Would WWE want any of the TNA stars?

TNA Wrestling held its premiere event, Bound For Glory, this past Sunday in San Diego, California, and was unable to fill a good portion of the 12,000 seat Viejas Arena. To combat this startling lack of attendance, some fans were guided to seats in the lower bowl and moved near the hard camera in order for the venue to appear full during the pay-per-view broadcast. Scott Hall, who appeared for the organization as recently as 2010, weighed in on the lackluster turnout with the following message on Twitter.

A sad state of affairs....#TNA pic.twitter.com/xl0WbBm5Da
— Scott@Razor4Life.com (@SCOTTHALLNWO) October 23, 2013

Despite the company's ills, he feels that former New World Order cohorts Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff are not to blame. In response to a fan saying it's their fault, Hall wrote, "The history is that [Bischoff] and Hulk left alone, draw money. They never had the control needed to pop that company in my opinion.."

In response to whether WWE head Vince McMahon will ultimately buy the company out, Hall wrote, "Nothing to buy...." In his opinion, that includes talent. Hall wrote to a fan, "Name three people WWE would want..."

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We discussed something similar on the podcast the other week and whilst TNA on immediate look at their roster have a number of great wrestlers like Joe, Roode, Aries etc the issue is that nearly all the roster is mid to late 30s or older still so have a limited shelf life. Being that for the vast majority of fans the names of AJ a Styles, Samoa Joe etc will mean little then WWE would have to invest a lot of time and effort to generate a buzz for these characters, it'd hardly be like Jericho or the Radicalz coming over from a major threat.
Jeff Hardy would be taken I have no doubt. He was a babyface draw prior to leaving and I'm sure WWE would love to pair him against Punk again or against the likes of Rollins. Sting too there's the short term prestige that would come from a run against Taker despite that it'd probably end in a huge disappointment.
The only guy I could see Vince being interested in currently from TNA is Magnus, he's still in his 20s, he's cookie cut looking, holds the mic well and has a natural charm, there's the time to invest in him and he's yet to reach his peak.

Am I wrong to dismiss the likes of Aries, Roode and AJ making it in WWE, or has the boat already sailed on them ever joining the big E?

I think Austin Aries would be a star in WWE, he is possibly the most talented guy TNA have, marketed properly by WWE the Sky would be the limit, under the direction of Triple H I'd definitely see him being given the chance, I don't know if he'd have to start in NXT but regardless I tend to trust the E now even when they send guys to development first.

Magnus has every attribute needed to be huge and I think HHH would possibly see a lot of himself in Roode.

Are you wrong to dimiss them? I'd say yes, you may well be 100% right and none of them would be signed but I do think each of them would be given a lot of thought

I think theres business to be done with Joe, Aries and Hardy. All with Punk too. Roode and Magnus would be two others.

Sting has short term value and Angle is surely one they would love to use one more run on.

Anyone else? Well, with the comment that you can repeat a story every 9(?) or something years, an invasion could work. Id take a year of Kazaniels.

Would they look at them. I think Hardy, Angle and Sting would be hard to resist. I then think they want smark business for Joe and Aries with the likes of Punk and Bryan.

I just want to make the point that Hall is talking rubbish about Hogan and Bischoff. They deserve a major part of the blame. And Bischoff has certainly not boosted business everywhere he's gone.

Dixie Carter deserves more of the blame though.

I'm sure a lot of TNA's "senior" talent, most of whom have already been mentioned, could do well and even become major stars in WWE. The question is whether WWE would want to make room for them and invest the time and effort to integrate them with their existing stars. I suppose they'd need to ask themselves whether it would improve their current product andwhether the outlay for the contracts would be matched or surpassed by ticket/merch sales.

I don't know how much influence Hogan and Bischoff have had over TNA in recent years. I can't think its been that great, or surely they'd have tried to make the company more like the WWF/WCW used to be? Seems to me they've been taking their pay cheques and spending most of their time playing golf, or whetever hobbies they have.

Whatever, I thnk the single biggest handicap has been the creative team and its inability to come up with genuinely interesting and plausible feuds/storylines for the talent they have to work with. Its alright having great wrestlers, but if there's no context for the fights to take place in, its difficult for the fans to really care...hence the disappointing crowds.

crippledtart wrote:I just want to make the point that Hall is talking rubbish about Hogan and Bischoff. They deserve a major part of the blame. And Bischoff has certainly not boosted business everywhere he's gone.

Dixie Carter deserves more of the blame though.

It's a case of feed someone a lie enough times and eventually people start to believe it, Bischoff is like a Tory, under his tutelage the minority rich get richer and the majority poor get poorer.

I'd never expect someone like Nash to understand, he and his pals never dealt with hardship under Bischoff

Is there room on the WWE roster?

If you think about the top guys in WWE at the moment:
Punk, Bryan, Orton, Del Rio, Ryback, Big Show, The Shield - I may have missed a few as I'm not a regular viewer

Where would you see them fitting in, and i'm not talking about a short term feud with Sting/Undertaker for example. I mean long term, Styles has tried and failed in WWE, even in TNA he hardly captures the imagination. Hardy, perhaps, but I think his time has gone in WWE and he would probably do better on the Indy/Japan cicuit
Angle on a reduced schedule? - I'm not sure he would go back
Bully Ray - Only as part of the Dudley's as we know WWE have been interested in this option
Aries - I can see this but he's not a 'vince' type of a guy so not sure if AA would fancy it

And then there's the question on how - An invasion? Long term WWE will be victorious so like the WCW invasion how many of the stars would make a name long term, again like WCW how could WWE stay strong and build up a star from the 'rival' fed. I think Vince has learnt his lesson previously

To me the answer is that TNA should stop trying to rival WWE. They need to go back to basics and have a proper plan for growth, better use of the internet, less big money contracts for people who offer very little, target the areas where 'proper' wrestling is still loved. Go back to being small but make sure that your product is tight and don't worry what the other companies are doing. There is enough room in the market if TNA are cleverer at what they do

Dyrewolfe, I would say that they have only tried to replicate WWE/WCW. The Monday night experiment, countless attempts to recreate the nwo, focusing heavily on wrestlers with WWE and WCW backgrounds, taking the show live on the road, the current storyline with the heel boss feuding with the blatant rip-off of CM Punk.

I think the precise problem is that they have no idea how to promote wrestling in any way other than the way it was presented during the Monday night war.

crippledtart wrote:
I think the precise problem is that they have no idea how to promote wrestling in any way other than the way it was presented during the Monday night war

I'd say that is exactly the problem but I also think the average Wrestling fan also doesn't know how to identify with a product unless its presnted in similar fashion either.

With WWE its organic, it might be sometimes utter rubbish but it never feels like they're trying to be something else

Aesthetically speaking I think you are right, but I'm talking about the content and the approach to booking. For example wrestling fans do not demand short-term booking; that's just a bad habit that was developed during the 90s and nobody has ever tried to reign in. Also I think wrestling fans want to feel that title belts are important, but again this is something that slipped in the 90s and continues today.

I don't think it's ever crossed their minds to do things differently. Hogan and Bischoff clearly don't have any original ideas of their own.

Some top class matchs
AA vs Punk if done right an easy MOTY
Styles vs Cena
Hardy vs Orton done it before can do it again
Angle vs Bryan

other good ones
Roode vs ADR
Abyss vs Big show
Samoa Joe vs Zigler
Bad Influence  vs usos
Storm & Gunner vs Wyatt/ shield

Suicide v Pac

already been listed but there are some fantastic wrestler in Tna who could make the crossover, i would look at areas where Tna have been strong in the past such as the x division, tag team and womens.

You could use team like bad influence, bromans to boost the tag division in WWE i would even be tempted to initially get Beer Money and MCMG back together also. would be epic to see them put on some quality tag team matches in WWE and have them fued long term with the likes of Wyatt family, Usos etc

Womens speaks for itself there are some very good female wrestlers with vast experience could see some good singles and tag matches there involving a good mix of WWE and Tna

X division, light heavy weght cruiser weight whatever you want to call it, it would bring back something exciting to WWE. would be far better than a random tag match or useless back stage moment. Alot of the success of WCW during the monday night wars was their Crusierweights and you only have to look at some of the x division matches that have been on in Tna to see that they can be great matches but also decent storylines. Look at recently with Austin Aries when he was x division champ, was one if not the best thing in the company at the time and the whole option C made it great viewing.

Its not that there are not some good wrestlers. But considering WWE sign indy talent and then "develop" them and that WWE have their own young talent to push into new roles, why would they sign names over 30 unless they had immediate market value

Just in case anyone's interested, here's a quick summery of the age groups of the TNA roster, of the 40 workers listed on TNA's books by Wikipedia, assume any others not listed are 35+

U-30

Garrett Bischoff, Jessie Godderz, Magnus, TJ Perkins, Sam Shaw, Zema Ion, Brooke Tessmacher, Tayren Terrell

U-35

Chris Sabin, Eric Young, EC3, Gunner, Jay Bradley, Kenny King, King Mo, Robbie E, Rockstar Spud, Samoa Joe (just), Wes Brisco, Lei'D Tapa, Velvet Sky

Bearing in mind as many have said, WWE generally spend at least a year breaking and building new wrestlers in developmental, before another 2-5 years in the mid card, it's easy to see why WWE might not be overly interested in some TNA stars who despite their talents don't have immediate cash in potential.