Hanley! wrote:That being said, I find it weird that WWE still refuse to mention TNA on television, but they will often name-drop New Japan and Ring of Honor, which are both bigger than TNA at this point. It's like they're operating on an outdated view of the wrestling landscape.
I think a bigger reason might be a lot simpler: spite.
New Japan and RoH have never, to my knowledge, set themselves up as direct competition to WWE the way TNA has. To use Monday Night War analogies, they're more like ECW to TNA's WCW. New Japan and ROH end up giving a lot of talent to WWE, but they still offer different enough products that they don't really occupy the same space in the overall wrestling marketplace.
TNA, by comparison, came across for the longest time as WWE-Lite. Even though they had homegrown individual talent like AJ Styles, Samoa Joe to an extent, and Bobby Roode, they relied heavily on guys that made their name in WWE. Jeff Hardy, Christian, Kurt Angle, MVP, Matt Hardy, Mr. Kennedy/Anderson, Lashley, RVD, and older stars from the earlier days of wrestling like Sting, Kevin Nash, Mick Foley, Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, they all got major pushes in TNA primarily due to the name/gimmick recognition from WWE, WCW, or ECW. Their production was trying to undeniably copy that of WWE, they did try to ape stories that worked in WWE, they even tried to do a Monday Night War again and were thoroughly squashed.
So I'm Vince McMahon or Triple H, and I'm very petty. You have a decent relationship with us, you're not constantly running your mouth and trying to usurp our spot in the landscape, sure. We'll mention you, give you a rub, we can coexist. But when your whole modus operandi was or still is trying to use names WE built to further YOUR brand and take US down, what do we benefit from acknowledging your existence?