TNA Against All Odds 2006

TNA Against All Odds 2006 took place 10 years ago to the week that I am writing this piece, and looking back on it now with so much water having passed under the bridge since, it’s actually quite a sobering experience remembering how much promise the company had at the time. In 2016, many wrestling pundits and commentators have written off TNA as something of a joke following a number of years where the company seems to have lurched from crisis to crisis and somehow managed to continue existing despite not really providing anything of real value during that time. In fairness to TNA, that perception is a little unfair, but having said that, when a product is presented with so little consistency over such a long space of time, and when that company displays numerous instances of apparent amateur public relations, it’s hard to defend them. Following the move from Spike TV to the much smaller Destination America at the beginning of 2015, TNA hoped for a fresh start, unfortunately, last year ended up being something of a Groundhog Year for the company with another saga over where their TV deal would end up (which they vehemently denied, going so far as to threaten legal action against certain wrestling news sources) and the on-screen product suffering due to practical issues with their taping schedule.

TNA Genesis 2011

In January 2010 TNA signed Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff to contracts in a bid to turn the wrestling world on its head, reprise the Monday night war and lead the company to new heights of commercial success. There were a number of changes made, perhaps the most significant of which was the company’s decision to take Impact head to head with Raw on Monday nights and attempt to engage in a ratings war with the established WWE programme. That was, of course, an absolute failure; ratings for Impact dropped to such an alarming level when on at the same time as WWE’s flagship show, that TNA was forced into a humbling retreat, back to their regular time slot despite heavy investment in talent including Jeff Hardy, Rob Van Dam, Ric Flair, Mick Foley, Mr Anderson, Sting and others. By the time Genesis 2011 rolled around however, TNA had recovered slightly from their embarrassing defeat, and with the new regime (that not only included Hogan and Bischoff, but also involved Vince Russo and Dixie Carter herself) having been around for a full year, they were presumably presenting the vision for the product that they had from the beginning.

WWE TLC 2015

Following an autumn that has seen Raw ratings on the slide and a legion of voices calling for a change in WWE’s approach, the company suffered another blow following the go-home episode of Raw prior to TLC when the rating came in at a measly 2.15- a new historical low point stretching back to 1995. The injury to Seth Rollins and the tournament that happened as a consequence to crown a new WWE World Heavyweight Champion at Survivor Series had only continued WWE’s creative issues with an uninspiring programme between Roman Reigns and Sheamus lined up as the primary selling point of their television output in the build up to TLC. With John Cena not expected to return until the new year, Rollins and Orton on the long term injury list, and none of the legacy stars that the company have leant upon to prop up many of their recent pay-per-view offerings available, TLC was one of the least anticipated pay-per-views in the history of the company and certainly the year (a fact borne out by the Nielsen Social Media ratings which measured activity on Twitter during TLC at the lowest level the company has seen for all of their 12 PPV’s in 2015).