[molson]

I really hope the nail in the coffin was the whole Vince Russo thing.

If you haven't read about that, both Spike TV and TNA's Japanese wrestling promotion partner hate Vince Russo with a passion. Spike TV hates him basically because he's a handful to manage, he can't be trusted (he'd tell the network he's doing one thing then he'd do something else), and he produces a terrible product. The Japanese promotion hated him for all those reasons, and also because they think he's a racist. TNA promised both Spike and the Japanese promotion they'd never work with him again. For some reason, they hired him anyway, secretly. Everyone denied he was there, but the product was again suddenly booked just like Russo has always booked, so it was the worst kept secret in wrestling. But then shit hit the fan when Russo tried to email Mike Tenay about some company business. Instead, he accidentally emailed PWInsider.com's Mike Johnson, who made a story out of it. Russo kept lying, he claimed that he sent the email on purpose to prove that the dirt sheets would publish anything. Eventually he admitted the truth. Spike and the Japanese promotion were pissed. It was just classic late-era WCW kind of stuff.

It seems like the right time for Panda Energy to pull the plug on the whole thing, but if they wanted to keep it going for some reason, I bet they could find a spot somewhere. They still get more than a million viewers a week, not bad at all for cable.

Of course, they should have sold when they could. Apparently, Jeff Jarrett and Toby Keith offered to buy but The Carters wouldn't sell unless Jarrett promised an on-screen role for Dixie Carter, and they wouldn't agree to that, so they're starting up their own promotion. But the company is now worth nothing unless they get a new TV deal.

The whole TNA story, the whole run, is just weird. So many great workers, so many great matches, but they never really moved the needle into relevance. Even though they way more eyeballs on them and bigger TV deals than ECW ever did.

There's so much talent there even now. It's a great opportunity for Jarrett, I guess, but I'd be really surprised to see anyone else significantly top the viewers and business TNA did. And if that business and those viewers weren't enough for Spike, you have to wonder if pro wrestling can ever really work on TV again outside the WWE.

Edit: I was typing all that as Jon posted about Russo.