On a recent episode of his “My World” podcast, Jeff Jarrett, a WWE Hall of Famer, detailed why TNA Wrestling failed to garner support from the online wrestling community.
Highlights from the podcast can be seen below:
Jarrett discussed why the online community did not support TNA: “Compared to today, my feedback would have been different during that era. AOL/Time Warner had canceled wrestling at a time when Nitro and Thunder were among the top shows on their respective networks. Advertising support was low, and pursuing a venture in wrestling then would have been considered borderline insanity. Social media platforms like Twitter weren’t around, and message boards were just taking off. The wrestling media landscape was largely dominated by Keller and Meltzer, among others. They were selling content, just like the wrestling industry, via newsletters. They had access to insiders, which led to plenty of reporting materials. However, this created a sense of division. As for us in TNA, our inability to consistently deliver hit shows didn’t help our case either. Given that our competitor, WWE, was a behemoth in the industry, we had a lot to live up to.”
“When Hogan and Bischoff joined us in 2010/2011, it was revealed that Dixie was in charge. They tried taking it on tour and it backfired. It seemed almost too easy for people to ridicule TNA. Despite not being squeaky clean from 2000 to 2009, we had many victories. Still, most people were expecting us to fail. However, we’re here celebrating our 22nd anniversary. As my grandmother and Lawler taught me, as long as we’re getting a reaction and creating an emotion, that’s a good thing. The real issue is when people lose interest, and fortunately, no one ever became indifferent to TNA.”
On not getting a fair chance from fans: “The timing was crucial. In the 90s, it was all about print media and a few message boards. But then the early to late 2000s saw the rise of platforms like Twitter. Instant access to information and the ability to have discussions made it a new world. After WCW was taken down, die-hard fans believed that there was only one dominant brand and anything else was second-rate or worse. The timing, along with various other factors, played significant roles. The ‘TNA LOL’ narrative persists, but many ignore the fact that we grew from a company whose sole means of storytelling was a Wednesday night pay-per-view to a successful, profitable prime-time show on Spike.”