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After the closure of WCW and ECW in May 2001, the type of wrestling known as Southern and Cruiserweight Wrestling lost its main platforms. TNA wanted to take advantage of this gap in the market and thus win over fans who did not like the product of the now dominant WWE (formerly WWF).
NWA: Total Nonstop Action (2002-2004)
Thus, on May 10, 2002, J Sports and Entertainment (a company with Jeff Jarrett as CEO and his father Jerry Jarrett as President) formed TNA Wrestling. Total Nonstop Action held its first weekly PPV (Pay-Per-Views) on June 19, 2002 in Huntsville, Alabama.
While other leagues, like World Wrestling All-Stars, which wanted to use the gap after WCW and ECW closed, disappeared from the scene again, TNA was able to hold its own. The creation of TNA was a new chance for Jeff Jarrett after he couldn't find a job with Vince McMahon after the failure of WCW.
After the foundation TNA lost a lot of money, which led to the HealthSouth Corporation as the main investor to withdraw financial support (HealthSouth had problems itself, there were investigations into billing irregularities). So in October 2002, Jerry Jarrett sold his majority stake to a private company, Panda Energy International. On October 31, 2002, Panda Energy and J Sports and Entertainment formed the privately held TNA Entertainment LLC, in which Panda Energy owned 71% of the shares (J Sports and Entertainment was later dissolved). Jeff Jarrett became vice president, while Dixie Carter, the daughter of Panda Energy chairman and chief executive Robert W. Carter, who was a former publicist for TNA, was named president.
However, TNA continued to lose money in the aftermath (estimated to spend $1,000,000 per month not including revenue), but Panda Energy repeatedly professed their commitment to TNA despite purchase offers by other companies.
TNA's original business model was different from WWE's in a few ways. By foregoing touring and free weekly shows, the goal was to keep costs down. The system of programming originally consisted of weekly Pay-Per-Views (PPV) on the cable network. These were offered for $9.95, much cheaper than WWE's monthly big events. The shows were eventually broadcast free on the Wrestling Channel starting in March 2004, after a six-month delay, which was the organization's first step into the international market.
Initial calculations showed that approximately 50,000 PPV buys per week were needed to break even. However, according to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the actual numbers were only between 5,000 and 15,000 buys per week. After 111 weeks, TNA was therefore forced to discontinue weekly PPVs on September 9, 2004.
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (2004-2017)
On June 4, 2004, they began airing the TNA Impact TV show on Fox Sports Net. On this show, TNA used the hexagonal ring for the first time. However, the show achieved very low ratings and was canceled again in May 2005. TNA had been paying about $30,000 a week for the broadcast slot. Thereupon TNA Impact was to be seen for some time online in the stream.
On October 1, the channel Spike TV began with the broadcast of TNA Impact. Until September of the same year, WWE Raw was the main show of the market leader in wrestling and with TNA Impact a successor format for the successful show was found.
On November 7, 2004, TNA held Victory Road 2004, the organization's first three-hour PPV, which drew just over 10,000 buys.
Until March 2006, sports drink manufacturer Morphoplex was TNA's main sponsor, paying TNA $200,000 per month.
On November 7, 2005, a contract was signed with Midway Games to develop their own video game; publishing such games had already been a major source of revenue for other wrestling organizations. TNA Impact! was released in September 2008 for PS3, Xbox, Xbox 360 and Wii.
TNA held its first house show at the Compuware Sports Arena in Plymouth, Michigan on March 17, 2006. An agreement was initially signed with the United Wrestling Federation, allowing them to host a series of TNA house shows in the Atlantic and Southeast states, with the majority to be held in Virginia. However, this agreement has since been cancelled, allowing TNA to produce their own house shows from then on.
In April 2006, TNA announced a partnership with YouTube, which allows YouTube to publish exclusive video material, such as recaps of Impact. On YouTube you can watch "TNA Today", an interactive show, several times a week. The show usually features interviews with TNA wrestlers.
In October 2007, two years after its debut on Spike TV, TNA Impact's air time was extended to two hours.
On October 23, 2008, TNA introduced the HD format for Impact and the monthly PPVs. To mark the event, Impact was broadcast live from the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas. The following shows were taped in a converted Impact Zone.
In October 2009, TNA gained wider media attention by signing wrestling legend Hulk Hogan and former WCW president Eric Bischoff. With this step, they hoped to better position themselves against the WWE, which they wanted to replace as the market leader. The TV debut of Hogan and Bischoff aired on January 4, 2010 - deliberately on a Monday and thus parallel to the rival program WWE Raw. The episode marked a record for TNA with 2.2 million viewers. Encouraged by this success, TNA was to air permanently on Mondays in direct competition with the WWE broadcast from March. At the beginning of May, however, the show switched back to its old slot on Thursdays after the one-time success could not be repeated and the ratings were even significantly lower than before.
The abolition of the trademark hexagonal ring in favour of the classic four-sided wrestling ring, announced by Hogan at his debut, met with little approval from the fans. The signing of further old stars was also viewed critically: Ric Flair, Scott Hall, Sean Waltman and the Nasty Boys had in part long since passed their zenith and could no longer convince due to their high fees with limited performance.
On May 12, 2011, the main weekly show TNA iMPACT! was officially renamed Impact Wrestling.
As of November 2011, TNA was working with Ohio Valley Wrestling. Thereby OVW acted as a developmental territory, so that wrestlers from OVW could be built up for TNA and wrestlers from TNA could use the promotion of Daniel Briley for training purposes. The company is best known for its cooperation with WWE, under whose direction stars such as John Cena and Randy Orton emerged. The cooperation ended in November 2013.
In 2011, a promotion was also founded in India with Ring Ka King. The first shows were recorded in cooperation with Endemol in December 2011 and broadcast from January 2012. This serves to expand the program in the Asian market. The main person responsible for this project was Jeff Jarrett. A second season did not take place.
In October 2013, Hulk Hogan's contract with TNA came to an end. Many other veteran faces also left the promotion in the aftermath, including the biggest TNA originals with no WWE past such as AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Christopher Daniels, James Storm, Kazarian, Hernandez as well as company co-founder Jeff Jarrett. They also lost veteran signings in Sting, Bully Ray and Ric Flair. These and many other departures, as well as rumors of severe financial cuts, fueled the rumor mill that the promotion had been losing big in the years since Hulk Hogan's signing, during which a lot of money had been poured into big-name stars, live broadcasts and tours without successfully attracting new viewers.
On June 25, 2014, TNA reintroduced the six-sided ring permanently. Previously, they had let the fans vote on it. This decision and the fact that they let the fans vote on it led to resentment among the athletes. Various wrestlers from both TNA and other leagues publicly spoke out against the six-sided ring in interviews and on social media. They said it was firmer and didn't bounce well, was harder to navigate, and was more likely to lead to injuries.
In December 2014, the broadcast of Impact Wrestling on the TV channel Spike ended after nine years and recently steadily declining ratings. Only one month before the last show, TNA could confirm to have found a new channel with Destination America, which would continue the program from January.
Under a new makeover, Impact Wrestling ran on Destination America from January to December 2015. The station's reduced reach and different programming schedule resulted in another significant drop in ratings. After multiple changes in the broadcasting schedule, it was announced that Destination America would end its cooperation with TNA.
On April 27, 2015, Billy Corgan, the frontman of the Smashing Pumpkins, joined TNA. He was given the post of creative and talent development. Later Corgan became the president of TNA.
As of January 2016, Impact Wrestling was on Pop, a network owned by CBS and Lionsgate. On the new channel, the show enjoyed higher viewership numbers in its first few weeks than on Destination America thanks to a more appropriate target audience, but fell well short of its ratings from its time on Spike.
On October 13, 2016, Corgan sued TNA for unpaid debts. TNA was required to pay him back his money. Anthem Sports and Entertainment bought 85% of TNA's majority stake in early 2017, while Dixie Carter retained 5% of the shares. She stepped down after fourteen years as chairman and joined the advisory board of Fight Media Group. Anthem's executive vice president, Ed Nordholm, became president of TNA's new parent company.
Impact Wrestling (since 2017)
On January 5, 2017, Jeff Jarrett was brought back by the new TNA owners as a consultant. On March 2, Anthem announced that they were removing the Total Nonstop Action Wrestling name and replacing it with Impact Wrestling. Due to the new leadership, as well as the resulting changes, key parts of the active roster, such as Drew Galloway, Crazzy Steve, Mike Bennet, Maria Kanellis, and even the Broken Hardys, who were World Tag Team Champions at the time, left the company.
On April 20, 2017, it was announced that Impact Wrestling and Jeff Jarrett's new wrestling league Global Force Wrestling had merged. Due to this merger, all wrestlers and titles moved from GFW to Impact Wrestling. On September 5, 2017, Jeff Jarrett left Global Force Wrestling due to personal issues and a drug withdrawal. Anthem then released him from his contract, but initially kept the name. On August 14, 2018, Jeff Jarrett filed a lawsuit against Anthem Sports & Entertainment, claiming his naming rights to Global Force Wrestling had been violated, as he still owned all rights to the brand he created. Therefore, GFW became Impact Wrestling once again.
Impact Wrestling is returning to a four-square ring. The hexagonal ring, once a trademark of TNA and last in use, is history once again. As of January 2018, it's back to a regular "Squared Circle" square ring.
On December 21, 2018, Impact moved to the Pursuit Channel, a comparatively small network offered by only a few cable providers, but in which Anthem Sports has a stake. The offer was therefore supplemented after the PPV Homecoming with a Twitch channel that airs the shows simultaneously.
