Formation and early history (2002–2004) , one of the founders of TNA,
Hall of Famer and six-time
NWA World Heavyweight Champion The concept of TNA originated shortly after
World Championship Wrestling (WCW) ended in 2001, with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, later
WWE) gaining a monopoly on the industry. While on a fishing trip,
Bob Ryder,
Jeff Jarrett and
Jerry Jarrett contemplated their futures in the professional wrestling business under a parent company known as JSports & Entertainment, LLC. Ryder suggested a company not reliant on television, but rather one going straight to
pay-per-view. Initially, TNA's
weekly pay-per-view show operated as the company's main source of revenue, in place of
monthly pay-per-view events used by other promotions. These shows took place mostly at the
Tennessee State Fairground Sports Arena in
Nashville, nicknamed the "TNA Asylum". In October 2002,
Panda Energy International purchased a
controlling interest (72%) of Total Nonstop Action Wrestling from Jerry Jarrett. the company was re-organized as TNA Entertainment, LLC, in the process.
Dixie Carter was appointed president of TNA Entertainment in spring 2003.
Xplosion launched on November 27, 2002, as TNA's first regular cable show and featured exclusive matches taped at the TNA Asylum as well as exclusive
interviews with
TNA wrestlers and the promotion's original weekly pay-per-view shows took place mostly at the
Tennessee State Fairground Sports Arena in
Nashville, Tennessee. The last weekly pay-per-view took place on September 8, 2004, with a total of 111 weekly pay-per-views.
Growth and surging popularity (2004–2009) was considered "the cornerstone of the company" during the late 2000s, as well as being TNA's first
Grand Slam Champion. In May 2004, TNA introduced its second weekly television program,
Impact! (stylized as
iMPACT!), produced at
Soundstage 21, nicknamed the "Impact Zone", at
Universal Studios Florida and broadcast on
Fox Sports Net (FSN). With the show's première, TNA introduced a six-sided wrestling ring, the implementation of the "Fox Box" displaying competitors and timekeeping for the match and a generally more sports-like style than the
sports entertainment style exemplified by WWE. TNA would subsequently discontinue producing weekly pay-per-views in favor of a traditional monthly pay-per-view schedule, beginning with
Victory Road in November 2004. TNA's television contract with Fox Sports expired in May 2005. Without television exposure,
Impact! would continue to air through webcastsoriginally made available via
BitTorrent and eventually via
RealPlayerand replace
Xplosion's timeslot on
Urban America Television. On September 11, 2005, TNA held its
Unbreakable pay-per-view. Unbreakable is remembered for the three-way match main event for the
TNA X Division Championship, between
AJ Styles,
Christopher Daniels, and
Samoa Joe, which received a rare 5Star match rating from wrestling journalist
Dave Meltzer, the first one the company received. Later that year, TNA would secure a television deal with
Spike TV;
Impact! debuted on the network on October 1, 2005. The episode saw
Team 3D make their TNA debut. TNA would gain attention for the many high-profile talent that would join the promotion during the show's run on Spike. From 2005 to 2009, these include
Kevin Nash,
Rhino,
Christian Cage,
Sting (who made appearances at previous "Asylum" shows),
Scott Steiner,
Kurt Angle,
Booker T, and
Mick Foley. In April 2006, TNA launched a
YouTube channel, featuring clips from
Impact and exclusive content. Beginning with
Bound for Glory in October 2006, TNA began holding select pay-per-view events outside of Orlando, Florida. In January 2007, TNA announced a deal with New Motion, Inc. which led to the introduction of TNA Mobile service. TNA has also launched "TNA U TV";
podcasts aired through YouTube to help promote the company. In August 2007, live-events coordinator Craig Jenkins stated that TNA intended to stage eight pay-per-views and 96 house shows outside Orlando, Florida, in 2008. From 2007 to 2008, TNA first toured Europe, hosting two shows at
Porto and
Lisbon in
Portugal, with TNA later conducting its first tour of
England, with most shows selling out which later broke TNA's attendance records with the promotion later touring in
Germany,
Scotland and
Ireland in 2009,
France,
Wales and the
United Arab Emirates in 2010 and
Belgium in 2012. In February 2008,
Jakks Pacific announced it had signed a multi-year master toy license agreement with TNA, to release products starting in 2010. In March 2008,
Tristar Productions acquired an exclusive license deal to produce and distribute TNA trading cards and memorabilia. On September 9, 2008,
Midway Games released the
TNA Impact! video game. On October 23, 2008, TNA began producing its programming in
HD. In addition, a new HD set for
Impact was introduced, including new lighting, and large high-resolution screens. On June 21, 2009, TNA launched an online video-vault subscription-service where subscribers could watch past pay-per-views by choosing one of three payment options.
Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff leadership, and financial troubles (2010–2016) In October 2009, TNA President
Dixie Carter hired
Hulk Hogan and former WCW President
Eric Bischoff. Hulk Hogan first appeared on the January 4, 2010, episode of
Impact!. Both obtained a position behind the scenes; with Bischoff part of creative and Hogan as a consultant. Under their tenure, TNA would see several revamps in 2010. Beginning with
Genesis in January, TNA returned to using a four-sided ring. That month,
Jakks Pacific announced a five-year agreement to produce TNA action figures.
Impact! would also begin
airing on Monday nights directly opposite of
WWE Raw, marking the first time that two major professional wrestling promotions would go head to head since the launch of
WCW Monday Nitro in 1995. The show would permanently move to Mondays on March 8, 2010, Spike would keep the Thursday night slot open for repeats of the Monday night shows. During this time,
Ric Flair,
Rob Van Dam,
Mr. Anderson would make their debuts, while
Jeff Hardy would make his return.
Impact! would later return to Thursday nights on May 3. On July 2, 2010, TNA hosted a live house show at
MCU Park, which also broke the TNA domestic attendance record at the time and being the most attended live TNA house show in the United States, with a capacity crowd of 5,550. During the May 3, 2011,
Impact! television tapings, the show would change its name to
Impact Wrestling. On November 7, 2011, TNA revealed that
Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) would become TNA's official
developmental territory. In December 2011, TNA debuted their new India-based subsidiary promotion
Ring Ka King. On May 31, 2012,
Impact Wrestling began airing live at a new start time of 8 p.m. EST on Thursday nights. The live schedule would continue throughout 2012. In 2012, Panda Energy divested itself of its stake in TNA.
Dixie Carter, the daughter of Panda Energy founder Robert Carter, who had been serving as TNA's president, acquired that stake, making her TNA's majority shareholder. In March 2013, TNA began taping Impact from different venues around the United States and terminated its lease with
Universal Studios. On March 14, TNA introduced a new universal HD stage which would be used for all weekly programming. On November 2, TNA ended its relationship with OVW. TNA formed a relationship with Japanese promotion
Wrestle-1 beginning in July 2013 with a meeting between TNA founder Jeff Jarrett and Wrestle-1 head
Keiji Mutoh. It was arranged for Jarrett to wrestle for Wrestle-1 in October 2013. In November, A.J. Styles successfully defended the
TNA World Heavyweight Championship at a Wrestle-1 show in Japan. From the period of 2013 to 2014, many well-known names or veterans of the company left TNA. In October 2013,
Hulk Hogan's contract with TNA expired, ending his time as creative consultant with the company. In December,
AJ Styles left TNA after his contract expired. Styles later said that he could not accept TNA's new contract offer, which would see him take a 60% cut in pay and TNA founder
Jeff Jarrett would resign from the company, but remained as minority shareholder until his temporary return on June 24, 2015, with the deal for his return including the transfer of his minority stake to Dixie Carter, making her sole shareholder. The following year Jarrett revealed plans to start a new professional wrestling promotion,
Global Force Wrestling. Further departures in 2014 included TNA veterans
Sting,
Chris Sabin,
Hernandez,
Christopher Daniels and
Kazarian all leaving the company in that year, and the contracts of
TNA Hall of Famers
Bully Ray and
Devon reportedly expired in October 2014, with TNA moving them to the alumni section of their roster in January 2015. In late July, the
TMZ website reported that
Spike was not renewing
Impact Wrestling beyond October. TNA would refute the report, stating that negotiations were still ongoing. On August 14,
Impact Wrestling moved to Wednesday nights. On August 20, TNA signed an extension with Spike until the end of 2014. In November 2014, TNA announced a new agreement with
Discovery Communications to distribute its programming in the United States on
Destination America and to selected international markets. Spike's outreach at the time was estimated to be more than 97 million homes while Destination America was estimated to reach 59 million households.
Impact Wrestling ceased airing new televised events on Spike after the November 19 episode. The final episodes of 2014 were
Best of TNA clip shows. On January 7, 2015,
Impact Wrestling moved to
Destination America, with a live debut from The
Manhattan Center's Grand Ballroom in New York City. joined TNA in 2015 and became the promotion's president in late 2016. In addition to
Impact Wrestling, which was now airing on Friday nights, two new shows produced were
Impact Wrestling: Unlocked, hosted by
Mike Tenay, and ''TNA Wrestling's Greatest Matches'', a series presenting the best matches in the company's history. From December 2014 to March 2015, several employees re-signed with TNA, including
Kurt Angle, Jeff Hardy,
Gail Kim, Mr. Anderson,
Abyss and
Matt Hardy.
Awesome Kong also re-joined the company following several years of absence. On April 27, 2015,
Smashing Pumpkins frontman
Billy Corgan joined TNA as senior producer of creative and talent development. According to a report on August 7, TNA filed a new business name of Impact Ventures, LLC. Destination America gained over 41.94 million viewers over the course of 2015's first quarter, making this the channel's best first quarter ever, followed by their best May ever in prime time. In both cases, Discovery Communications touted
Impact Wrestling as one of the reasons for the increase in viewers. Despite this success, Discovery Communications dropped
Unlocked and
Greatest Matches from their programming in May 2015. On November 19, TNA signed a deal with
Pop TV to air
Impact Wrestling, where it premiered on Tuesday, January 5, 2016, in a live special held at the
Sands Hotel and Casino in
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. With this move to Pop,
Impact Wrestling introduced a new HD set, graphics and theme music. This show saw the semi-finals and finals of the
TNA World Title Series, which was won by
Ethan Carter III. Husband and wife team
Mike Bennett and
Maria Kanellis would debut soon after. Subsequent shows would include episodes taped during a tour of England, which would be the last TNA appearances for
Kurt Angle. TNA returned to taping
Impact Wrestling at the
Impact Zone at
Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, beginning with a live Impact Wrestling on March 15. On March 19, longtime TNA wrestlers
Eric Young and
Bobby Roode left the promotion after 12 years. On April 22,
Velvet Sky, another longtime TNA wrestler, left the company. 's critically acclaimed "Broken Gimmick", was credited for TNA's highest ratings on Pop TV. It was reported near the beginning of 2016 that Aroluxe Marketing, a Brentwood, Tennessee–based marketing agency, had taken a stake in TNA at the start of 2016 in return for providing partial funding, as well as taking over TNA's production operations. It was reported in June 2016 that
Smashing Pumpkins frontman
Billy Corgan acquired a minority stake in TNA from Dixie Carter, but he had instead provided a loan to Carter. Then on August 12, Billy Corgan became the promotion's new president, while Carter transitioned from president to the company's new chairwoman and chief strategy officer. It was reported on September 16 by the
New York Post that Canada's Fight Network, through its parent company, Anthem Sports & Entertainment Corporation, had taken a stake in TNA.
Anthem Sports & Entertainment, parent company of
Impact Wrestlings Canadian broadcaster,
Fight Network, offered to help TNA and repay Corgan for the loans, while also offering additional financial assistance to TNA to help keep them from filing for bankruptcy. On October 31, Corgan lost his injunction that kept TNA from selling the company, but TNA was required to pay Corgan back by November 1. It was possible that one of the other minority owners could pay Corgan, effectively making them the majority owner of TNA. On November 3, the company revealed that Anthem Sports & Entertainment provided a credit facility to fund operations for TNA and that Corgan was removed as the promotion's president. However, Corgan himself stated that neither TNA nor Anthem Sports & Entertainment had yet repaid the $2.7million debt that was owed to him by TNA and, as such, he was considering suing, as well as converting the debt into a 36 percent stake. As the result of a settlement between Corgan and TNA, Anthem Sports & Entertainment acquired the loans Corgan made to Carter in the process.
Acquisition by Anthem and re-brandings (2017–2023) served in various executive roles from 2017 to 2024.
Anthem Sports & Entertainment, a company owned by former
Canwest CEO
Leonard Asper, purchased a majority stake of TNA, re-organizing TNA's parent company with Aroluxe having 10 percent while Carter retaining a five percent minority stake in the company, but resigned as chairwoman after 14 years with the company, while joining the advisory board of Fight Media Group. The promotion's parent company, TNA Entertainment, was changed firstly to Impact Ventures and then to Anthem Wrestling Exhibitions, LLC., with Anthem's Executive Vice President Ed Nordholm becoming President of the new parent company. Shortly after Anthem's acquisition of TNA, it was re-branded to Impact Wrestling. On January 5, 2017
Jeff Jarrett was brought back by Anthem to serve as a consultant and later promoted to executive producer and chief creative officer. Wrestlers
Drew Galloway,
Matt Hardy,
Jeff Hardy,
Jade,
Crazzy Steve,
Mike Bennett and
Maria Kanellis left the company during this period. In April 2017, it was announced on
Impact! that the promotion would "merge" with Jarrett's newer
Global Force Wrestling (GFW) promotion. In the lead-up to the
Slammiversary XV PPV, Anthem officially announced its intent to acquire GFW to formalize the merger. The company subsequently announced that they were re-branding again and taking the GFW name in June; During that time, Anthem launched the
Global Wrestling Network, a new
streaming service which featured content from to their tape library and other sources. Jarrett subsequently filed a lawsuit against Anthem in the
District Court of Tennessee for copyright infringement over the GFW rights; the lawsuit was ultimately settled out of court.
Don Callis and
Scott D'Amore became executive vice presidents in January 2018, taking charge of Impact Wrestling's day-to-day operations. At the first tapings under their tenure, the company reverted to a traditional four-sided ring, and the show also saw the return of former World Heavyweight Champion
Austin Aries, as well the debuts of new wrestlers such as
Kiera Hogan,
Su Yung,
Pentagón Jr.,
Fénix and
Brian Cage. The company also announced a partnership with live streaming service
Twitch to produce content for their platform, starting with
Brace for Impact, which was co-promoted with New Jersey–based promotion WrestlePro. Their first live show was
Impact vs. Lucha Underground, a co-promoted show with
Lucha Underground.
Impact! subsequently moved to
Pursuit Channel beginning January 11, 2019. Two months later, the promotion announced that
Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) would serve as its developmental territory once again. In May,
Impact Plus replaced the Global Wrestling Network as the official streaming app for the promotion.
Impact! began airing on Anthem-owned
AXS TV after
Bound for Glory in October. Due to the
COVID-19 pandemic, Impact would hold events
behind closed doors at Skyway Studios in Nashville. During the pandemic, the promotion cancelled its planned
TNA: There's No Place Like Home event,
Slammiversary saw the returns of
The Motor City Machine Guns,
Eric Young,
Doc Gallows and
EC3, as well as the debuts of
Karl Anderson and
Heath Slater. After the events of
AEW Winter Is Coming on December 2, 2020, Impact began a partnership with
All Elite Wrestling (AEW), which lasted until
Bound for Glory 2021. AEW-contracted wrestlers
Kenny Omega and
Christian Cage held the Impact World Championship during this time; this marked Cage's first in-ring return to the promotion since 2008. In February 2021, Impact launched
Before the Impact (abbreviated as
BTI), and
Xplosion was canceled after 19 years the following month. During
No Surrender Impact announced a new partnership with
New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW). Don Callis' time as Impact executive vice president and on-air talent ended in May.
Slammiversary 2021 marked the return of in-person spectators for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. That month,
BTI and
Impact! would crossover for the first time, when
Josh Alexander faced
T. J. Perkins for the
X Division Championship in Impact's first-ever 60-minute
Iron man match, which began on
BTI and concluded in the opening minutes of
Impact!. Impact subsequently announced the end of their partnership with Twitch that August and launched a new
YouTube membership program called "Impact Wrestling Insiders". In November 2022, Impact and
DAZN signed a partnership where the streaming service will distribute select non-live shows in most countries except the United States,
South Asia and
sub-Saharan Africa. On May 8, 2023, Impact announced their first ever
Australian shows named
Down Under Tour, a four-day tour with two marquee wrestling shows that took part on June 30 and July 1 in
Wagga Wagga,
New South Wales.
Return to TNA (since 2023) At the conclusion of
Bound for Glory on October 21, 2023, Impact announced that it would revive the Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) name. From October 26 to 28, Impact held events in
Scotland and
England, marking their first
United Kingdom tour since 2015. In December 2023, the promotion announced it had signed a new toy license with PowerTown, to release its first line of product in August 2024. The name change to TNA took effect in January 2024, with the first event under the reinstated TNA banner being
Hard To Kill. On February 7, Anthem Sports & Entertainment announced that Scott D'Amore's contract with TNA was
terminated, with D'Amore being removed from his position as President of TNA, later being replaced by Anthony Cicione. In 2024, TNA began a talent exchange with WWE's
NXT brand, with TNA wrestlers beginning to appear on
WWE NXT and at NXT events, and NXT wrestlers appearing on TNA programming. A multi-year partnership between TNA and WWE was officially announced on January 16, 2025. A TNA title was defended on WWE programming for the first time the following month, with
Moose defending the
X Division Championship against WWE's
Lexis King. On February 12, 2025, Cicione resigned from his position as President of TNA, and has been replaced by Carlos Silva. This will mark the return to a major cable television channel for the company since 2014 after a twelve year absence. == Television and touring schedule ==