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| The worst |
1. Don't try to compete with the market leader by copying its entire template and being worse than it in social issues
If I were to start a cola company, you know what I would do? I would infuse hints of dark chocolate and sriracha in my beverage, and use a proprietary blend of cane sugar and stevia to get a lighter, slightly healthier beverage. I have no idea if that would work, and if I were to try again after failing, I would probably try to think out of the box again. You know what I wouldn't do? Try to imitate either Coca-Cola or Pepsi, not their formulae, not their packaging, not their advertising. Why would anyone try to outdo an established company in their standard operating procedure when that company has such a stranglehold on the marketplace?
Yet, that's exactly what TNA has been trying to do for most of its existence. The main event scene has been littered mostly with ex-WWE guys without much in the way of character tweaks, a practice they've only disabused themselves of recently. Even with guys like Robert Roode, Austin Aries, Chris Sabin, and Bully Ray (who bears little resemblance to Bubba Ray Dudley) in the top level, the templates are still the same.
Someone has to feud with managerial figure Hulk Hogan. Oh look, a nWo-style invasion angle. Even the X-Division is just a poorly veiled WCW Cruiserweight Division, and hey look, just like late era WCW, it's ignored. I'm sure if someone were to pick nits and get down into superfluous details that they'd be able to enumerate differences between the companies, but at no point during TNA's existence have ever felt like they were doing more than a cut rate imitation of WWE or WCW. They brought nothing new to the market that stuck in a meaningful way.
2. Nepotism is bad
Would Garrett Bischoff be employed by any wrestling company if his last name were, say, Henderson? Or how about Wes Brisco if his daddy and uncle weren't Gerry and Jack? Or if the Hogan surname bore no relation to Hulk for Brooke? My guess is that those answers would be no, yes but not in TNA, and definitely not. If Hogan, Eric Bischoff, or anyone within TNA used the "who you know" method of hiring and got talented offspring/friends into the company, then fine. But these three most recent examples, coupled with the Hogan cronies who flocked aboard the TNA mothership during his early days there, and most laughably, Dixie Carter's husband Serge getting airtime have created with accuracy a sucking chest wound. When you don't add to the show, you need to be off the show, but when you're benefitting from cronyism and nepotism? You're not going to be off the show.
3. One-trick pony retreads are worse
While the Hogan/Bischoff in-family hiring has been relatively recent, bad booking has submarined the company for far longer. If they had failed using homegrown writers and bookers, then understanding might be warranted. However, the laundry list of burnouts from other companies, whether they be Jerry Jarrett, Vince Russo, Dutch Mantell, Jim Cornette, Hulk Hogan, or Eric Bischoff, proves that whoever is making personnel decisions, whether it's Carter or someone else, has eternal stars in his or her eyes without really looking at track record. Their successes either were singular, or they came at such a long time prior that maybe the business had passed them by. Carter's dogged loyalty to Russo was the most baffling, since he hadn't produced a single hour of watchable television since under the iron fist of Vince McMahon.
4. If you're backed by a multi-million dollar company, your employees shouldn't have to work at the Sunglass Hut
The pay scale in TNA is obviously not public (more on that later), but reports have always estimated that unless you worked high on the card or were ex-WWE/WCW/ECW, you weren't getting paid a whole hell of a lot. The most famous story to come out about the terrible wages, one I've recounted ad nauseam, is the one where Taylor Wilde was recognized while she was reigning and defending Knockouts Champion at her side job at the Sunglass Hut. Or the story where Jesse Neal had to go on food stamps because his per-appearance deal didn't pay him while he was injured. One might expect sweatshop conditions from working at Wal*Mart. But from a company whose employees are theoretically nation-famous? Low.
5. And they shouldn't ever be denied healthcare either, even if the sickness is totally not wrestling related
Then again, if Carter and her parent company, Panda Energy, had any semblance of heart, they might pay for injuries suffered by employees on or off the job. Wrestling is a high-risk industry. While I don't agree with how health insurance works in the United States, the harsh reality is that no one is going to cover a person whose job it is to fall on his or her back 300 days a year with little rest. No, Carter is under no legal obligation to offer medical coverage to "independent contractors," but that doesn't mean she's not a slimy, immoral slavedriver for refusing such payment.
Vince McMahon abuses the independent contractor designation too, but any time one of his workers gets hurt, he pays for them. If they get sick unrelated to wrestling, he generally pays for the treatment. One might say that he's just doing the minimum, and as much as I give him shit, I disagree with it. But benefit of the doubt, yeah, maybe McMahon isn't exactly lighting the world on fire with generosity. But he's doing a fuckton more than Dixie Carter is for her employees. Zema Ion, Daffney, and Konnan all got bit by her stingy pockets. The rumor is that Jesse Sorensen's treatments weren't even paid for directly, that he had to keep an office job to pay off those debts. And even then, he claims that Carter promised he'd have a job for life, and well, he just got released today.
I know that asking the parent Panda Energy for money all the time gets old after awhile, but there's no excuse for the Carter family to sit on millions of profits and personal bank accounts while expecting contracted employees to cover their own injuries on stunts that she and her employees asked them to do as a condition of employment. I don't think anyone could agree with this stance and not come off as completely scummy to me. Sorry.
6. Just because you're a private company doesn't mean you're a secret company
I've seen people make roundabout defenses of what TNA has done, saying that they're a private company, and that it would be "worse" if they were a corporation. I don't think transparency has anything to do with the severity of the action, but it does seem like higher ups in the company have liked to hide behind their veil of secrecy. No shareholders? Well, we don't have anyone to report pay-per-view numbers to! We can Iraqi Propaganda Minister everyone!
I can certainly understand the reason for secrecy so as not to sink morale or cause panic among fans or whatever reason, but there are times when their "private company" excuse to cover some really vile shit. The biggest example has undoubtedly been how they handled the Austin Aries/Christy Hemme sexual harassment issue. Aries shoved his crotch in Hemme's face on camera. His issue was handled off-camera? I'm sorry, but I don't buy for a second that anything was done to Aries at all, especially in the face of every other heinous thing that has been reported, rumored, or implied about the company behind the scenes.
Frankly, I hate to take joy in any company going down in flames, because it means people lose jobs. I'm not just talking about the wrestlers, although it bears noting outside of Kurt Angle and Sting, no one on the roster is guaranteed a big payday in another company, be it WWE or New Japan Pro Wrestling. I'm talking about the crew, the production team, the office grunts, and everyone else who'll be affected. But it's clear that the management has no fucking idea how to run a tire yard let alone a wrestling company. So even if the short term will suck for people who don't deserve their livelihoods taken away, maybe in the long term, everyone would be better off if TNA just died. The lessons are more valuable than anything else they can offer as a functional company anyway.