Former TNA star Bully Ray has criticized one decision from TNA's debut show onAMC, which he feels has affected its perception.
Ray, on "Busted Open," praised some parts of the show, but feels that TNA's creative team could have done more to make the show more special.
"I don't think the rest of the show was on par with AJ, the Hardys, Mike Santana, Frankie Kazarian, the heavy hitters of TNA. I thought there was a lot of stuff in there that just felt like it didn't belong on a major pro wrestling show," he began. "I don't think creative put talent in a position to knock it out of the park. Other than AJ, Frankie, Mike Santana, the Hardys, you know, with that six-man. I felt like creative could have come up with things to feature the talent better, move the show along better, and not make it feel like something that wasn't a big deal. Everything should have felt like a big deal."
Ray argued that TNA should not have focused on using the debut episode of "Impact" on AMC to set up for the Genesis pay-per-view, stating that they could've used the main event for that. He pointed out one grave error they made, where TNA showed the celebrities in the crowd at the show when there were empty seats behind them. He advised the promotion not to make such mistakes again, as he feels it could have a severe impact on the perception, and thinks that TNA has to win back the fans.
"Learn from this and don't ever do it again. You f**k up a company's perception when you do things like that. And you're only getting one crack at this. They had their crack at it. I think TNA, when it comes to the TV show, are now fighting from underneath to win people back over after that first show," he added.
The debut show on AMC performed well in terms of viewership, with just over 170,000 tuning in a significant increase from its pre-AMC days.
