Recently, the annual rumors have been floating around that TNA, WWE’s closest competitor, is in financial trouble. There are rumors that they could be bought out by Ring of Honor’s parent company, or even by Vince McMahon and WWE. To end the Monday Night Wars, Vince McMahon (Shane McMahon in storyline) bought WCW, their closest competition. TNA is not even close to how huge WCW was back in the day, but they are arguably the closest competition that WWE has had in quite some time. With TNA rumored to be dead in the water anyway, should WWE take advantage and buy them out?
A Huge Talent Pool
One of the problems with WWE purchasing WCW back in the day was that their roster was overcrowded. There were so many main event stars (Steve Austin, The Rock, Booker T, Chris Jericho, Kurt Angle, Ric Flair, and dozens more) that combined with the undercard, there seemed to be a huge overload of talent. While WWE now essentially has three brands (Raw, SmackDown, and NXT), it is hard enough for some wrestlers to even get spots on TV now (Remember Neville?), and with double the talent pool, it will only make things harder.
Now, WWE does not have to sign everyone on TNA’s roster, so bringing the headline names to their shows could be a huge benefit. They have already done this in recent years with Bobby Roode, Austin Aries, Samoa Joe, and the current WWE World Champion, AJ Styles. Most of TNA’s big names are now ex-WWE employees, so it would be easy to transition them back into the WWE system. This includes the Hardys, Drew Galloway (formerly Drew McIntyre), Aron Rex (Damien Sandow), [Bobby] Lashley, Tyrus (Brodus Clay), and Ethan Carter III (Derrick Bateman).
While bringing back former WWE Superstars would be a great benefit, perhaps the best acquisition WWE could regain after purchasing TNA would be Gail Kim. Now that the Women’s Revolution has gotten underway in WWE, Kim can finally have amazing matches on WWE television. Sure, she could go for the Raw or SmackDown Women’s Championships, but a great spot would be to put her against Asuka.
Having TNA’s History on the WWE Network
This would be the most exciting part of WWE purchasing TNA. Every TNA event could be uploaded to the WWE Network alongside WWE, WCW, and ECW content to greater improve the best wrestling video library there is today. The entire television careers of AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, and Austin Aries would be at the WWE Universe’s fingertips. We would also finally be able to see where Sting went after the end of WCW, instead of just vanishing for over a decade.
This could help WWE explain the histories of their Superstars better. They have no problem mentioning that Luke Gallows, Karl Anderson, AJ Styles, and Shinsuke Nakamura have all won IWGP championship titles in New Japan Pro Wrestling. They never seem to mention American wrestling companies by name, however, and this could open up so many talking points for commentators. We could hear about so many feuds and amazing moments that would only help the credibility of wrestlers who spent time in the Impact Zone.
No Competition = No Motivation to Improve
This is the biggest problem that lies with TNA going under. As mentioned before, they are nowhere close to being the competition that WCW was in the 90s, but it is clear that they have had some influence on WWE. For example, when Matt Hardy has his “Final Deletion” early this summer, WWE had something very similar happen with the New Day fighting at the Wyatt Family compound the following week.
TNA is the closest company to WWE to have a national television audience, and losing that would mean that WWE does not have to try to outdo anybody. While Lucha Underground has been the most consistently solid wrestling show in quite some time, the El Rey Network, which hosts Lucha Underground, is not a major channel by any means. The ideal situation would be for Ring of Honor and TNA to merge, so that hopefully they can be a powerhouse competitor to WWE in the not so distant future and so that they can force WWE to think outside of the box and improve.
There are three outcomes to this situation: WWE buys TNA, Ring of Honor absorbs TNA, or they somehow stay afloat. Each situation has their pros and cons, and while there are many benefits to WWE owning their competitors, maybe they could just contract some of their wrestlers instead.
