TNA’s online fan-voted Gut Check Challenge has been suspended.
The tournament allowed fans to vote for their favorite wrestlers who had previously taken part in unsuccessful Gut Check tryouts. Recently, rules were slightly altered and it was announced that the top three wrestlers voted for in each of the sixteen brackets would advance to the next stage, with every I.P address allowed one vote in each bracket.
However, PWInsider reports that an error occurred which meant that some people could vote for any wrestler as many times as they wanted, drastically altering the outcome of the polls.
Independent stars such as Athena and LuFisto were just two of the seventeen women in contention to receive a live Gut Check tryout.
The voting discrepancies resulted in Athena tweeting: “So tna emailed everyone this am and said they’re not going to fix the multi vote-result I offcially don’t give 2 s**ts about this bs contest (sic)”
Last night, TNA issued an official statement on the controversial flaws in the voting system:
[box]A MESSAGE TO OUR LOYAL FANS REGARDING THE GUT CHECK CHALLENGE
In January, we launched the Gut Check Challenge as an online competition to give many independent wrestling stars a chance to showcase their talents and potentially earn a spot on the IMPACT WRESTLING roster.
However, due to a number of issues with the voting – and in fairness to all the competitors – we have decided to suspend the Gut Check Challenge.
We will be re-launching the contest in the near future with a new voting system that will eliminate the voting issues. Stay tuned to our website for updates – and thank you for your continued support of TNA and IMPACT WRESTLING![/box]
Thoughts: What was once was a neat initiative has turned into a technology nightmare for TNA. After a series of deadline and rules changes, it seemed like things were getting back on track, but alas, there is yet another setback. Let’s hope the voting can resume soon because there is a lot of female independent talent that is deserving of TV time, and we definitely want to see new Knockouts!
