TNA or Impact Wrestling – whichever you know it as – is struggling to stay on its feet. The Hardy Brothers’ ‘Final deletion’ segment might have revived the interest in the company a little bit, but Impact Wrestling has never been so farther down the pecking order for talent leaving the WWE.
NJPW and even ROH seems to be ahead of Impact Wrestling and the phenomenal success of Lucha Underground also dims Impact Wrestling’s hopes of becoming a sought after promotion.
But it could have been so different.
What if the WWE’s Summer of Punk happened in TNA?? We take a look at that in the top 5 wasted talents in TNA history.
5. Michael Shane
During TNA’s asylum days, a major reason for the little traction that the company made was due to the X-Division. Comprised of high flying cruiserweights, it provided a welcome deviation from the WWE Cruiserweight division that had become a little stale following the likes of Matt Hardy and Rey Mysterio fighting higher up the card.
TNA owner Jeff Jarrett seemed to have learned nothing from the old WCW days and put the world title time after time on his own shoulders, the X-Division were creating new stars – not least the likes of AJ Styles, Frankie Kazarian and Chris Sabin.
But the match that first put TNA on the map was the Ultimate X match – a variation of the ladder match, but with two interlinked cables having a title hanging from their intersection above the ring – won by a charismatic youngster named Michael Shane. Shane was the cousin of the legendary Shawn Michaels and took a variation of HBK’s name as his ring name and used his Superkick as his finisher too.
Shane would capture the X-Division title on two occasions and form an entertaining tag team with Frankie Kazarian, before changing his name to Matt Bentley to escape the WWE suing him for using the Michael Shane name.
TNA management seemed to lose interest in Bentley as new stars joined the X-Division and instead of establishing Shane as a home-grown superstar, relegated him to being one of Raven’s lackeys. Shane gradually got frustrated with the lack of direction of his character and he left the company soon after, going into semi-retirement from wrestling soon enough.
4. Chris Harris
One of the greatest tag teams in TNA history – also one of the most forgotten teams of TNA – was America’s Most Wanted. Comprising of ‘Wild Cat’ Chris Harris and ‘Cowboy’ James Storm, AMW became a 6 time NWA tag team champions as a team.
The duo would dominate the tag team division and Harris – more popular of the two – seemed set to ascend to the TNA main event scene. He did get a title match against the perennial champion Jarrett, but in typical TNA fashion would lose the match after a dozen interferences.
Harris’ singles career never really took off and his big singles feud was against his former partner Storm, after which he would leave the company.
Harris would make his way to the WWE in 2008, but without his usual charisma and with a lot of body fat. His ‘Braden Walker’ moniker would be a running joke and he would try his hand in TNA again, only to see the exit once more.
3. The Naturals
TNA’s tag team division was booming in 2004-06 with teams like AMW, Triple X and Team Canada amongst their ranks. A rookie tag team would capture the NWA tag team titles three times during that time period – the team of Andy Douglas and Chase Stevens named the Naturals.
The Naturals had great flair and they were the perfect foil for the upright AMW. The two teams did put TNA on the map as far as tag team matches were concerned, but once again the company dropped the ball in taking them to the next level.
After Douglas had an injury, TNA creative wrote a lazy angle for them trying to gain the approval of Shane Douglas and also Chris Candido. The angle did not work and the Naturals never recovered from their slump.
2. Generation Me
TNA!! TNA!!! The decisions they make. About the same time that Dixie Carter and co decided to bring in oldies like Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair as the primary focus on television and put the TNA World title belt on a main that retired from active wrestling a decade ago in Mick Foley, two brothers were turning heads with their awesome performances.
Put in o a feud with the red hot Motor City Machine Guns, Max and Jeremy Buck more than held their own. Generation Me or Gen Me for short were then put into the X-Division title picture, with the brothers challenging the Champion Kazarian for the belt as well as teasing dissension between themselves.
Max and Jeremy soon found themselves in a premature singles feud against each other and after that ended, were frozen out of the roster too.
Dejected, the brothers left the company and went over to Japan where they would become one of the greatest tag teams ever seen on the island. The duo would win the best tag team of the year award multiple times in different publications and became a part of the Bullet Club stable.
The Young Bucks,as they are now known, are currently one of the, if not the best tag team performing in the big leagues.
1. CM Punk
CM Punk was a young pretender in ROH in the year 2003 when he had a high profile feud with Raven which elevated him to the top of the promotion. ROH had a working relationship with TNA that time and Punk showed his skills there too.
His TNA stint was as a disciple of Raven – alongside future WWE womens’ champ Mickie James - and in 2004, he would turn on Raven and align with James Mitchell. In a historically significant epic blunder,TNA management felt that Punk was not connecting with the fans a villain and pulled the plug on his feud with Raven.
Punk would return to ROH – the Indie Summer of Punk would take shape and he would promptly move on to the WWE, becoming one of the most significant superstars of the next decade.
