The future direction of TNA literally hangs in the balance due to the situation involving Jeff Jarrett and Karen Angle.
The situation came to a head this past week when Jarrett, the founder and part-owner of the company, was sent home by Dixie Carter. It was officially stated that Jarrett, who turned 42 this past week, had taken a personal leave of absence from the company. He was not at the Victory Road PPV or at the television tapings held this week.
Jarrett has steered the creative direction of the company largely since its beginnings seven years ago. The direction has been questioned by people from the start, particularly in recent years when with all the television exposure they have and audience they draw, their attendance at live events and PPV numbers are poor, and actually falling even as the star power has increased greatly. Indeed, one of the most often asked questions is how Jarrett, who has been around the business from childhood and whose father was one of the great wrestling bookers in history, could take the company in such a direction and not change or learn from the numbers.
The feeling is that most in TNA have resigned themselves to the idea that the marketplace has changed and that a promotion which will never be seen by the public in the same league as WWE and UFC is limited in drawing on PPV and at house shows. There is the feeling that for international television sales and domestic ratings, the focal point of the company, and whatever licensing income they can derive, what drives the ship is featuring aging stars of the Monday Night Wars era. The ratings, which remain steady, are seen as the affirmation what they are doing isn’t failing, even though they are now even backing away from going outside Orlando more than a few times per year for PPV events because they can’t sell tickets in major markets even for big shows. There is no indication from the quarter hours that even when it comes to ratings, while logic would say that the stars from the past being more familiar would be the ratings movers, that it is even the case. The addition of Mick Foley and creation of the Main Event Mafia did lead the company to its best ratings, and they are still ahead of the levels of a year ago, but ratings have leveled off from the peak. And still, it is the women’s matches that are still the most consistent ratings movers, even such as this past week when the biggest growth segment by far was the debut of Alissa Flash (formerly Raisha Saeed) and Sarita.
The uncertainty is exactly who will wind up out of this as the power. Talking with a few in the company, there are plenty of rumors but nothing has been said. It was said to be a feeling of uncertainty as to what will happen after this taping, but the taping ran with lots of questions and no answers.
Angle in the dressing room this past week at shows was cutting strong promos on Jarrett. Different people have noted Angle saying he’d kick Jarrett’s ass if he saw him, that he was going to have booking power and that if Jarrett was brought back, he would leave the company and go back to WWE. Of course, people also know not to take seriously much of what Angle says. Jarrett, Angle and Vince Russo all have histories of doing angles that attempt to work the boys. It makes little sense for Angle to suddenly be furious over something that has been going on for months on end. There was also a behind-the-scenes power play where people in the company were being rallied to choose sides between Angle and Jarrett in a power struggle more than a year ago over the direction of the company, and both talked it out. Even with what was going on, it was described that Angle and Jarrett were no longer friendly, but worked together without major heat in a business setting.
It’s been noted in the company that Angle has been more and more friendly to McMahon when doing media interviews designed to promote TNA. It should also be noted that when Angle and WWE had their parting of the ways, that Karen Angle was a major catalyst, telling Kurt at the time she would leave him if he stayed with WWE. The funny thing is, almost everyone sees the nature of the business being what it is, that the two will agree to have a business relationship at some point and try and use this real life as part of a storyline grudge.
When Kurt and Karen split up, Karen remained under contract as a performer, and the divorce was at first said not to affect either one’s standing with the company. However, Karen was then released by TNA, which at the time had nothing to do with creative and was because the feeling was they couldn’t be together in the dressing room and Kurt was the bigger star and more valuable of the two.
From a dressing room standpoint, most have sided with Angle on this. Jarrett, as the boss of a company where virtually everyone is frustrated at the lack of progress despite the public lip service to the contrary, is going to have his detractors. They point to the idea that there is some sort of a wrestlers code about messing with families, even though Kurt & Karen were on the rocks many times before TNA and had a unique relationship to begin with. Kurt and Rhaka Khan was hardly a secret. But wrestling has always been the world where if a guy sleeps with 100 women he’s a stud and if a woman sleeps with two guys she’s a slut. Jarrett has his allies, but many of them are resented for being so.
Victory Road, which may have been the worst PPV show the company has ever done, only had some minor changes from the original scripting with Jarrett not there. The plan had already been in place to build the show around the Main Event Mafia winning all the major titles (which was the reason the Homicide vs. Suicide X Division title match was pulled from the show, since it would interfere with the main story they were telling). When the Mafia angle started months ago, the idea was for them to win everything at first and then build for the TNA Front Line to make a recovery. The original thought is they had to make strong heels first, and the make babyfaces. The concept was copied from the NWO angle, offshoots of which Dutch Mantel booked successfully years ago in Puerto Rico. However, the Front Line became so synonymous with losers that the idea was dropped. This show was an attempt to go back to square one, but give the babyface side the benefit of having Sting as the top gun to go with Foley and Jarrett. The pep talk segment during the show with Foley talking with Beer Money and A.J. Styles was scheduled to be Jarrett in the role. There was also a doctrine that they wanted more “clean finishes” on the show. Right now, it’s Vince Russo and Mantel in charge, but nobody knows where it will go from there.
But as far as the original aspect of the story being an angle, not that wrestling would be beyond doing something like that, but it wouldn’t be the case here.
It’s hard to know exactly where the story beings, but it has been talked about quietly for months, and those who were aware were surprised that it’s only been now, as it was going public, that Angle was so vocal about it. Perhaps he wasn’t previously because if he was vocal, it would have gone public a lot quicker. Angle, 40, when Karen, 36, filed for divorce, even during an interview when he was guest on the Howard Stern show where he was hitting on Robin Quivers, said he said he believed she was having an affair with someone in the company, but said he couldn’t prove it.
As part of the divorce agreement, Kurt purchased Karen a house in Pittsburgh, actually across the street from the home the two lived at. It is believed Kurt is now selling the family’s original home and has moved closer to the Pittsburgh Airport. She also got a big divorce settlement. There are conflicting accounts as to whether Karen Angle and Jarrett are actually living together or not, but they are involved.
The news largely broke due to a caller, who claimed to be someone who works backstage for TNA, with a disguised voice, calling the Bubba the Love Sponge radio show on 7/15.
The caller said Karen Angle and Kurt’s two young children have moved in with Jeff Jarrett, and that Dixie Carter was furious and that Carter may buy out Jarrett’s stock, and that Jarrett could be out of the company. Bubba told the caller that he didn’t believe the story to be true and called Kurt on his cell phone and left a message for Kurt to call the show. Bubba was saying he didn’t believe it, but was on the air, leaving a message on Angle’s cell phone, and talking in detail on the air while leaving a message as to what the caller had said.
People in TNA were furious about this, and people internally were listening to the tape over and over trying to figure out whose disguised voice made the call. Angle was also saying in the dressing room over the weekend how mad he was at Bubba for how this was handled. Kurt never called the show and Bubba never brought the subject up again the rest of the show.
Matt Morgan was scheduled to be a guest on the 7/16 show to plug the weekend PPV. Before the show started, the producer said that he had gotten phone calls from Morgan and from someone in the TNA office, but he had missed both calls. Then he called Morgan, who said that he would be ten minutes late. He then called the front office person, who he never named, who told him Morgan was ill and had to cancel the appearance. The producer then told the office guy that he had just talked with Morgan and Morgan was on the way to the studio. But Morgan never showed up. Then Bubba went through all this on the air, and said he thought the cancellation was because of the rumor that was said by the caller on the show the day before. He said he was livid that after all he had done to promote TNA, that they would cancel on him at the last minute. It should be noted that Bubba is compensated by TNA for having their wrestlers on as guests and the belief is that in this economy, nobody is going to turn down paying sponsors. Bubba said that he’s rethinking if he will work with them in the future because of how everything went down. He also said that he liked everyone at TNA and also liked Dixie Carter.
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