Professional wrestler Scott Steiner is again suing Total Nonstop Action Entertainment, this time saying its top executives — including Hulk Hogan — endangered his health and career by letting fellow competitor Jeff Hardy to enter the ring drunk "and/or under the influence of a controlled substance" at a Michigan event last year. He wants $750,000 in damages from Cummins Station-based TNA.

According to the lawsuit filed in Davidson County Circuit Court, Steiner suffered nerve damage in his shoulder and neck as well as a bicep injury due to what he called Hardy’s reckless, drunken wrestling.

Cummins Station-based wrestling company TNA Entertainment has launched a second high-profile lawsuit a month after accusing rival WWE of interfering with its business. This time, TNA officials are after Scott Steiner, a wrestler who has been on their roster since late 2010. They say Steiner is breaching his contract by making disparaging Twitter remarks about fellow wrestlers, including Hulk Hogan, and the TNA organization as a whole.

SEE ALSO: Details of TNA's beef with WWE

Nashville-based TNA Entertainment, the promoter of the Total Nonstop Action wrestling series, says its business is in serious jeopardy after a former employee took with him to rival promoter WWE contract details and other trade secrets. As a result, TNA execs say, star wrestler Ric Flair recently backed out of appearances and wants out of his deal.

A WWE official notified TNA on May 7 about Wittenstein’s breach, but the lawsuit claims WWE waited three weeks before telling TNA. WWE fired Wittenstein after they learned what he did, according to the lawsuit.

Two days later, Flair attempted to terminate his TNA contract. He also failed to show up for TNA events from May 10-15, including a pay-per-view show. TNA now believes that Flair may be headed for WWE, the timing of which, it claims, is “suspect.”

The television shows produced by Cummins Station-based TNA Entertainment now reach 100 countries and have been a big driver in the company's 10-year growth curve and graduation from "a tin shed in the middle of the city." In this week's City Paper, Lucas Hendrickson steps into the ring to tell the story of a plucky start-up that has become the No. 2 wrestling promoter in the country.

“We had two or three Indian companies contact us over the past several years with different kinds of ideas, but it was almost more of a consultancy,” Jarrett said. “Endemol was a completely different story, and a great tag-team partner. They came and said, ‘You’re the experts in wrestling, we’re the experts in the country, the culture, the contacts, production elements, all that.’ We sat down and played to each other’s strengths and got out of the way of the other stuff.”

SEE ALSO: Our 2010 Fast 50 magazine profile of TNA [Subscribers only]

Nashville-based TNA Entertainment and Sky Deutschland have extended their agreement to carry the wrestling company's pay-per-view events in 2012 and added a Web and mobile platform component. The broadcaster's Sky Sports network also will carry TNA's weekly profile show.

Downtown-based TNA Entertainment has hooked up with Ohio Valley Wrestling to develop its next generation of stars. The two companies have inked a deal, effective immediately, to have Louisville-based OVW — which has in the past been affiliated with wrestling titan WWE — school TNA athletes.

The Ten­nessean: Would you ever con­sider run­ning for office? Jacobs: “No I have no inter­est. I actu­ally deplore pol­i­tics. Unfor­tu­nately it affects so much of our lives you sort of have to fol­low what’s going on. I have absolutely no desire to run for office. I pay atten­tion and I think it’s impor­tant because I think more and more peo­ple feel the way I’ve felt for a long time. Gov­ern­ment it’s in my wal­let, it’s in every­thing I do. You have to ask per­mis­sion to do this, you have to ask per­mis­sion to do that. I’m of the phi­los­o­phy that so long as your actions don’t hurt any­one else, you should be free to be in con­trol of your lives. That’s what this coun­try was about. Unfor­tu­nately it seems to be mov­ing in a dif­fer­ent direction.”