If you missed MMA star Quinton ‘Rampge’ Jackson’s brief run on Impact Wrestling, here’s the gist. TNA occasionally decides that they need to “cross over” into other kinds of sports and pop culture to get mainstream success — “mentioned on SportsCenter,” more or less — but they’re TNA, so they don’t have WWE’s pull. WWE can get Ronda Rousey at WrestleMania and have her hang out with The Rock. TNA can get Tito Ortiz to join Aces & Eights for three weeks to promote a Bellator fight that never happens.
Rampage joined TNA in a promotional deal with Bellator, immediately joined the Main Event Mafia, tried to recruit Tito Ortiz only to be hilariously and obviously swerved by him, and then both men were pulled from the show before anything could be resolved. It was a huge waste of time, money and talent — especially after Rampage started winning pay-per-view main-events — but it’s a spectacularly TNA thing to have happen.
According to Mike Bohn from MMA Junkie, that TNA run soured Rampage not only on a return to TNA, but to pro wrestling in general.
"Rampage" Jackson says TNA "killed" his desire to do pro wrestling. Says he thinks they handled him terribly.
— Mike Bohn (@MikeBohn) April 23, 2015
We’re never going to get that “hammer on a pole” match between Jackson and Ortiz now, are we? I guess all we can do is run down the list of celebrities TNA put over for no reason and see what Toby Keith, King Mo, Brian Urlacher, Pacman Jones, Tom Arnold and the Tennessee Titans think about return runs.
