hands of Dixie. In 2012, Sting began campaigning for Hulk Hogan to run TNA again, so Sting could step down from the position and wrestle again. Yes, after nearly a full year of Sting and Dixie Carter challenging Hulk and finally taking the reigns of power from him, they gave it right back to him a few months later. To make matters worse, ''Lockdown'' 2012's hype revolved around this storyline instead of the long-awaited Storm v. Roode.
* Wrestling/RobVanDam debuted in ridiculous fashion: after being revealed as a mystery opponent for Sting, the excitement was killed stone dead when Sting grabbed a baseball bat and delivered a beatdown lasting nearly ten minutes. Sting then hit Hogan with the bat to end the segment, leaving the focus squarely on Sting and Hogan. Way to debut a big name acquisition. (Post-show dirtsheets revealed Sting was rehabbing from shoulder surgery and Hogan was late to the ring, so facepalms all around.)

** Some believe Hogan gave Roode the shaft so Hogan's big face turn wouldn't be overshadowed by the most-anticipated title change in TNA's history. The following episode of ''Impact'' featured less than 7 minutes of actual wrestling. (A similar thing happened with the ''Impact'' following ''Bound for Glory'' 2010.) The opening video package focused specifically on Hogan vs. Sting, and nobody made any mention of anything else that happened at BFG. TNA also aired two video packages dedicated to Hogan vs. Sting after commercial breaks. The episode's overall rating was a 1.35 . While TNA did earn its highest TV rating of the year with this show, the rating only tied ''Impact''[='=]s overall highest all-time rating. Back on Twitter, Bischoff crowed, "''Ever notice how the shows that the dirt sites put over get the lowest ratings and the ones they bury get the highest? hmmmm.''" The next episode of ''Impact'' dropped back down to normal ratings levels, meaning TNA lost whatever buzz it had post-''Bound for Glory'' because of this episode.

* ''Victory Road 2011'': In the now-infamous main event, Sting defeated Jeff Hardy to retain the TNA World Heavyweight Championship in less than ninety seconds. Jeff came out to the ring looking exhausted and stumbling drunkenly around. (Bruce Prichard refers to it as "''Weekend At Bernies''"-bad because he saw two guys literally dragging Jeff around backstage.) The referee noticed Hardy flailing about and raised the "X" arm signal to call the thing off. Bischoff came out to make a last-minute audible (ostensibly telling Sting to end the match as quickly as possible). Sting then forced Hardy into the Scorpion Death Drop and pulled him into a pin, which Hardy actually struggled to get out of, as evidenced by scratch marks on Sting's neck. When fans started chanting "BULLSHIT" post-match, Sting turned to the crowd and yelled "I agree!" on camera. It was loud enough for even the home audience to hear. Because the PPV ended far earlier than expected, TNA played a recap of the PPV after the main event finished. That recap lasted longer than the actual main event. TNA also gave people who paid for the PPV a "refund" in the form of six months of free access to its On-Demand service.

* After winning the world title, TNA let Hardy to carry around a custom belt around similar to the one he used in 2010, as well as holding the real world title belt. TNA never explained this (and neither did Jeff), though the reasoning was clear: make Jeff Hardy happy at all costs. Kicking off the first ''Impact'' of 2013 was the 2012 Impact Wrestler of the Year Award, with fans "voting" for the winner. Despite not doing much until being pushed to the moon so he would renew his contract, Jeff won it. Austin Aries against the decision, saying it was rigged. (At least TNA admitted it.)

** This all led to [[Wrestling/MontelVontaviousPorter MVP]]'s arrival in TNA as a "new investor" in 2014 intending to keep Heel!Dixie from abusing her power over the company. After his team beat hers at Lockdown to take power over wrestling operations, he initially supported Eric Young as he beat Magnus and became the World Champion, but was turned heel a little while later to take his own shot at Young for the belt, becoming the very same person he was meant to stop. Despite this, Dixie was still a very prominent part of Impact, antagonizing Bully Ray for turning against her team as the guest referee at Lockdown and pushing him through a table to help Wrestling/EC3 beat him. Comparisons to WWE's [[Wrestling/TheAuthority Authority]], an already miserable stable, were inevitable, at least before MVP's schemes saw him abuse his directing power to the point of sacrificing it so that Lashley could become World Champion. Eventually Dixie was taken off-screen by being sent through a table by Team 3D — and yes, two men sending a woman through a table was a ''celebrated highlight in TheNewTens'' simply because of how absolutely horrible she was — and the MVP stable was salvaged by him becoming a competent supporting mouthpiece to a credible world champion without the authority over the product.
* Russo left TNA in February 2012. In 2014, after months of rumors and denials, he was confirmed to be working for TNA as a consultant when he accidentally cc'd an email to ''[=PWInsider=]''. After trying to spin it as a swerve on his Twitter, Russo came clean. But in trying to keep Russo's job a secret, TNA also had to lie to the roster and its business partners about his involvement. Not long after this came to light, news came out that Spike had pulled the plug on their association with TNA. Not only did Dixie lie to damn near everyone about bringing Russo back, she was determined to lie about being cancelled, as she reportedly told everyone that TNA was voluntarily leaving Spike due to lack of promotion. In a true scumbag move, people in the TNA front office told indie promoters to wait until the Monday after the news broke to book TNA talent, as "they'd likely be cheaper" then. Just when people thought it was over, the cockroach of professional wrestling found a new home to infest: Destination America.

* Severe talent and money mismanagement. In interviews, she always goes on about how [[{{Hypocrite}} loyalty is important in TNA]] when she's never shown any of that to the roster. Wrestling/TaylorWilde admitted as Knockouts Champion that her pay was so marginal she had to work a second job, and Jesse Neal qualified for food stamps to support himself and his fiancée. Even Gail Kim was paid not even a third of what WWE had offered to pay her in 2008, during her amazing feud with [[Wrestling/KiaStevens Awesome Kong]].

** Most of the money that ''should'' go to the wrestlers goes to a bunch of Z-list celebrities and past-their-prime wrestlers who don't add anything to the product -- Hulk Hogan in particular was paid $140,000 a month - more than most guys on the roster make year-round; Jenna Morasca, who competed in '''that''' ''Victory Road'' match, was paid $500,000 during her time in TNA; and J-Woww from ''Series/JerseyShore'', who showed up for one night to stink up the joint, was paid $10,000 at a minimum. J-Woww also encouraged any curious fans on Twitter to watch ''Jersey Shore'' on MTV instead of tuning in to see her on Spike. Despite this, TNA would try to bring her back to feud with another ''Jersey Shore'' cast member, Angelina Pivarnick. Pivarnick got $7000 to be in what turned out to be the lowest rated segment of the Impact she participated in.

* [[http://411mania.com/wrestling/new-details-on-tnas-possible-investorsbuyers/ Her business plan to get TNA more investors]] is to offer them 10% of TNA's shares for investing so she can keep the controlling stake. That's basically asking people to donate money — something no one is going to do thanks to Dixie's history of terrible business decisions.
** You'd think that once [[Music/TheSmashingPumpkins Billy Corgan]] took over, things would get better, right? Not a chance. It was revealed that TNA is 3.4 million dollars in debt, and they're getting sued from all sides. Taxes, credit card bills, hell, '''Corgan himself sued her and the company!''' While Corgan lost the case, this resulted in Dixie finally, '''''finally''''' being ousted from being in charge of TNA, as she sold majority ownership to Anthem Sports and Entertainment (the owners of Fight Network), who left her with a '''''5%''''' ownership of the company and a token position within the company as far away from any actual corporate decision making as her only remaining tie to it. Bye, Felicia.

** The very first ''Lockdown'' is remembered for playing host to Wrestling/ChrisCandido's last match. In the opening match of the show, Candido landed wrong after taking a dropkick from Sonny Siaki and fractured several bones in his leg. He died days later of a blood clot stemming from surgery on his leg. TNA refused to pay the money it owed Candido to his then-girlfriend/common law wife Wrestling/TammyLynnSytch (which was technically legal, since they were not officially married). Terry Taylor eventually sent her a ham dinner as a condolence gift.
** To further exploit Candido's death for fun and profit (especially profit), TNA held a tournament for the "Candido Cup". [[Wrestling/XPac Sean Waltman]] and Alex Shelley won the tourney, but Waltman no-showed the PPV where he and Shelley were entered into a four-way for the tag titles. Candido's brother Johnny was subbed in at the PPV as Shelley's partner. (They didn't win.)
* TNA brought in Jenna Morasca, a reality show contestant who'd won ''{{Series/Survivor}}'' six years earlier, for a couple of months. She stuck around the Main Event Mafia and did absolutely nothing, then antagonized the hell out of Sharmell and ended up booked against her at ''Victory Road 2009.'' After eight agonizing minutes of two non-wrestlers delivering one of the worst in-ring performances in women's wrestling history (or wrestling history, period), ''[[Wrestling/TheWrestlingObserverNewsletter The Wrestling Observer]]'' gave it a "'''MINUS! FIVE!! STARS!!!'''" rating, and the match soon found its way into ''Website/{{Botchamania}}'' (which later included a clip of this match in their intro) and [=420chan's=] ''Disasterpiece Theatre''. TNA reportedly paid Morasca half a million dollars for her TNA appearances. Soon after, TNA reportedly rejected a small pay raise for Wrestling/GailKim, which led her to leave for WWE.

* The Christmas episode had Wrestling/{{Abyss}}, Black Reign, Rellik, and (for some reason) Shark Boy competing in a "Silent Night, Bloody Night" Match. This hardcore match featured a barbed-wire Christmas Tree with presents underneath that contained weapons. The Christmas Tree was suspended from the ceiling like a pendulum and was hyped as the most effective weapon. All four competitors initially ignored the tree and ran right for the gifts. At one point, Abyss unwrapped a barbed-wire baseball bat and responded with glee despite having an entire fucking tree made of barbed wire right next to him. Because the tree was hanging from the ceiling and had nothing anchoring it down, it swung all over the place. Shark Boy was struck by the tree as soon as it came into play...and the tree casually bounced off of him. Regardless, a highlight of the match was when the tree was swung into the corner and Black Reign had to hug the tree to keep it from bouncing off of him, as well.

## The first edition of Gut Check featured the aforementioned Alex Silva. After jobbing to Robbie E, his performance was graded by Bruce Prichard, Wrestling/AlSnow, and Wrestling/RicFlair in a segment that could best be described as ''American Idol'' meets ''Tough Enough''. The plan for this segment was to have Flair and Prichard give Silva the thumbs down, but Flair deviated halfway through. Nonetheless, Silva was kept in OVW after his signing, made a few other appearances, and was fired just before several other Gut Check contestants. Flair's antics caused TNA to pull him off the Gut Check judging, and Flair ended up leaving the promotion soon after. He was replaced by Taz, which only furthered the similarities to ''Tough Enough''.

## Evan Markopolous' selling point was "He's only 18 years old!" He and Kris Lewie (the absolute worst of the lot) put on what could easily have been called one of the worst matches in TNA history. Both were released.

## Brian Cage: turned down

* The acquisition of Adam "[=Pacman=]" Jones, a pro-football player who got suspended from the NFL after he paralyzed a man in a strip club shooting. He was only signed because Wrestling/JeffJarrett was a huge fan of his team. Contractual obligations related to the above suspension meant he couldn't do any wrestling; all he did was toss a football before tagging in his partner, [[Wrestling/RonKillings Ron "The Truth" Killings]]. Despite all this, he was still paid through the nose and even got the Tag Team Championship belt.

** Anyone remember the summer of 2013 when the Main Event Mafia feuded with the Aces and Eights? Remember when TNA added Rampage Jackson into MEM, and that video teasing August 1st which was the debut of someone new in TNA? Do you then remember that person being [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRAdWcfpM_Y Tito Ortiz?]] Yup, Tito joining the Aces and Eights was just a stunt for their upcoming fight in Bellator. This is why both of them got pulled from TNA to avoid injury. The kicker? Tito got injured anyway, making everything involving these them pointless.
* This wasn't TNA's first attempt at having the Main Event Mafia "regrouping", just the first that wasn't simultaneously much-hyped and mishandled. Back in 2011, TNA were advertising the MEM's return and even had Wrestling/ScottSteiner make his triumphant return to TNA the week before the reveal. In the meantime, however, TNA had not secured the contract of Wrestling/BookerT, kept fumbling with Wrestling/{{Sting}}'s (see below), and they granted Wrestling/KevinNash his release for whatever reason, allowing Booker and Nash to make their even more-triumphant returns to WWE at the ''Wrestling/RoyalRumble'' three days after the Steiner return aired. This of course, left TNA scrambling for alternates at the eleventh hour, and they instead pulled a face turn with Fortune (which was a better move for the company anyway, as it put four TNA originals in the spotlight for a change). Of course, this would have made more sense if TNA had not ran a segment where Crimson choked out AJ in the back, as well as another backstage segment in which Kurt Angle completely waffled Styles with a baseball bat.
** The last-minute switch from the MEM to Fortune had the unfortunate side-effect of castrating the Immortal [[PowerStable super-stable]]. By removing Styles, [[Wrestling/FrankieKazarian Kazarian]], and Beer Money, the only active wrestlers left in Immortal were Jeff Hardy, Matt Hardy, Jeff Jarrett, Abyss, Rob Terry, and Gunner and Murphy. In addition to losing the talent of the team, Kaz and Beer Money were the X-Division and Tag Team champions respectively, which means that there was no payoff to Immortal losing those belts, and the ramifications of Immortal losing the belts was hardly even brought up, if at all. On a side note, Kazarian won the belt from Wrestling/JayLethal after [[DudeNotFunny completely disrespecting Jay's entire family]], and not even a month later, Kazarian became a card-carrying babyface. It also forced Ric Flair to speed through an angle which would have made sense running over several weeks; what resulted was him icing all the members of Fortune in the back, then costing AJ Styles a match in the very next segment of the show. You would think Flair would have a harder time backstabbing the stable he created in the image of Wrestling/TheFourHorsemen!

** TNA hired radio host/Howard Stern wannabe/(now-former) friend of Hogan "Bubba the Love Sponge" as the show's interviewer. He used the whole show to get himself over, as opposed to the people he was supposed to be interviewing. Wrestling/MickFoley spent the whole show trying to get into the Impact Zone despite security doing its best to keep him out -- all while other uninvited guests (including Wrestling/ScottHall, Sean Waltman, and the Nasty Boys) managed to get in with little problem. Hall and Waltman actually attacked security (and were not punished for doing so), while Bubba the Love Sponge ran interference for -- get this -- the Nasty Boyz.

* Hogan and Bischoff opened ''Genesis 2010'' by introducing the traditional four-sided ring. The crowd shit all over the entire segment, loudly chanting "WE WANT SIX SIDES", as it furthered TNA's degeneration into a WWE knockoff. Hogan responded by burying TNA's history (much like he did on January 4th with Jarrett), which resulted in more boos. Hogan and Bischoff resorted to insulting [=Vince McMahon=] so the fans would cheer again. No one on the roster was informed of the ring change prior to their arrival at the arena. This was gross negligence on TNA's part, as matches had to be changed to accommodate the new ring and injuries may have resulted from the roster not being prepared for the switch. The change was made to appeal to the new talent Dixie hired (Hogan).

## During a radio interview, Hulk Hogan claimed with a straight face that Abyss was the next John Cena. (In this same interview, Bischoff decided to bash Wrestling/ChrisJericho and say that he never drew a dime.) Abyss became Hulk Hogan's buddy on TV following that interview, and Hogan rewarded Abyss with his WWE Hall of Fame ring. While Abyss was holding the ring, he was imbued with Hulk's personality. But if that wasn't bad enough, Ric Flair got into this feud, too -- which led to a match where he challenged Hogan and Abyss to put Hogan's Hall of Fame ring against Flair's. That's right: TNA hyped up a main event match where the main prize was possession of two WWE Hall of Fame rings. After Hogan and Abyss earned Flair's ring, they gave it to Jay Lethal. Jay Lethal was promptly given a push against Flair and got quite over...only for Creative to run out of ideas and send him straight back into the X-Division (and jobbing to Robbie E). He was eventually released a few months later, which pissed off much of the roster.

** Ric Flair admitted to having sex with a horse during a promo on the November 18th episode of ''Impact''. On that same episode, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SapQIU601is Hogan cut an promo dripping with hypocrisy]]. ("If you don't draw money, you get fired around here.") He destroyed the fourth wall, said they were throwing kayfabe out the window, said "34 fake titles" mean nothing, and buried Team [=3D=] (the winners of every major Tag Team Championship in American pro wrestling and then some). Once ''Victory Road'' '11 came along and Jeff Hardy made an ass of himself, Hogan chose Bully Ray of Team [=3D=] to push as the next big thing.

** The 2013 edition of the Gut Check saw the judges decide between Ivelisse Velez and Lei'd Tapa. Despite having the majority of the offense during their match, big pops from the fans, and name recognition from her run on ''Tough Enough'', the judges picked Tapa over Velez. This was met with boos from the fans in attendance, who probably would've booed harder if they'd known that Tapa was the niece of one of Hogan's good friends (Wrestling/TheBarbarian).

** Hogan's final appearance on TNA saw the Hulkster quit the company, and when he tried to leave, a crying Dixie clutched at his leg and begged him to stay. Rumors have it that Hogan invoked a creative control clause so that he wouldn't have to put TNA over on his way out. Bischoff himself was removed from the creative process soon after Hogan's departure, and his contract was allowed to expire.

** It was then {{retcon}}ned into being the Television title, which would have to be defended each week. Rob only defended it five times total, the fifth on Pay-Per-View, before his contract expired. In the meantime it was passed between wrestlers for the most pointless of reasons. After Abyss won it at ''Slammiversary'' XI in June 2013, it wasn't referenced until Kurt Angle declared the title inactive on an episode of ''Impact'' the following year.

* Rob Van Dam won the TNA World Heavyweight Championship. RVD then says in an interview that he won't drop the title to anyone who didn't work in the Attitude Era. Not so good. TNA nearly uses up all the guaranteed appearances for RVD in his contract, so they book him into an injury angle which lets him vacate the title without having to lose a match to anyone. (Made worse when he showed up a month later, completely peachy, on the same night they crowned a new champ!)

* As a prelude to ''Victory Road'', TNA officials almost pulled Jeff Hardy from the main event of ''Turning Point'' after they suspected him of being unfit. Hardy told officials he was just exhausted from being on the road. Matt Morgan was able to carry Hardy through a match, though Hardy spent a sizable portion of it laying on his back. On January 4th, TNA sent Beer Money, Rob Van Dam and Jeff Hardy to New Japan Pro Wrestling's ''Tokyo Dome'' show. While the Beer Money and Rob Van Dam matches were at least watchable, Jeff Hardy's TNA World Title defense against No Limit member Wrestling/TetsuyaNaito was crap-tastic. NJPW cut all of its ties with TNA as a result.

* ''Victory Road 2011'': In the now-infamous main event, Sting defeated Jeff Hardy to retain the TNA World Heavyweight Championship in less than ninety seconds. Jeff came out to the ring looking exhausted and stumbling drunkenly around. (Prichard refers to it as "''Weekend At Bernies''"-bad because he saw two guys literally dragging Jeff around backstage.) The referee noticed Hardy flailing about and raised the "X" arm signal to call the thing off. Bischoff came out to make a last-minute audible (ostensibly telling Sting to end the match as quickly as possible). Sting then forced Hardy into the Scorpion Death Drop and pulled him into a pin, which Hardy actually struggled to get out of, as evidenced by scratch marks on Sting's neck. When fans started chanting "BULLSHIT" post-match, Sting turned to the crowd and yelled "I agree!" on camera. It was loud enough for even the home audience to hear. Because the PPV ended far earlier than expected, TNA played a recap of the PPV after the main event finished. That recap lasted longer than the actual main event. TNA also gave people who paid for the PPV a "refund" in the form of six months of free access to its On-Demand service.

** The feud ended with Wrestling/{{Sting}} firing both Jeff and Karren Jarrett and giving Jeff Hardy a future title shot.

* After the public announcement of TNA signing of Hulk Hogan in October '09, the TNA locker room remained split over the decision. Dixie decided to address the roster like a mother scolding her children while they sat in bleachers and watched (while also appearing to be bored out of their minds). The overall tone of the speech was "my way or the highway". Despite this being a briefing to TNA's employees and not a wrestling promo, a video of the speech actually opened an episode of ''Impact''. It was widely mocked and criticized by everyone who watched it.

** Jesse Sorensen's case is a notable one. He was signed in 2011, being built up as a strong contender to Austin Aries's X Division Championship. But then at the 2012 edition of ''Against All Odds'', Jesse got his neck damaged by a top-rope moonsault from Zema Ion. This caused panic among his fans and family, fearing he would never walk again. Soon after, Dixie approached Jesse's mother, assuring her that TNA would take care of the situation. But it was not to be: She never did anything about it, leaving Jesse and his family to pay his medical bills, which amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars. While he was still employed in TNA's management, his pay was so low that he had to work two different jobs as well, just so he could cover the expenses. His mother had to sell her restaurant and file for bankruptcy. And then Jesse was [[ShaggyDogStory fired in 2013]] because of budget cuts. All this while Hulk Hogan, his daughter Brooke, and Eric Bischoff were being paid $35,000 a week. With a company that treats the people who work for and sacrifice their bodies for them that way, the hopes for them going out of business aren't without merit.

** Homicide delivered a brutal unprotected chairshot to the head of Rob Terry (which also busted Terry open without him having to blade) as a means of putting Terry over as a monster. The segment caused controversy since it aired two days after the suicide of Wrestling/ChrisKanyon, which many speculated was linked to concussions suffered throughout his career. Lance Storm quit watching TNA after the incident and wrote a blog about it entitled "TNA: I'm Done". Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez called for whoever wrote the segment to be fired during their podcast. TNA also did this segment not long after WWE had banned chairshots to the head over concussion fears, so some fans saw this as a potshot at the well-being of WWE wrestlers.

** TNA subjected the Knockouts to the Lock Box Challenge on an episode of ''Impact''. Early in the night, the Knockouts fought for keys that would open boxes in which a Knockout could win one of four "prizes": an open contract for a match of their choosing, Tara's pet tarantula, the "right" to perform a striptease in the ring (or be fired), or the Knockouts Championship. Wrestling/AngelinaLove unlocked the box with the title and became champion as a result. [[Wrestling/LisaMarieVaron Tara]] unlocked the box with her tarantula; she was forced to treat it like it was more important than the title (Apparently Russo and his cohorts didn't learn from the infamous '49ers Match from 2000, in which Booker T won the WCW World Heavyweight Championship out of a box.) Meaning that not only could the champion lose the title without being pinned, but she could also lose it ''despite winning the match''. Which is exactly what happened to Tara. She may have been able to win back Poison, but she lost her title to Angelina Love to basically the luck of the draw! Daffney unlocked the striptease, but was attacked by Lacey Wrestling/{{Von Erich|Family}} midway through.

** Eric Young seems to have finally been rewarded for his efforts by winning the TNA World Heavyweight Championship. Of course, this might be because he's one of the only TNA originals left as several other of the companies most recognizable names, most notably Christopher Daniels, Chris Sabin, Kazarian, and AJ Styles.

** To reward Christopher Daniels for MOTY main events at the turn of 2010, Hulk Hogan brought in Sean Morley (WWE's Val Venis) to feud with him. The former WWF enhancement talent, now severely out of shape, beat Christopher Daniels clean at ''Genesis''. Even though Morley was playing the face and Daniels the heel, several fans even turned their backs on the ring, as if they were turning their backs on TNA. (Morley had two more matches after this before leaving, while Daniels was reduced to obscurity before getting released.) TNA was so butthurt over the reaction they got at ''Genesis'' that Senior Director of Production Steve Small went out to address the crowd. Small explained to the live audience that they must tell a story to the (home viewing) audience by reacting to the show properly. He also addressed the crowd as "cast members". This drove away of the Impact Zone regulars, many of whom had attended it for years. TNA later stacked the thinning crowd with obvious plants (most noticeably, several hot girls in the front row who only cheer when the camera was directly on them). The formerly-rowdy Impact Zone crowd soon became dead enough that TNA would pump in hair dryer noise during taped shows. The 2013 move to finally leave the Impact Zone and go on the road was greeted with wide approval.

* With his contract expiring by the end of 2012, TNA did its best to make Jeff Hardy happy so that he would re-sign with them. This all took place while a restraining order was in place keeping WWE from signing TNA talent, as they previously saw with Matt Morgan. Fast-forward to ''Bound for Glory''. Are you thinkingBully Ray won? Samoa Joe? James Storm? Nope: Jeff Hardy won and became the #1 Contender. At the ''Impact'' prior to BFG, Austin Aries turned heel at the end of the show by taking a script out of his trunks, going against it, and shooting on Jeff. Ultimately, Jeff won the belt in a match where more than half of the audience was against him, partly due to TNA jumping the gun on Aries' heel turn.

## The next Gut Check featured Wrestling/JoeyRyan facing off against Wrestling/AustinAries. The booking made sense because both made their name on the indie scene and had wrestled each other before. Internet voting was 87% for Ryan getting a contract. Prichard and Taz voted no. He would eventually win a contract in a match vs. Al Snow., then be put in a directionless tag team with the directionless Matt Morgan, released.
## Taeler Hendrix: made three appearances, released.
## Sam Shaw: made two appearances, fall guy for Jay Bradley, repackaged. Feuded with Wrestling/KenAnderson over Wrestling/ChristyHemme, then teamed/feuded with Gunner, and released once the latter ended. Brought back again almost two years later.
## You -- yes, you! -- could sign up for a Gut Check tryout! All you had to do was send TNA a $250 processing fee for them to delete your application, since it's the only way to disguise the fact that the contestants were all from OVW and [=Team 3D=]. TNA ''did'' try to make Gut Check seem legit by bringing in contestants who weren't from either of those schools.: Evan Markopolous' selling point was "He's only 18 years old!" He and Kris Lewie (the absolute worst of the lot) put on what could easily have been called one of the worst matches in TNA history. Both were released.
## Jay Bradley: pushed for a few minutes, went to Japan, released, eventually brought back and repackaged as Aiden O'Shea.

## The Big O: turned down despite placing in the Top Six when TNA held a voting for who fans wanted to see come in for it.

## Eventually, a Gut Check contestant did win their match. Unfortunately, it was Wes Brisco, with his opponent being Garett Bischoff. The match opened an ''Impact'' episode, and was treated pretty much as an afterthought, since it was really bad. He got inserted into the Aces and Eights angle, then released when that ended.

* Oh, and by the way, Eric Young is one of the final Tag Team champions, and he and his partner are the longest reigning champs in the belt's history (mostly because they never got screen time).

** Cut to late 2013, during AJ Styles' contract negotiations, she responded to a blistering worked shoot promo by AJ calling her out on her nonsensical shambles of a long-term business philosophy (chasing away most of the home-grown talent by putting too much focus on outside saviors who would never stick around) with a heel turn that was so bad that [[http://www.wrestlecrap.com/inductions/induction-heel-dixie-carter-2013-gooker-winner-winner-turkey-dinner/ it won the 2013 Gooker]] by a landslide. That same year, Dixie got her very own action figure. TNA promoted the release on Twitter with a contest to take pictures with the figurine; responses included the figure at the inaugural NXT PPV and being stood on by a Vince [=McMahon=] figure. And speaking of Vince [=McMahon=], Dixie's lame attempt to be a Vince-like heel figure, despite playing on things that are unfortunately said to be true about her behind the scenes, did nothing more than contribute to the MotiveDecay of the Wrestling/AcesAndEights as well as completely ruin the main event surge of her Dixieland stable's heel centerpiece Nick "Magnus" Aldis, whose undisputed championship match with AJ to send the latter out of the company saw Magnus infamously require a nine-member gang of heels to beat AJ while keeping Sting down and not hit a single offensive move in the entire match.

** Cut to late 2013, during AJ Styles' contract negotiations, she responded to a blistering worked shoot promo by AJ calling her out on her nonsensical shambles of a long-term business philosophy (chasing away most of the home-grown talent by putting too much focus on outside saviors who would never stick around) with a heel turn that was so bad that [[http://www.wrestlecrap.com/inductions/induction-heel-dixie-carter-2013-gooker-winner-winner-turkey-dinner/ it won the 2013 Gooker]] by a landslide. That same year, Dixie got her very own action figure. TNA promoted the release on Twitter with a contest to take pictures with the figurine; responses included the figure at the inaugural NXT PPV and being stood on by a Vince [=McMahon=] figure. And speaking of Vince [=McMahon=], Dixie's lame attempt to be a Vince-like heel figure, despite playing on things that are unfortunately said to be true about her behind the scenes, did nothing more than contribute to the MotiveDecay of the Wrestling/AcesAndEights as well as completely ruin the main event surge of her Dixieland stable's heel centerpiece Nick "Magnus" Aldis, whose undisputed championship match with AJ to send the latter out of the company saw Magnus infamously require an nine-point gang of heels to beat AJ while keeping Sting down and not hit a single offensive move in the entire match.

[[folder: Dixie Carter]]

* Dixie Carter went back on her promise to never become an onscreen character. Her performances made Linda [=McMahon=] look like Meryl Streep in comparison. Her heel turn was so bad that [[http://www.wrestlecrap.com/inductions/induction-heel-dixie-carter-2013-gooker-winner-winner-turkey-dinner/ it won the 2013 Gooker]] by a landslide. That same year, Dixie got her very own action figure. TNA promoted the release on Twitter with a contest to take pictures with the figurine; responses included the figure at the inaugural NXT PPV and being stood on by a Vince [=McMahon=] figure.
** [[Wrestling/MontelVontaviousPorter MVP]]'s arrival in TNA was intended to keep Heel!Dixie from abusing her power over the company. He initially supported Eric Young as he became the World Champion, but was turned heel a little while later to take his own shot at Young for the belt, becoming the very same person he was meant to stop despite Dixie still being a very prominent part of Impact. Comparisons to WWE's [[Wrestling/TheAuthority Authority]] were inevitable.
** AJ and Dixie decided to go public with a big secret in 2012. When AJ tried to convince Dixie not to reveal it (despite initially wanting to come clean in the first place?), a hysterical woman entered the ring. She identified herself as a pregnant drug addict trying to get clean with the help of AJ. Fans reacted with predictable bewilderment as to who the pregnant junkie is and why they should care about her. At the end of the next episode, Daniels told Dixie that AJ had fathered the junkie's baby. TNA felt proud enough of this angle to praise Eric Bischoff for coming up with such a compelling twist and rewarded him with a raise. In later weeks, AJ challenged Daniels to a match in which AJ would own up to fathering Claire's baby if he lost, but take a paternity test if he won, à la Maury Povich. In the weeks to follow, Claire cut a heel promo in which she was supposed to be smoking a cigarette while pregnant. TNA abruptly ended the storyline when Julia Reilly -- the actress who played Claire Lynch -- left the company after fans found some of her other acting jobs on [=YouTube=] and left harsh criticism on her work. (Photos eventually surfaced of Ms. Reilly at her day job: playing Olive Oyl at the Popeye ride in Universal Studios.)
** The whole thing turned out to be a wash, anyway, as Claire's attorney (played by Janice Carter, Dixie's mother) informed everyone that Daniels paid Claire to make the whole story up, so it was never mentioned again. The angle ran away with Website/WrestleCrap's [[http://www.wrestlecrap.com/inductions/claire-lynch-the-2012-gooker-award-winner/ Gooker award for the year]].
** 2012 also introduced an angle where [[Wrestling/FrankieKazarian Kazarian]] and Christopher Daniels tried to prove AJ was having an affair with his boss, Dixie Carter, leading to AJ (professional athlete and all) being knocked out by Dixie's non-wrestler husband Serge.

* [[http://411mania.com/wrestling/new-details-on-tnas-possible-investorsbuyers/ Her business plan to get TNA more investors]] is to offer them 10% of TNA's shares for investing so she can keep the controlling stake. That's basically asking people to donate money -- something no one is going to do thanks to Dixie's history of terrible business decisions.

** TNA's much-hyped mishandling of the Main Event Mafia "regrouping." TNA even had Wrestling/ScottSteiner make his triumphant return to TNA the week before the reveal. In the meantime, however, TNA had not secured the contract of Wrestling/BookerT, kept fumbling with Wrestling/{{Sting}}'s (see below), and they granted Wrestling/KevinNash his release for whatever reason, allowing Booker and Nash to make their even more-triumphant returns to WWE at the ''Wrestling/RoyalRumble'' three days after the Steiner return aired. This of course, left TNA scrambling for alternates at the eleventh hour, and they instead pulled a face turn with Fortune (which was a better move for the company anyway, as it put four TNA originals in the spotlight for a change). Of course, this would have made more sense if TNA had not ran a segment where Crimson choked out AJ in the back, as well as another backstage segment in which Kurt Angle completely waffled Styles with a baseball bat.