Thought of the Day: TNA’s Ancestor
Since they’re on the verge of death. For roughly the 100th time in ten years.You often hear people comparing TNA to WCW and I don’t really get why. In theory it’s because they’re the second biggest company in the country, but the situations are completely different. Think about this for a second.
WCW has a basically unlimited budget. They could pay for anything and anyone they wanted and never had to blink an eye. They could routinely steal talent from WWF, whereas TNA has to pick up whatever released talent they can or sign someone from the indies.
TNA basically caters to the live audience. Look at their ECW reunions to pop a big response from the fans in the arena and ignoring how the fans watching on TV feel about it. It’s all about listening to the fans chant TNA instead of creating stars and making new fans.
The biggest thing of all though, and the hardest pill for TNA fans to swallow, they’re not competition to WWE. At least not serious competition to WWE. It’s as much competition to WWE as the Arena Football League is to the NFL. WWE is so far and ahead of TNA that they can’t even notice them back there. The other thing people so often overlook: other than a few weeks in 2010, WWE and TNA have never been in direct competition. I can watch Raw, Impact and Smackdown without any scheduling conflicts or additional costs. Other than their once every four month PPVs, TNA has nothing that directly challenges WWE, and if they tried, WWE would squash them like Barry Horowitz.
I could keep going for a long time, but the point should be clear. TNA is much more like a modern day ECW than WCW as they’re basically a fly buzzing around WWE’s head instead of a tiger trying to kill them.
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I’m tempted to say that TNA is more like a hybrid of ECW and WCW. Why? It’s like ECW for the reasons you stated, but there’s a bunch of stuff that TNA did that WCW did as well:
Bring in a bunch of former/disgruntled WWE guys
Tons of employees having drug issues(Scott Steiner was apparently a nightmare backstage in WCW when he got hooked on steroids)
A takeover angle(NWO, Immortal)
Centering a lot of angles around Hogan and Bischoff
Moving to Monday night to compete with WWE(only in this case, they never got close)
Vince Russo was involved at some point, and overbooked the company to hell
A motorcycle fetish(Road Wild and Aces and 8’s) that was apparently fueled both times by Bischoff
When Hogan walked out of the company, it was in worse shape than when he left it
Granted, I see what you mean by TNA being a lot like ECW. But there’s a TON of ways it was like WCW as well.