I failed my first time as well, my suggestion would be to push AJ to the moon and put him in most if not all of your main events, to raise the show's total rating, until some other people start to put on matches that are close to as good. It gets a bit boring, but it worked for me. If you haven't managed to get your show ratings up to 75 before the first month ends things will be a lot more difficult as Spike will kick you off soon after that.
Use some of the people who are damaging morale to put over people you want to push and annoy them until they ask for a release.
Also hire some people on handshake deals that will help with backstage morale (DDP and Kevin Nash are both huge boosts in this regard).