Cast your minds back to the end of 2009. Total Nonstop Action Wrestling had firmly established itself as the number two company in the world behind WWE, but were struggling to find a way to break through and become a legitimate competitor to WWE. Years of questionable booking by the likes of Vince Russo, where the car-crash TV of the late 1990s and virtually all of WCW in 2000, had not stuck the landing, but with the likes of AJ Styles as the TNA World Champion, workhorses like Samoa Joe, Desmond “Nigel McGuinness” Wolfe, and Christopher Daniels all moving up the card, and established veterans like Kurt Angle, Sting, and Team 3D, TNA looked like they were on the up for once.
Then it was announced in October of that year that Hulk Hogan would be joining the company, along with Eric Bischoff, with their official starting point being January 2010. It was seen as a move that would finally push TNA towards being on par with WWE, and maybe, just maybe, surpass Vince McMahon’s empire, but that was not the case.
Hogan debuted on the January 4, 2010 episode of “TNA Impact,” a special three-hour live episode that went head-to-head with “WWE Raw” in an attempt to relight the fire of the Monday Night Wars from the 1990s, but it was clear as day that this new relationship wouldn’t be for the benefit of TNA as a company. Shortly after Hogan’s debut, TNA’s famous six-sided ring was scrapped in favor of a four-sided ring, a decision that was heavily booed by fans when they saw it for the first time. Wrestlers who had no business being in TNA at the age they were at, were favored over the TNA originals who had been cornerstones of the company. After all, why would you want to see Beer Money and the Motor City Machine Guns, when you could watch The Nasty Boys and a pensioner version of the New World Order instead?
It would only get worse, as “TNA Impact” was permanently moved to Monday nights in March 2010, with Hogan being a main focal point of the show, and even wrestling on the March 8 episode. This move would only last for two months, and “Impact” was moved back to Thursdays in May, but the damage was done. Outside of a few moments that still make the rounds on social media today, such as Ric Flair’s “Woooo-Off” with Jay Lethal, and the excellent tag team rivalry between the aforementioned Motor City Machine Guns and Beer Money, interest in TNA was at an all-time low, and both Hogan and Bischoff were cited as the main reason for that low.
TNA might be in a good spot today having just broken their all-time North American attendance record with Slammiversary 2025, but Hogan’s run in TNA was a big reason why the company entered the darkest of dark ages in the mid-2010s, and quite frankly, it’s a miracle TNA Wrestling is still around today.
Written by Sam Palmer
