Back in 2005, TNA had one of their most embarrassing moments. WWE was in their area, shooting a promo (the legendary West Side Story commercial for that year’s Royal Rumble) and some TNA wrestlers decided to pay them a visit. They brought cookies and a camera. For weeks afterwards, TNA was crowing about how the footage they got was super scandalous. They even got actors that looked like Vince and Triple H for backstage segments, looking for the footage. Then they aired the footage and everyone laughed at TNA.
The footage showed the TNA wrestlers acting obnoxious, stealing food from catering, and showed Rey Mysterio without his mask. They were asked to leave in short order. They expected reaction was “Look at how stupid WWE is!” but the actual reaction was “Why am I watching TNA?”
But TNA marched on, still running shows to this day. And AEW, who also ran some mind-boggingly stupid backstage footage this week, will also march on. I’ve seen a lot of people say that airing the CM Punk footage is AEW’s fingerpoke of doom moment but I disagree. It’s going to be their Cookiegate: something utterly stupid but not a company killer. Just my two thoughts.