TNA was a company that always seemed like it was on the verge of breaking through to the next level. Then, they would shoot themselves in the foot in any number of creative ways. Their biggest mistake was booking former WWE talent over their homegrown stars. But it's hard to resist top-tier performers when they're available.
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As such, they couldn't stop themselves from bringing in Ric Flair when he became available after Shawn Michaels "retired" him. Anyone who watched Flair's TNA run knows that he would have been better off retired. The company did not know how to book him.
10 Fortune
The Four Horsemen were easily the most influential wrestling stable of all time. It's also the one with the most clones. Some, like Evolution, were incredibly successful. Others were definitely not.
TNA tried to replicate The Four Horsemen with a team consisting of AJ Styles, Robert Roode, James Storm, and Kazarian. Having Flair associated with the group didn't help the knockoff Horsemen vibe. The angle never clicked, even after they started adding in other wrestlers like Christopher Daniels and Matt Morgan.
9 Lethal Lockdown
Every company has their own spin on the cage match. In TNA, that was a match called Lethal Lockdown. It was, for all intents and purposes, a WarGames match. At the time, the main difference was weapons were in play but modern WarGames matches also have weapons.
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One iteration featured Team Flair versus Team Hogan. Neither Flair nor Hogan belonged in this brutal of a match. Flair in particular took an uncomfortably savage beating. Even in his prime, Lethal Lockdown was not a Ric Flair match.
8 Managing AJ Styles
Despite what a lot of people think, there are actually a lot of jobs for older wrestlers in the business. There are numerous production roles they can fill backstage as well as becoming trainers and commentators. But a classic on-screen move is managing younger talent.
That's what TNA did with Ric Flair when he joined the company, making him the manager of AJ Styles. The problem was these were two popular, larger than life performers. AJ did not need the support of Ric to get over at all. It was just something for Ric to do, an angle that never really came together.
7 The Matt Morgan Match
Earning your spot in a title match is a big moment for any wrestler. Becoming the number one contender to a championship puts them in the big picture, possibly even in the main event scene. It's a highly sought after position for obvious reasons.
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At one point, Matt Morgan had to go through Ric Flair to get his title shot. If that doesn't seem like a fair fight, that's because it wasn't. Morgan was an absolute beast in the ring and he tore through Flair in that match. Even in the context of the storyline, these two facing off didn't make a lot of sense.
6 Flair's Actual Final Match
WWE made a huge deal out of Flair's retirement match at WrestleMania XXIV with Shawn Michaels. He went into the Hall of Fame the night before, had one of the best matches of his career, then had a huge celebration the following night on Raw. It was the perfect send-off for The Nature Boy.
Unfortunately, Flair felt like he still had some gas left in the tank. After a terrible TNA run, he had a final match against Sting in 2011. It was nowhere near the caliber of the match with Michaels years earlier.
5 Getting Hardcore With Mick Foley
Ric Flair wasn't the only former WWE guy to pop up in TNA. Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Hulk Hogan, Rob Van Dam, Jeff Hardy, The Dudleys, and many more all had TNA runs. Some were much better than others.
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Like Flair, Mick Foley's time in TNA was nothing to be proud of as his best days in the ring were long behind him. The duo ended up in a feud that featured an intense hardcore match. Once again, Flair was out of his element and ended up busted open. It was not easy to watch him bleed that much.
4 Working With Hogan
Hulk Hogan was reputedly at the center of TNA's failure to become a legitimate, long-term competitor to WWE. Rumors have often alleged that many of their worst decisions can be directly attributed to him. That being said, Hogan wasn't the only cook in that kitchen.
In TNA, Hogan and Flair renewed their old WCW rivalry. The only problem was they were both way past their respective primes, and all of their work in TNA just felt like a bad caricature of their better days.
3 Fell In A Hole
Flair was involved in a lot of cartoonish, embarrassing moments in his TNA run. That included Jay Lethal pulling his trunks down as part of their feud. But falling in a hole during a match was one of the worst.
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AJ Styles versus Abyss was a quintessential TNA match-up, and great wrestling to boot. TNA found a way to ruin it by having Hogan and Flair involved. Eventually, Abyss went through the ring. Like a cartoon coyote who had been hit in the head with an anvil, Flair eventually stumbled his way into the hole as well. It wasn't funny at all.
2 Constantly Bleeding
The biggest hallmark of Flair's time in TNA was the constant blading that went down in almost every match he was involved in. There were pools of Ric Flair's blood all over the arena by the time the referee counted to three.
Flair was in his 60s during his TNA run and was in no condition to be wrestling, let alone blading that much. He put his health at risk on a regular basis for matches that were simply not good. It was genuinely uncomfortable to watch an icon like Ric Flair spend so much time busted open.
1 Letting Him Wrestle At All
Ric is the first to admit that he took the TNA gig because he needed the money. Unfortunately, his work with Impact looked like someone who was just there for the paycheck. But TNA had a choice on how to use him.
Ultimately, everything that happened was is the company's doing. They should never have put him in any matches at all but, instead, position him as a manager or an authority figure. TNA was lucky that Flair made it through his run with them mostly unharmed. At least TNA's viewership was low enough that not too many fans watched any of this happen.
