Over the last six years TNA has grown to become the second biggest wrestling company in the United States. Combining a roster of recognisable talent who had moved on from well known organisations and developing their own talent, the company soon built a solid following in Tennessee.

This dedication resulted in the company securing their first national television deal in 2004, gaining a Friday afternoon slot on the Fox Sports Network. Disappointing ratings of around two hundred thousand viewers saw the deal not being renewed in 2005 and TNA was once again back looking for a TV contract. In October 2005, TNA secured a deal, landing on the popular Spike TV network which formerly hosted WWE Raw. TV ratings have gradually risen and Impact has been getting around a million viewers a week on a regular basis. This success resulted in Impact being extended to a two hour format in October 2007.

This solid TV deal is only one part of the gradual development of the company. The other is the all important in-ring product. TNA has developed its own style in the ring by using a six-sided ring instead of the traditional four corners. The X Division with outstanding talent such as Chris Sabin, Alex Shelley and Jay Lethal, has often been the highlight of TV and pay-per-view shows. At the same time, WWE has abused the cruiserweight division for so long, they decided to axe that particular championship in 2007 leaving many of their wrestlers lost in the roster. By doing this WWE has rubberstamped TNA’s claim that they are the company where smaller talent can get over with the crowd and be taken seriously.

In late 2007, a women’s division was formed and has proved to be a huge success just like the X division due to the big talents of the likes of Gail Kim and Awesome Kong. There was many a sceptical eye cast when the division was formed but these doubts have been cleared in the eyes of the fans.

The other major development in the ring has been the influx of WWE talent to TNA. Christian Cage quickly joined TNA in 2005. WWE had finally pushed the Canadian to main event level that year but never gave him the world championship. Cage realised that opportunity had escaped him, joined TNA and soon became world champion!
Kurt Angle, who had done pretty much everything in WWE, was fired in 2006 due to his deteriorating health. Since joining TNA he has become the most dominant wrestler on the roster and has held the world title on numerous occasions during this time. The other big name to jump from WWE is Booker T, who is another main event contender at present. There have been many others to come from the WWE and this is a sign that the company can compete for talent from a much more established company.
For all these positives, there are some things that TNA need to correct if it is to one day compete on the same financial level as the WWE.

Firstly, TNA’s TV show, Impact, is taped in Orlando, Florida in front of less than a thousand fans. At each of these tapings many TNA fans are unable to get a seat resulting in them being turned away each week. With TV ratings at around one million, it’s clear that TNA is now far too big a company to be taping its flagship show in such a tiny venue every week.

Rather than jumping into the depths of uncertainty by taking Impact on the road each week, a far better option would be to move Impact to a ten or fifteen thousand capacity arena in the Orlando area. Should this move be a financial success it would then be time to take Impact across different states each week to increase viewership on Spike TV, just like WWE takes Raw and Smackdown all over the States. Why the change to a bigger arena still hasn’t been made is baffling considering many of the monthly pay per views are taken out of Orlando. The company will never grow to the heights of WWE if their flagship shop doesn’t have a big time feel about it.

The other major change I think is needed is to remove Vince Russo as head booker. Russo has always been unpopular with the fans since his ridiculous reign as head writer in WCW during 1999-2000. He is best remembered in WCW for allowing too many title changes rendering titles worthless, crude storylines, excessive gimmick matches and a lack of patience in the development of storylines which lead to too much happening on any one show. During his WCW run, TV ratings for Nitro fell by half a million and buy rates for PPV’s fell by over ninety percent.

Whilst the ratings haven’t dropped in TNA, they haven’t increased for a long time either and Impact struggles to beat ECW each week. Russo continue to use gimmick matches, strange storylines and allows past-it wrestlers to hog TV time whilst younger talent such as Curryman and Eric Young are often forgotten. Although Impact has many strong points, I believe the company has to remove Russo and employ someone with more experience in the wrestling industry who has more respect from the wrestlers in order to boost the TV ratings.

Eric Bischoff hit a winning formula as head of WCW in 1996 enabling Nitro to beat Raw in the TV ratings for over eighty weeks. Wrestling fans want to see a return to those days of the Monday night ratings wars and the best hope of that happening lies with TNA.

In November 2005 professional wrestling in America got the wake up call that had been coming for years. World Wrestling Entertainment lost one of its biggest talents in Eddie Guerrero from heart failure brought on from drug abuse years earlier.

For years WWE under Vince McMahon has done little to curb the influence of drugs in the company. Wrestlers would use anything from steroids to harder substances such as heroin and cocaine on a regular basis. Working a gruelling schedule where they would be away from their families for most of the week, wrestlers often turned to drugs because of depression or to relieve the constant pain in their bodies brought on from too much wrestling.

The result of being overworked is countless amounts of wrestler’s deaths well before the age of fifty. These include big names such as Curt Hennig, Chris Benoit, Brian Pillman and Davey Boy Smith. The result for McMahon by working these men like a Grand National horse is a multimillion dollar company that reaches over a billion fans on TV around the world each week.

In 2005, Eddie Guerrero died whilst under contract to WWE. It was huge news in America and embarrassing for McMahon to have his company scrutinised by the media. McMahon’s response was to implement a drug testing programme in early 2006 known as the Wellness Programme. For the first time in the company’s history, wrestlers would be tested on occasions for drugs. Any wrestlers to test positive would be suspended for a period without pay. If the same wrestler failed a second Wellness test the suspension would be for longer and a third failure would result in being dismissed from employment.

Over the last two years since Wellness was introduced, the WWE has had to suspend many wrestlers for violation of the policy. These include the biggest talents in the company today such as former world champion Randy Orton and fan favourite Jeff Hardy. Guerrero’s death has clearly not stamped out the use of drugs in the company, which was the intention of Wellness.

In June 2007, things went from bad to worse for McMahon. Chris Benoit, a twenty year veteran and major star in the company, killed his wife and son before hanging himself in the family home. It is unknown to this day whether drugs were the direct cause of the Benoit family deaths. Two months earlier he tested negative under Wellness, however, steroids were found at the family home at the time of the deaths. One thing for sure is this was the last thing WWE needed so soon after Guerrero’s death. A media frenzy erupted and Congress soon started investigating the use of drugs in wrestling. This wasn’t the first time politicians had investigated the industry. In 1994, McMahon took on the US Government in a now infamous trial and on that occasion McMahon was successful. Eleven years later his company was thrown back in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

It’s clear that many wrestlers lives would have been saved had there been a proper regulated system imposed in his company and others. WWE wrestlers, unlike wrestlers in many other companies, often wrestle up to two or three times a week every week (more on world tours) of the year. They are overworked in an industry where there are no pensions or trade unions in place. Because the WWE has a near monopoly in America after WCW and ECW went bankrupt in 2001, it’s not as simple as quitting to join a rival organisation to work a lighter schedule. In fact the only other wrestling company in America that will stand a chance of competing with the WWE in the near future is Total Nonstop Action based in Orlando, Florida. After TNA, if a wrestler wants a high wage they would usually have to look at the major Japanese organisations.

Changes need to be made fast and the WWE needs to set the standards as the biggest wrestling company in the world. Reducing the amount of shows considerably as well as introducing wrestlers rights such as pensions and a union would be a sign that the company understands the challenges needing to be met after Guerrero and Benoit’s deaths. McMahon should also be giving each wrestler regular breaks to see their families. The introduction of such measures would lead to a safer industry for the wrestlers and re-assurance for everyone connected with the industry.

This is not just a problem for the WWE, drugs are a problem in wrestling generally and other organisations need to take similar steps. If action is not taken it won’t be long before the wrestling world suffers another young tragic death.