Impact Wrestling Rating

It's not that we only want one option, but we would prefer something that truly is an alternative to WWE, rather than just being the place ex-WWE talents go when they've burnt all their bridges, been released, or otherwise have no place else to go.

Before Hogan and Bischoff showed up I used to watch TNA regularly, as it truly was an alternative. I thought the six-sided ring was kind of gimmicky, but overall there was some great talent in the X Division, the Knockouts were some of the best female wrestlers on TV, and they were really starting to push their homegrown talent as stars as opposed to just relying on names from previous decades, and the ratings were also starting to reflect that. Before Hogan and Bischoff the ratings were consistently around 1.2, with the occasional 1.3 here and there. The audience was slowly growing and starting to care about the product. Even the story lines were starting to improve.

With the arrival of Hogan and Bischoff and the switch to Monday nights, TNA got their highest ever rating, but all the slow progress they had been making did a complete 180, and the regression was so bad that two years later it's not shocking to see them consistently do below a 1 in the ratings.

Sure, now TNA is starting to push some of their own stars more, guys like Crimson and Roode and Austin Aries, but at this point it may be too little too late. All the "big name" signings, guys like Jeff Hardy, RVD, Mr. Anderson, Hogan, Flair, etc did nothing but spike some momentary curiosity, but after seeing the product they had to offer many casual wrestling fans wrote TNA off as a bad WWE or WCW knockoff.

Personally I don't feel that way, and I'd love for someone to give the E some serious competition, but I don't see TNA ever doing it.

As for "finding enjoyment" in bashing TNA, maybe some diehard WWE fans might do that; but I think there's a rather large portion of wrestling fans who bash TNA because they can't help but see the promise of what might have been, and how many times TNA continuously shot themselves in the foot to end up where they are now.

Sorry for the ridiculously long post… :/