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00:00At one point, TNA Wrestling was more than just an alternative to WWE. It was profitable, growing,
00:05and building a roster of wrestlers that felt different from anything fans were seeing elsewhere.
00:10But today, TNA is struggling to keep talent, grow its audience, and define what it actually is.
00:15So, what went wrong? To understand that, we need to know how TNA came to be.
00:20From the mid-90s to the early 2000s, wrestling experienced a boom in popularity. This was thanks
00:25largely to the Monday Night War. WWE's Monday night show, Raw, would go head-to-head with WCW's
00:31Monday night program, Nitro. This real-life competition got fans invested and forced both
00:36companies to put on the best show possible. This, in turn, resulted in both WWE and WCW seeing
00:42millions of viewers tuning in and tens of thousands of fans packing arenas and stadiums. However,
00:47every war eventually ends, and in March 2001, WWE came out on top when it purchased WCW.
00:53At the same time, WWE also acquired another rival company, ECW. This left a major gap in the wrestling
01:00market, and several wrestling startup companies tried to fill it. While most failed as soon as
01:04they started, one succeeded, and that was TNA, or Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. TNA's origins can
01:10actually be traced back to WCW's closure. During WCW's final years, one of the company's top stars was
01:16Jeff Jarrett. Jarrett had previously wrestled for WWE, but his relationship with the company and its
01:21owner, Vince McMahon, and did poorly. In 1999, while Jarrett was still part of WWE, he won the
01:26Intercontinental Championship. However, he held on to the title past the date his contract expired.
01:32Jarrett then extorted McMahon and WWE, demanding $300,000 in exchange for relinquishing the championship.
01:38McMahon begrudgingly agreed, and Jarrett competed in one match where he lost the title and then quickly
01:43joined WCW. However, after WCW went out of business, WWE refused to rehire Jarrett. With no other major
01:50wrestling company to work for, Jeff realized he would need to start his own. Using the $300,000,
01:56Jeff Jarrett launched TNA Wrestling, and the company hosted its first show on June 19, 2002. The company
02:02was off to a good start, but they didn't have a deal with the TV network. That's when TNA got
02:06creative.
02:07Instead of doing monthly pay-per-view events like WWE did, TNA would run weekly pay-per-view events.
02:12Having the shows on pay-per-view also meant that TNA could show and say basically whatever they
02:17wanted, and that was what TNA was trying to brand itself as. The company wanted to be seen as edgier
02:22than WWE, like having women dancing in cages and intense bloodshed. Even the name TNA was a double
02:28entendre, sounding like T and A or tits and ass. While the company had a clear identity, problems were
02:34already brewing behind the scenes. Jeff Jarrett had hired a man named Jay Hassman to get TNA picked up
02:39by pay-per-view companies and make sure they were running ads on TV. Hassman told Jarrett that the
02:44first TNA show had 80,000 buys, and Jarrett began estimating TNA's budget based on this number.
02:50However, Jeff Jarrett would later find out that Hassman had lied, and the actual amount of buys
02:54was under 20,000. Just months after the company launched, TNA was already having financial issues.
03:00To save the company, Jarrett began looking for investors. The healthcare corporation,
03:04Health South, had initially agreed to invest in TNA, but the deal fell through when it was revealed
03:09that Health South was committing accounting fraud. In desperate need of financial assistance,
03:14Jeff Jarrett turned to a woman named Dixie Carter. Jarrett had hired Carter's marketing agency to help
03:19advertise TNA. When Carter heard of TNA's financial struggles, she spoke to her parents,
03:24who owned a multi-billion dollar energy corporation called Panda Energy. Carter convinced her family to
03:29invest in TNA, and Panda Energy became majority shareholders. Dixie Carter was named TNA president,
03:36and while Jeff Jarrett no longer had complete control of his company, TNA had some financial
03:40stability. Over the next roughly two years, TNA would continue to produce weekly pay-per-views,
03:45but knew that if they wanted to be profitable, they would need a national TV deal. The opportunity
03:49finally came in May 2004, when TNA signed a deal with Fox Sportsnet. This led to the launch of Impact,
03:56TNA's weekly flagship show, which would play a pivotal role in TNA's identity. While TNA could
04:01do whatever they wanted on pay-per-view, that wasn't the case on Fox Sports. Rather than produce
04:06less edgy, watered-down shows, TNA decided to reinvent itself. The company would shift its focus
04:11toward the athletic, in-ring side of professional wrestling, positioning itself as an alternative to
04:16WWE's more entertainment-driven product. This new direction was showcased at TNA's Unbreakable
04:21pay-per-view, where up-and-coming wrestlers AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, and Christopher Daniels
04:25competed in a triple threat match, which is widely considered one of the greatest in TNA history.
04:31Not only did this match display the sports-focused wrestling that TNA was trying to build its identity
04:35around, but it also showed who TNA was building the company around. While TNA would use veterans and
04:41established talent, they prioritized younger wrestlers whom the company could brand as their own.
04:46On top of that, around the time Impact launched, TNA began using a six-sided wrestling ring.
04:51This made TNA instantly look different from not just WWE, but just about any wrestling company,
04:57and the ring became another key part of TNA's identity. TNA was slowly building momentum,
05:01and while their contract with Fox Sports Net expired in May 2005, the company soon secured a
05:07new and better TV deal. WWE's Monday Night Raw had been airing on Spike TV for five years,
05:12but in September 2005, Raw left the network. However, the executives at Spike still wanted
05:18wrestling, and this made TNA a perfect fit. On October 1st, 2005, Impact began airing on Spike TV,
05:25which not only gave TNA the most exposure they had ever had, but also secured a much higher paying
05:30TV deal. This allowed them to bring in bigger name talent, such as Sting, Christian Cage, and Kurt Angle.
05:36This larger revenue stream also allowed TNA to retain talent, preventing them from leaving for
05:41WWE or elsewhere. In fact, even when TNA wrestlers had the opportunity to join WWE,
05:46not all of them took it. For instance, Abyss turned down a WrestleMania match against The Undertaker
05:51to stay with TNA. At the same time, TNA's viewership was slowly increasing. While there was
05:57still a gap between them and WWE, TNA was proving it could grow its audience and become a solid number
06:02two. However, this was also when cracks in TNA would begin to form. As stated, TNA had built much of
06:09its identity around being the opposite of WWE. While WWE leaned into sports entertainment,
06:14TNA positioned itself as the more athletic, wrestling-focused alternative. But once the
06:18company landed on Spike TV and felt pressured to grow its ratings, it began adding flashier,
06:23more sensational entertainment elements to its show. A prime example of this is when NFL football player
06:28Adam Jones appeared in TNA in 2007. While things like this led to some criticism amongst fans,
06:34TNA remained strong and continued to grow. By 2009, the company had a few years of profitability
06:39and was ready to take the next big step forward. In October of that year, TNA announced their biggest
06:45signing yet, Hulk Hogan. While Hogan didn't have the same star power as he had in the 80s and 90s,
06:51this was still a big deal for TNA, and it didn't stop with Hogan. TNA began signing a lot of
06:56major talent,
06:57like Jeff Hardy, Ron Van Damme, Ric Flair, and more. TNA also brought in Eric Bischoff,
07:03the former president of WCW and the one who helped make WCW a serious competitor against WWE.
07:08Bischoff and Hogan would have both on-screen roles and behind-the-scenes authority. On paper,
07:13this sounded great. However, their influence was a mixed bag. Hogan officially debuted in TNA on a
07:19special Monday night episode of Impact on January 4th, 2010. For the first time in the company's history,
07:25TNA went head-to-head with WWE's Raw. Despite the competition, TNA did its best numbers yet,
07:31with the episode peaking at 3 million viewers. While this was great for TNA, this wasn't the
07:36only effect Hogan and Bischoff had on the company. About two weeks later, TNA had ditched the six-sided
07:41ring in favor of a traditional four-sided one. Bischoff later said the decision was made because
07:47the six-sided ring was a distraction and there was no reason for it. As I mentioned earlier,
07:51the six-sided ring was a key part of TNA's identity and fans made their opinion of the change known
07:56right away. Even before Hogan and Bischoff came to TNA, the company was trying to balance the sport
08:07and entertainment sides of wrestling. However, it felt like it was starting to become uneven. The
08:12homegrown talent was being pushed aside and TNA was being perceived as the place for ex-WB wrestlers.
08:18After the success of TNA's first Monday night episode of Impact, the company permanently moved
08:22the show to Monday nights, competing with Raw every week. While this worked well in 1995,
08:27when WCW began competing directly with WWE, TNA was in a much different situation. By 2010,
08:34Raw was much more established and wrestling fans had spent over 15 years watching it regularly on
08:39Monday nights. Also, TNA hadn't been around for even 10 years yet and was still growing its audience.
08:44On top of that, while Raw was live every week, TNA would go back and forth from being live and
08:49pre-recorded. All this made the Monday Night War a bloodbath, with TNA getting destroyed in TV
08:54viewership and ultimately having to move Impact back to Thursday night after just a month and a half.
08:59While TNA president Dixie Carter and Spike TV ultimately had final say, Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff
09:04were the driving force behind the decision to go head-to-head with WWE. But the biggest problem with
09:09Bischoff and Hogan wasn't that they were trying to change TNA. The problem was that many of those
09:14things that got stripped away were what made TNA feel different in the first place. By signing
09:18ex-WWE wrestlers and going head-to-head with Raw, TNA was starting to feel like WWE light and this
09:24is
09:24the first time the company was really struggling with its identity. But that wasn't the only problem
09:29TNA was having. Signing all these big name wrestlers and going live regularly was costing TNA a lot of
09:35money. TNA, of course, knew this going in, but the company wasn't seeing a great return on this
09:40investment. TNA slowed things down and after moving back to Thursday nights, they had regained their
09:45regular viewership. In 2013, Hulk Hogan's contract with TNA would expire and he left the company. While
09:51some would see this as a positive change, TNA's identity and creative direction were still murky. TNA
09:56was struggling to find the right bounce between borrowing from what made WWE successful and
10:00establishing its own unique identity. TNA's lack of direction became very apparent in the summer of
10:062014 when they brought back the six-sided ring. While this was welcomed by fans, it seemed that
10:11the company wasn't sure what they wanted to be. Additionally, there were problems brewing behind
10:15the scenes. By 2014, TNA's TV viewership hadn't really grown with them averaging around a million
10:21viewers for each episode of Impact. On top of that, advertisers historically don't pay as much to
10:27their commercials on wrestling shows and this was true for TNA. All this was especially bad news
10:32as TNA was beginning discussions with Spike TV about renewing their agreement. However,
10:37there would be one incident that put the nail in the coffin. Vince Russo, a controversial wrestling
10:42writer, had been working for TNA for most of its existence. But in 2012, it was reported that Russo
10:48and TNA had parted ways. This was likely because Spike TV specifically told TNA they didn't want Russo
10:54writing or involved with the shows. However, in July 2014, it was reported that Vince Russo was
11:01secretly working with TNA in a consulting role. This came after Russo had accidentally sent an email
11:06to wrestling journalist Mike Johnson. Spike TV was upset by this and after nine years, TNA left Spike
11:13with the final show airing on December 24th, 2014. Fortunately, TNA did find a new TV network pretty
11:19quickly. Beginning in January 2015, Impact began airing on Destination America. Unfortunately for TNA,
11:26the move was a major step down from Spike TV. Destination America was available in fewer homes,
11:32which meant TNA was reaching a smaller audience. Just as important, the new deal reportedly brought
11:37in far less money than TNA had been making on Spike. This forced just about everyone in TNA to take
11:43a pay
11:43cut. And while some would stay, many of TNA's established homegrown names like AJ Styles, Christopher
11:48Daniels, and Samoa Joe would leave. TNA was going through a transition, and unfortunately,
11:53it wasn't by choice. While TNA performed decently on Destination America, the partnership ended after
11:59only a year. Destination America cited the cost of TNA and the difficulty of selling advertising
12:04as the reasons for ending the partnership. TNA did find another TV partner, but the deal was a mixed bag.
12:10In January 2016, TNA began airing Impact on Pop TV. Pop had a similar reach to Destination America,
12:17and Impact brought in a similar number of viewers, around 300,000 per week. However,
12:22while Destination America paid a rights fee, which meant guaranteed money, Pop TV did not. Instead,
12:28TNA and Pop TV split the revenue generated by ads that aired during Impact. This wasn't ideal,
12:35and to make matters worse, TNA was still struggling to attract advertisers. Aside from TV deals, things
12:40would be shaken up behind the scenes. In 2016, several groups and individuals took stakes in TNA,
12:46and the Canadian media company, Anthem Sports & Entertainment, ultimately became the new majority
12:51owner. This helped provide TNA with some financial stability, and during this time, TNA would also
12:57experience creative success. The TNA wrestler, Matt Hardy, developed a new persona called Broken Matt
13:03Hardy. This led to some very innovative and unique storytelling and matches, which helped give TNA some
13:08buzz and a nice bump in viewership. TNA was still trying to find its identity, and it seemed like this
13:13wacky, unorthodox style of presenting wrestling could be the company's new direction. However,
13:19in early 2017, Matt, along with his brother Jeff, who was also a key figure in the Broken storyline,
13:24would leave TNA. TNA did try to continue with similar storylines and matches, but none of them
13:30achieved the success Broken Matt Hardy did. 2017 also marked the first full year that Anthem was in
13:35charge of TNA. They felt the best way to move TNA forward was to stop calling it TNA and rebrand.
13:41However, this would be a disaster, to say the least. In early 2017, Anthem renamed TNA to Impact
13:47Wrestling, the name obviously coming from TNA's weekly flagship show, Impact. Additionally, Anthem
13:53brought back the man who founded TNA, Jeff Jarrett. Jarrett had left TNA in 2014 to launch his own
13:59wrestling company, Global Force Wrestling. Upon his return, Jarrett was promoted to executive producer
14:04and chief creative officer of Impact Wrestling. With Jeff Jarrett back in the company, it was decided
14:09that Anthem would acquire Global Force Wrestling and merge it with Impact Wrestling. The company
14:14would now simply be known as Global Force Wrestling or GFW, while the weekly show would be called
14:19Impact Wrestling. However, this unintentionally led to a whole host of problems. During this time,
14:26Jeff Jarrett was struggling with alcohol. This was put on public display just a few months after the
14:30GFW rebrand, when Jarrett appeared intoxicated at a Mexican wrestling show, throwing tortillas into the crowd.
14:36This ultimately led to Jarrett leaving the company after less than a year. However, the deal for
14:41Anthem to acquire Jarrett's company, Global Force Wrestling, had not been finalized. This not only
14:47led to Jarrett suing Anthem, but also forced Anthem to revert to calling the company Impact Wrestling
14:51again. Just a reminder, the company started as TNA in 2017, changed to Impact Wrestling, then to Global
14:58Force Wrestling, and then back to Impact Wrestling, all within the same year. While 2017 was overall not a
15:05great year for the company, formerly known as TNA, 2018 was much more stable by comparison.
15:10Former TNA backstage personnel, Scott Damore, would become the executive vice president and began
15:15taking over the day-to-day operations of the company. Around the same time, Impact Wrestling would revert to
15:21the four-sided ring, although there was far less controversy this time. The company also began adding
15:26promising talent to its roster, such as Pentagon Jr., Ray Phoenix, and Brian Cage. 2018 was much less
15:33eventful for TNA, and the company got some much needed stability. However, 2019 once again brought
15:39with it more bad news. Impact's three-year deal with PopTV ended, and new agreement was not reached.
15:45Impact Wrestling ultimately found a new home on the Pursuit channel, simply because their parent company,
15:50Anthem, owned a significant stake in the network. However, Pursuit's reach was less than half of PopTV's.
15:56Additionally, their programming was mainly hunting, fishing, and outdoors content,
16:00which made Impact Wrestling not a great fit. Thankfully, things would change relatively soon.
16:06In late 2019, Anthem gained majority control of another network, AXS TV. AXS not only had a larger
16:12audience, but also had programming much more aligned with Impact Wrestling. But since Anthem owned the
16:18network, Impact still wasn't being paid for their content, and their weekly episodes averaged only
16:2395,000 to 150,000 viewers. Impact was clearly in a worse place than it had been just five years
16:29ago,
16:29and the company was losing money year after year. However, the company deserves credit for managing
16:35to survive, and while the 2010s were definitely a tough decade for Impact Wrestling, 2020 was right
16:40around the corner, and this would hopefully be a much better decade for the company. Impact Wrestling
16:44began the new year by making history when Tessa Blanchard won the Impact World Championship,
16:48becoming the first and only woman to hold the title. While this got them some attention,
16:53Tessa's championship reign would become a nightmare for Impact. One day before winning the title,
16:57Tessa made a tweet saying, hey women, try supporting one another, cool things happen. This
17:03led to multiple female wrestlers accusing Tessa of bullying and belittling other female wrestlers,
17:08and even spitting in a black woman's face and calling her the n-word. Tessa denied the allegations,
17:14but fans and wrestlers alike didn't buy it. Shortly after Tessa's historic win, the COVID-19 pandemic began,
17:20leading to a flurry of new problems. Tessa lived in Mexico at the time, so traveling was difficult.
17:26To keep her involved in storylines, Impact had asked her to film some interviews slash promo
17:31clips from her home. However, Tessa refused to send them, forcing Impact to reshoot several
17:36segments for at least one episode. Tessa's contract with Impact Wrestling was set to expire,
17:41and on top of the bad public reputation she had, the company simply decided to vacate the Impact
17:45World Championship without Tessa ever losing it. 2020 was off to a rocky start, but around the middle
17:51of the year, things started to turn around. TNA's 18th anniversary event saw the return of several
17:56former Impact stars and the debuts of a few established names. Additionally, in December,
18:02AEW, which had emerged as the new second largest wrestling company, began a partnership with Impact
18:07Wrestling. This saw wrestlers from Impact appearing in AEW and vice versa. On top of that, AEW's Kenny Omega
18:14and Christian Cage would win the Impact World Championship, and the title would appear on AEW
18:19programming. The partnership gave TNA some buzz and legitimacy, which it desperately needed. However,
18:25this didn't translate into meaningful boosts in TV viewership or any long-term momentum,
18:29and the partnership ended in October 2021. For the next roughly two years, Impact Wrestling
18:35would do more of the same. Anthem's ownership provided Impact with a permanent TV deal and a steady
18:39stream of funding, but the company was losing money and was fading into obscurity. By the early 2020s,
18:45there were more wrestling companies and shows out there, and Impact seemed to be getting lost in
18:49the shuffle. The company realized they had to do something, and they came to the conclusion that
18:54they needed to take a step backwards to move forward. In October 2023, Scott D'Amour, who had
18:59been promoted to president of the company, announced that Impact Wrestling was reverting back to TNA.
19:04This was met with a lot of enthusiasm from fans, and the rebranding officially took effect
19:08in January 2024. However, just weeks after the name change, TNA would make a controversial decision.
19:15In February, the company announced that they had fired Scott D'Amour. D'Amour was seen as the
19:20driving force behind TNA, and the decision left fans and TNA wrestlers unhappy. In his place,
19:25an anthem executive named Anthony Ceccioni became the new president of TNA. To Ceccioni's credit,
19:31TNA had a big win just a few months after he was brought on. In May 2024, TNA and WWE's
19:37NXT
19:37brand started exchanging talent. This morphed into a full-on partnership when, in January 2025,
19:43both WWE and TNA announced a multi-year agreement. Like with AEW, this would see TNA wrestlers
19:49appearing in NXT and NXT wrestlers appearing in TNA. This partnership did benefit TNA in some
19:56meaningful ways. TNA saw a significant rise in live attendance, with the 2025 Slammiversary event
20:01setting TNA's highest attendance record in North America. Additionally, this gave TNA some much-needed
20:07legitimacy and buzz. Unfortunately though, this wouldn't translate into TV viewership, and the
20:12partnership ultimately led to some of TNA's biggest stars, such as Joe Hendry and Jordan Grace,
20:17leaving TNA to join WWE. However, the partnership with WWE did help TNA secure its biggest deal since
20:24signing Hulk Hogan. In late 2025, it was announced that Impact would air on the AMC network. While AMC
20:31wasn't as large as Spike was, this was still a big step forward for TNA. For the first time since
20:362014, the company was now airing on a major network. It was a long journey, but it felt like TNA
20:41was
20:42finally making a serious comeback. However, as often goes in TNA, when something good happens,
20:47something bad is bound to follow shortly after. TNA's first episode on AMC was received poorly,
20:53both in terms of the show's quality and viewership. Fans disliked the debut episode for a variety of
20:58reasons, but mainly because it seemed like TNA had a chance to usher in a new era, but instead gave
21:04more
21:04of the same. In terms of viewership, TNA's first episode on AMC drew 173,000 viewers. That was an
21:11improvement over what the company had been doing on AXS TV, but it was still well below TNA's debut on
21:16Destination America in 2015, which drew more than twice as many viewers. Now, TNA did actually
21:22improve its AMC viewership, and later episodes were better received. However, TNA would then make
21:27a decision that cost them goodwill with fans. Because TNA wrestlers often have lower salaries,
21:33they usually take bookings with smaller independent wrestling companies. This had never been an issue,
21:38until suddenly, in April 2016, TNA started pulling their wrestlers from certain independent events.
21:43The specific events that TNA wrestlers got pulled from were ones where a TNA wrestler was scheduled
21:48to have a match against an AEW wrestler. This wouldn't have been so bad, but TNA had previously
21:53approved these matches and only pulled their wrestlers a few weeks before the events. TNA cited the
21:58reason as partner conflicts, which many fans took to mean TNA was simply doing it to appease WWE.
22:04This led to TNA getting a lot of bad press, and unfortunately for them, it didn't stop there.
22:09In June 2026, TNA released several wrestlers and backstage personnel, saying the cuts were part of
22:15an effort to streamline operations and improve profitability. For many fans, the timing was hard
22:21to ignore. The move to AMC was supposed to make TNA feel bigger, a chance for better production,
22:26stronger stories, and fresh talent. Instead, it felt like the company was in the same place it had been
22:31in for years, and that gets to TNA's biggest problem, identity. For years and years and years,
22:36the company has struggled to define what it wants to be, and more importantly,
22:40what makes it must watch. This is what makes TNA's story so frustrating. The company once had real
22:45promise. It created stars, gave fans an alternative, and even had profitable years. But over the last
22:51decade and a half, TNA has spent more time surviving than growing. Its finances are private,
22:56but based on its history of ownership changes, cost cutting, debt issues, and repeated resets,
23:01it's probably fair to say that TNA has lost more money overall than it has made. And with the cuts,
23:07backstage rumors, and constant questions about Anthem's long-term plans, it's easy to understand
23:11why some fans believe TNA could eventually be sold. Whether that happens or not, the bigger issue
23:17is that TNA feels like a shell of what it once was. Some people would say the same thing about
23:21The Undertaker. To see why fans have lost respect for one of the most respected wrestlers,
23:25watch the video on screen.