A few months ago, I was appalled to read an article that depicted TNA's treatment of their Knockouts. For a company who is overseen by a woman, it's pretty bad to hear that some of their women are paid so low that they can't afford to make the house shows, or that they have to find second jobs to support themselves, a la former Knockout Taylor Wilde.
At one point, it was safe to say that TNA's Knockouts Division was way better than the WWE Divas division. They outdrew the men in the ratings department. They weren't the typical cookie cutter Divas that the WWE Universe has steadily been rejecting since their golden era of Divas all left and retired.
Then they all left in droves. Awesome Kong, Alissa Flash, ODB, Tara for a short period, Traci Brooks -- for a while, Roxxi. Now we're left with three former WWE Divas in Winter (Katie Lea), Tara (Victoria), Mickie James, Madison, Rosita and Sarita and The Beautiful People.
Several months ago, Shannon Spruill -- known as Daffney -- revealed on her Twitter account that she was no longer a TNA Knockout, and it may have something to do with the fact that she had filed a worker's compensation claim against them over the multiple, severe injuries she had suffered during her time in TNA, including a crushed sternum from overweight wrestler Rosie Lottalove, who wound up getting fired after everything. You can read her story at this link:
If this is true, as a woman, Dixie Carter should be ashamed of herself. She has not tweeted since her Twitter account was reactivated. She's been laying low, amidst rumors of lawsuits and troubled waters approaching. Ratings have been falling; their core demographic are leaving in droves. And at the core of it all are lawsuits filed by all the employees who have been treated sub-par by the company.
At one point, I wanted these guys to succeed. They have great talent in guys like Abyss, Samoa Joe, Christopher Daniels, AJ Styles, Kurt Angle. The thing that even sets them apart from WCW is their ability to build their homegrown talent -- all WCW had really was Goldberg.
Unfortunately, since the influx of former WWE guys and Hogan and Bischoff, this company has gotten so horrible that I just don't care at this point. And if they are going to treat their employees like this, then maybe they should just close their doors. This is sub-human treatment. At one point, Daffney was taking these bumps to a point where wrestling reporters were calling it gratuitous and it was.
Several years back, Konnan filed a lawsuit against TNA, claiming that they were racist. Not only that, but he claimed TNA only took care of their top card talent that were more than likely getting their money from Dixie's father's company Panda Energy. He cited them paying for Scott Steiner's surgery at the time, but refusing to pay for Ron Killings' (R-Truth). Some of the people on the roster are barely making enough to survive, according to reports, let alone pay for surgeries that they would need to get healthy again.
I say good on Daffney for filing a complaint. TNA shouldn't be able to pick and choose what employees to take care of. We keep hearing how Dixie isn't a tyrannical billionaire, that she's just a mother of two from Texas. How TNA is a family. Well, then, why isn't she treating her employees like that?
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