While not as social media trending as the previous days reveal that Aron Rex – the man formerly known as WWE Superstar Damien Sandow – had signed with TNA on the “live” edition of Impact Wrestling, TNA made news again on Friday with the announcement that 90’s music icon and lifelong wrestling enthusiast Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins, would be taking Dixie Carter‘s place as the new President of the company, with Carter moving up to become the Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer. And thus, the Dixie Carter era of TNA drew to a close. Sure, Carter is still the one in charge, but now that Corgan – a TNA Senior Producer since last year – is Captain of the ship, the direction can finally begin to shift in a different direction with a little more ease, now that Dixie is sent upstairs to head office. On the flipside, should the Corgan gamble fail, it removes the ultimate finger point from squarely in Dixie’s direction.
From the company’s website:
“Billy is a visionary, an iconic artist and savvy businessman with an incredibly gifted creative mind. He has built a decades-long successful global brand, and also has a deep passion and understanding for professional wrestling,” said Carter. “In working with Billy over the last 16 months, he has impressed me to the point that I’ve been in discussions with him to take an elevated strategic leadership role within the company. The more we discussed our vision for the organization, the clearer it became that position needed to match his commitment.
“We are entering an exciting new era for IMPACT and will be working to continue to define our brand, develop global strategies for success, and structure for future investment and growth,” added Carter. “These moves, effective immediately, signify the team’s determination to work together to effectively cover more ground and capitalize on TNA’s current momentum that has seen ratings rise in recent months.”
THE JARRETT ERA (2002 – 2010)
TNA has long been the industry’s punchline…but it wasn’t always. Total Nonstop Action (TNA) began as an indie promotion in 2002, founded by former WCW World Champion Jeff Jarrett, his father, legendary promoter Jerry Jarrett, and former WCW employee Bob Ryder, who quickly began an alliance with the crumbling remains of what was left of the NWA lineage. His promotion, and it’s subsequent flagship program Impact, would be the showcase of the NWA’s main title holders, the original NWA World Heavyweight title and World Tag Team titles. They had a bit of a stutter step start, but within a couple years, TNA found it’s footing and was soon bounds ahead of other indie promotions started up around the same time, like Ring of Honor, PWG, and Chikara. The power of having Jeff Jarrett as a partner – who was only a year removed from WCW’s demise – ensured that top names and free agents who hadn’t signed with the WWE following WCW’s purchase – and the financial backing to pluck some indie talent that may not have been in WWE’s radar (or plans) back in 2004. They brought back the old WCW style Cruiserweight style mixed with a growing love for the more aerialist styles coming out of Mexico and the indie circuits. The newly formed X Division literally put TNA on the wrestling map. What was considered a WWE Lite substitute with WWF has-beens and no-names, suddenly became the cult favourite for wrestling fans to watch the innovation from the X Division – a style that laid the blueprints for much of the indie style being used elsewhere to great success. There’d be no WWE Cruiserweight Classic without a TNA X Division. In 2004, they withdrew their alliance with the NWA (although they would still represent their titles until 2007). WWE enhancement castoffs AJ Styles and Bobby Roode became megastars, America’s Most Wanted – featuring future TNA World Champion James Storm and “Wildcat” Chris Harris – were internet indie darlings long before the Young Bucks, and the signing of WWE Superstars like Kurt Angle, Jeff and Matt Hardy, The Dudley Boyz, Christian and more, plus a pre-#DivaRevolution concept of pushing the women’s matches to be as good as the men’s, proved to infuse the company with the right balance of veteran leadership, exciting in-ring innovation, and indie nurtured homegrown talent.
And then, just as TNA seemed to have created a foothold as the country’s strongest competitor to the WWE Machine, the move that was intended to push them over the edge, backfired.
THE HOGAN-BISCHOFF ERA (2010 – 2013)
After spending 8 years building TNA into a solid alternative to WWE programming, bridging the gap between truer indie promotions like ROH and PWG and the WWE, by having a women’s division (the Knockouts) the polar opposite of WWE’s Divas division, and using former WWE Superstars to put over the emerging TNA stars, TNA went out and brought in a man to become TNA’s on-screen figurehead that couldn’t have been more synonymous with WWE and Sports Entertainment. In 2010, former WWE and WCW Legend Hulk Hogan and former WCW President Eric Bischoff were brought in to change everything. By turning the company into a parody of the final days of WCW, rather than an upstart promotion that was slowly approaching its prey. Former WCW stars Sting, Kevin Nash, Booker T and “Big Poppa Pump” Scott Steiner became frequent flyers in the main event and storylines, the six-sided ring disappeared for the more traditional four-sided one, and the X Division became the same disjointed joke that WCW’s Cruiserweight division became by the company’s end. Everything that had made TNA great had been removed and replaced by everything that had made WCW fail.
In 2012, Panda Energy, the company that had been a principal financial backer of TNA since nearly its inception – divested itself of all its shares in the company, all 71% of it. All of those shares were then picked up by Dixie Carter, daughter of Panda Energy’s founder, Robert Carter, giving her sole majority ownership. Within a year, Jeff Jarrett left the company, finally selling his shares to Dixie Carter in 2015. The Hogan-Bischoff experiment was over, and now that Dixie Carter was in control, it was time to purge what had remained.
THE DIXIE ERA (2013 – 2016)
It was clear that the foul taste the Hogan-Bischoff debacle had left TNA in a state of needed to be cleaned out and Carter decided to clean the deck. Hogan left the company in October of 2013 when his contract expired, and he was followed a few months later not only by founder Jeff Jarrett, but by TNA’s biggest cultivated star, “The Phenomenal” AJ Styles. The only way for Dixie to create a truly new era for Impact Wrestling was for her to erase everything to do with its past – this new era could not be directly compared to either the Jarrett or Hogan years, or have to build around a veteran like Styles. By the end of 2014, the locker room was less Sting, The Dudley Boyz, Booker T, Kevin Nash, The Addiction (featuring longtime TNA veterans Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian), Motor City Machine Guns, and Hernandez. In 2015, Billy Corgan was brought in as a minority partner and Senior Producer, and more TNA mainstays like Samoa Joe, James Storm (although he returned shortly after) and Austin Aries left the fold, followed in 2016 by Bobby Roode and Eric Young. In their place, TNA began to go back to a similar game plan that got them their in the first place – the return of the 6-sided ring, an emphasis of indie risk taking in the X Division, a renewed sense of pride and passion in the Knockouts division. And once again, going to the indie circuits to bring in some of the best upper tier talent, like former ROH stars American Wolves (Davey Richards and Eddie Edwards), “The Miracle” Michael Bennett & Maria Kanellis, and Moose, and finding gems in talent that WWE would most not likely have given a second glance, like Rockstar Spud or Grado. But instead of plucking WWE veterans to bring in leadership, this time they’re acquiring underutilized potential to invest some hunger, such as Ethan Carter III (formerly WWE’s Derrick Bateman), Drew Galloway (formerly Drew McIntyre) and most recently, Aron Rex (formerly Damien Sandow). They’re even pushing the envelope on what can be considered pro wrestling – somewhere between Lucha Undergound and Twin Peaks, you’ll find the masterpiece of a dumpster fire called The Final Deletion, that has made Matt Hardy arguably the biggest star he’s ever been. While on TV, it’s always seemed like Dixie had no idea what she was doing, in retrospect, perhaps she was doing what was best for TNA long term. The only way to reboot the system was to get rid of the old software. At the time, people cried foul with the purging of such beloved TNA icons like AJ, Joe or Roode. But in order for younger stars like EC3, Galloway, Bennett, Moose or Rex to get the time needed to become the new faces of TNA, something had to give. And that something was the old guard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvACWh8k7Io
THE CORGAN YEARS (2016 – ?)
With the template now clear, with a fresh stack of talent and a small tie to its past, Corgan now gets the beginning of a brand new TNA. Final Deletion may have brought TNA the most eyes it’s had in years, the task now falls on Corgan to keep them there. Bringing in the former Mizdow was a good start, but things are going to need to settle down storyline wise for people to stay invested in more than a series of cheap pop ratings tactics. The biggest downfall of such a massive purging and pre taped episodes is that storylines have gaping plot holes, inconsistencies, awkward heel/face turns, and incomplete endings (does anyone really know how The Beat Down Clan ended?). But at least there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Their roster is beefier than it’s been in some time and for the first time in a long time, TNA has some buzz about it on social media that didn’t revolve around a meme of a crying Dixie Carter. So now it’s time to see if Billy Corgan can translate his platinum album winning musical career into a successful crossover into the world of professional wrasslin‘.
But hey, if he fails, the good news is, at least he’s used to the melancholy and the infinite sadness.
(Main Photo: impactwrestling.com)
