Who did TNA drop the ball with the biggest?

Like the status says, over the course of TNA's life span, who did TNA drop the ball with the most?

I think its easy to look at guys like Christopher Daniels and Kazarian who have been in TNA for so long and have a pretty significant following in TNA, yet have never been able to break past the tag division or X-Division. As soon as TNA started attracting guys like Jeff Hardy, Kurt Angle, Booker T, Kevin Nash, those bigger names, these guys were always pushed to the bottom.

TNA had a guy in Monty Brown who was huge in TNA's early days. He had charisma, could talk on the mic, and was decent in the ring and they gave him a few shots at the TNA gold in the early days (FOX Sports era) but never seemed to want to pull the trigger. He was truly TNA's first African-American home made star (yes more so than R-Truth), but for what ever reason they didn't give him a go and see how the fans would react to him as the top guy. Instead it was better to keep the title on guys like Jeff Jarrett, Rhino and Raven who were established and known around the world.

As far as guys they brought in, Ricky Banderas (Judas Mesias) was one that I thought they did horrible with. He was a man known throughout Mexico who I thought had a lot of potential to be a future WHC in TNA, but they brought him in against Abyss in a horrible storyline, he got injured came back and had some good matches, but the length of his absence was just too long to really keep the storyline. He debuted one day and was injured the next and gave no reason why he was gone for three months, by the time he came back, the fans could careless about the story line anymore. I really enjoyed his debut, but he was almost forgotten and it was like they didn't really know where to go with him after the Abyss storyline fizzled out so instead they released him and he returned back to Mexico and won the world title there a few more times.

I'm sure there are many, many more, but just thought this was be an interesting topic to see who everyone valued more and less over the years...

It has to be Samoa Joe.  You build the guy up for an entire year like he's a Goldberg-esque unstoppable force that culminates in him jobbing cleanly to Kurt Angle in Angle's first match in TNA.  It also perfectly encapsulates everything that is wrong and has ever been wrong with TNA.

Samoa Joe is a great answer for all the reasons Xero said. Monty Brown as well. Anyone in the last couple years really doesn't count because they've pretty much been sleeping in the same bed they made for a couple years now.

Monty Brown was terrible. His first push was terrible, and Truth was FAR more over than Brown ever was. Brown's second run was better, but it was just because he was fun watching squash guys. Brown winning the title would have felt flat, and wouldn't have really meant anything. I almost think they treated the guy perfectly.

Samoa Joe had a great run in the X-division. I don't think TNA ever saw him as THE guy, and I guess you could fault them there. However, I think Joe proved them right when he stopped having great matches in 06, and really regressed in 07.

I guess another popular answer could be CM Punk, because well we know what he became, and TNA forced him out. It's possible if Punk wasn't made to choose (or he choose TNA) he could have had a career there like AJ or Daniels, but I think he would have missed out on learning how to be THE guy for a promotion like he was to ROH.

I think the answer right now might have to be Generation Me. These guys are probably the best tag team going right now. They have proven to be great heels in PWG and now NJPW. These guys could have carried the tag division and kept it something to care about.

I loved Monty Brown, but then again I was like 15 years old.

While there are some good choices above, many of those wrestlers came with their faults. Whether it was a lack of commitment to the sport (Monty Brown), an increasing lack of effort (Samoa Joe), or not really showing much potential during their time in the company (CM Punk).

The clear answer to this question is the most obvious; AJ Styles.

Yes, TNA has touted him as their homegrown and posterboy, but he never truly got the chance to be THE guy, despite several world title reigns. Every time he was World Champion, the reign was either cut very short (his 2nd and 3rd world title runs) or the focus was mostly of his title run was on somebody else (Vince Russo, Ric Flair, Dixie Carter).

AJ should have been the man to lead the company as the true alternative to the WWE. Instead, they wasted his potential and now he's no longer even in the company.

Yeah, I would say Truth or Joe.

Joe is number one for me because I was and still am kind of a mark for him. He had so much potential. He was recently on Steve Austin's podcast (which I recommend) and Austin was singing his praises like crazy. He was talking about how he can't understand why they don't push joe to the moon. Granted, some of that is hype, but Austin isn't a bullshitter. I believe they could have done such great things with joe. They rushed the Joe vs Angel thing and then basically used Joe to help make other stories they wanted to hype more interesting, without ever really rewarding Joe for being the workhorse he was.

Truth was super over and they had multiple chances to shift his character into something more serious. I always saw that as a necessary move if they wanted to really make him a main event guy over the long haul. He had the skills, the athleticism, and could definitely work the mic pretty well. If they had just slowly faded out some of the cheese and given him an edge he coul have been great for them.


Roode is somewhat underutilized to me. How this guy isn't the companies number one heel is beyond me. They gave him that one good run, but he seems fairly underused now. I don't watch regularly (can't stand to) it looks like they push him and then forget about him. By this point Roode should be on the short list of top tier guys and that entire tier should be made up of TNA made talent and Angel.


Monty Brown is a guy I want to like more than i did/do. I really wanted to believe he could be a great TNA made guy, but every time I watched him he disappointed me. He was charismatic, but they needed to drop that stupid gimmick. It wasn't that interesting. Someone on these boards forever ago had an idea that they should have put Elix Skipper (another underused wrestlers) with a sports manager type figure and hype him as a super athlete. A la MVP before MVP. I always thought that would have been a great way to use Brown too. Regardless, yes he was mishandled, but I never really had high hopes for him anyway.