Journeying Through TNA’s Asylum Years

When I was 12 years old and very much new to the world of professional wrestling, some late night channel surfing at my birthday video game/movie night extravaganza (It was a phase…we’ve all been there) allowed me to discover Total Nonstop Action Wrestling.

The discovery was eye opening to me because I had gone for almost eight months thinking that WWE was the only form of professional wrestling left on TV. I knew WCW was a thing. I had seen the commercials, I had seen Sting, Hulk Hogan and Macho Man all in their black and white colors, but I was too young to take that deep dive into the whole death of WCW saga. As a result, I was very ignorant. But here before me was a new product that looked…different than Smackdown and Monday Night Raw, in front of a smaller audience with a six-sided ring with wrestlers from all walks of life who took the “cruiserweight” WWE style (which I was a big fan of at the time) and brought it to a whole new level. TNA was the home to bigger names like Raven and Diamond Dallas Page, guys I had heard of before but wasn’t sure what became of them. Jeff Hardy was another. I knew of him because of Matt Hardy, but always heard the kids at school say they thought Jeff went to “Mexico or something.” Jeff Jarrett had the old-school heel shtick down to a science.

But where the young TNA really excelled was putting over its lesser-known names like they were the biggest deal in the world. A.J. Styles? I had never heard of him. But TNA promoted him like he was the best wrestler on the planet, and once I saw him work Christopher Daniels in their 2005 Iron Man match, boy I could have bought it. America’s Most Wanted, for a time, was probably the strongest booked tag team. Heck, before he started talking, even Abyss was extremely marketable. And they had a way of making you think nobody was going to beat Samoa Joe. Bigger names like Rhino, Christian Cage and Kurt Angle only enhanced the roster in future years. It wasn’t until Dixie Carter’s influence grew in later years that the product really began to take a nosedive.

But we all know how that story ends. It doesn’t. Don Callis and Scott D’Amore have taken Impact in a whole different direction and have slowly but surely regained a lot of the momentum they lost during the apocalyptic post-Hogan era. What you probably didn’t know was that Callis and D’Amore as on-screen characters in the early years of TNA were vital in putting over some of the stars that have risen to the top in 2018.

And hell, I only started watching in 2005. I know very little about what went on in the Asylum years and wasn’t always able to watch consistently once I did get my hands on the product. As a 12 year old, I couldn’t order every pay-per-view, so I would literally go on Wrestlezone (cheap plug, but if you want me to shoot on the CSR guys, you know what to do: @jackgoodwillie) and feverishly refresh the page for updates to each and every match and segment. The point? I haven’t even seen a lot of the older pay-per-views of a product I’ve deemed so influential. That, however, is fixing to change real soon.

Starting Thursday, June 21, I will be reviewing the wrestlers and personalities of TNA’s yesteryear, determining what worked and what didn’t work as I try to do what no one has been able to do to date; unearth TNA’s true place in pro wrestling history and what its legacy might be when it’s all said and done.

I hope you join me for the ride.