10 Impact Wrestling decisions that they still regret

#1 The Reverse Battle Royal

The reverse battle royal concept was doomed from the start.

There was a period when TNA was desperate to innovate. 2006 saw the introduction of the three-stage Fight for the Right Tournament for a world title shot.

One of the cardinal rules of booking a gimmick match in wrestling is to keep the rules simple enough for fans to follow. TNA had a history of walking the line on this idea. For example, they booked King of the Mountain matches that were by and large good. The matches also featured convoluted enough rules surrounding penalty boxes and ladder match variations that they were difficult for fans—especially new ones who hadn’t seen the match before—to wrap their heads around.

Fight for the Right included a battle royal, a single-elimination tournament that culminated in a Triple Threat, and a match between the battle royal winner and the tournament victory. All of this, on its own, was probably too complicated. You can then add in the most counter-intuitive part of all.

The tournament opened with a Reverse Battle Royal—a match in which performers started on the floor and battled to get into the ring to qualify for the battle royal to follow. The match-type was completely counterintuitive to what wrestling fans were used to. Furthermore, it was logically problematic, because getting into the ring simply shouldn’t have been that hard, and it felt contrived for the first stage to be such a battle, as opposed to a foot race to get in the ring.