At the beginning of 2011, Jeff Hardy is the TNA champion. Heading into Genesis, Mr. Anderson is the #1 contender. At Genesis, Anderson defeats Hardy to become the new champ. TNA has a chance to create a main event star of their own... however, Hardy wins it back at Against All Odds. The TNA product is already very bad, with Impact featuring a lot of lame and boring storylines, confusing booking, and less and less good matches, but it starts getting even worse. On March 3, Sting returns after "3/3/11" vignettes similar to WWE's "2/21/11" vignettes hyping the Undertaker's return, and defeats Hardy to win the belt in his first match back. This was a very bad booking decision in that Sting doesn't need the belt anymore, it gave the vibe that veteran talent from other promotions are more important than their younger talent, and that it made Anderson even more of a lame duck champion than before. It would get even worse.
At Victory Road 2011, Jeff Hardy would have a rematch against Sting for the title. However, he was under the influence shortly before their match, and couldn't have a proper match as a result. The logical thing to do would be to suspend or fire him and have someone who was talented and ready take his place. That didn't happen. TNA brought out Hardy, under the influence of drugs, to have the "match" with Sting. The main event involved Hardy making a fool of himself and lasted all of a minute with Sting giving him the Scorpion Deathdrop and having to pin him in a shoot position as Hardy tried his hardest to kick out. The Impact Zone crowd was in disapproval, to which Sting yelled "I agree!" back at them. This event alone severely damaged TNA's reputation and hardy was sent home for several months as a result.
After Victory Road, Sting feuded with Anderson and Rob Van Dam and the product continued to flounder until after the Sacrifice PPV in May. Impact became known as Impact Wrestling and a major storyline began. Abyss defeated Kazarian for the X Division title in an attempt by Hogan and Bischoff to destroy the X Division. Abyss held the belt until Destination X, an all X Division PPV that year, where he lost the belt to Brian Kendrick. This saved the X Division and "the network" put a weight limit on the X Division shortly after to prevent something like that from happening again. The X Division has consistently been featured on Impact every week since May after floundering for several years.
Sting holds the TNA title until Slammiversary where Mr. Anderson, now as a heel, wins the belt. After this match, Sting gets a career revival as he dons Joker-esque face paint and acts insane, which fans start calling him "Joker Sting" as a result. Anderson, who joins Immortal afterwards, has another one month title reign, as he loses it back to Sting on the Impact after Destination X. Sting feuds with Kurt Angle heading into Hardcore Justice, where Angle wins after turning heel. Anderson turns face again on the Impact after Hardcore Justice as well. Angle successfully defends the belt against Sting and Anderson at No Surrender.
Meanwhile, throughout the summer, the Bound For Glory series takes place. Several wrestlers take part in a series of matches against each other where pinfalls are worth 5 points, submissions are worth 10 points, and DQ losses are worth minus 10 points. Crimson is on top of the series throughout until he gets taken out by Samoa Joe, who had -10 points at the time and went into a rage as a result (this was a good decision as Crimson clearly wasn't ready to main event the biggest PPV of the year). Bobby Roode ends up winning the series and faces Angle at Bound For Glory. The match has an excellent build, however Angle wins, resulting in a major disappointment. This bad booking decision gets easily fixed though, as Roode's Beer Money partner James Storm wins the belt on the next Impact, only to lose it to Roode two weeks later after a heel turn. Roode feuds with AJ Styles to end 2011. Roode, Storm, and AJ are all in the title picture to finish 2011.
The main feud of 2011, however, is Sting vs. Hulk Hogan. As "Joker" Sting, Sting stops at nothing to try and bring back the old, babyface, Hulkamania Hulk Hogan. Before their match at Bound For Glory, it almost seems hopeless. However, at Bound For Glory, after Sting defeats him, Hogan helps Sting clean house on the rest of Immortal! As a result of Sting's victory, Dixie Carter regains control of TNA from Hogan and Bischoff, who took control over TNA in October of 2010, and Hogan only makes one appearance on the Impact after BFG before taking himself off TV.
2011 is a very solid year for TNA, with new main eventers being made, the X Division returning to a more prominent role, and a much improved product in the second half of 2011 over the first half. No, it's not perfect, it's far from it, but baby steps...
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