5 Things You Didn't Know Were BANNED In TNA
TNA has changed and evolved a LOT over the years. Play by the rules or else!
The TNA brand has been through a lot of ups and downs since launching back in 2002. Originally, it seemed to fill the void left by WCW and ECW as a WWE alternative, but trying to go head to head with the market leader bit Impact chiefs hard in 2010. No amount of bravado could offset cold, hard numbers - TNA's show was never beating Raw.
Post-'Monday Night Wars II' failure, the group rallied and produced some good, albeit overlooked stuff. On the whole though, there were so many management and channel changes going on that most fans found it hard to keep up and lost interest. Then, TNA rebranded from Impact back to those 3 original letters, and they've since locked in on a working relationship with WWE.
This has led to a lot of discourse online. Is TNA merely a feeder outlet for Triple H's league? Or, can it find standalone success yet again by playing a balancing act between keeping WWE sweet and pleasing their own fanbase? Lost in amongst all of this structural change has been a string of rule changes and edicts handed down by management.
There are certain things TNA's roster is either banned from doing or needs special permission to even try. All of that is included here. Tune into episodes of programming in 2026 and there are tropes of yesteryear you simply won't see, and we're not talking weekly pay-per-views or all steel cage match lineups.
Here's everything banned or blacklisted by TNA over the years.
5. Suggestive Skits On Twitch
In 2022, Rob Van Dam shook his head as he recalled controversial and suggestive skits that got TNA banned from the Twitch platform in early-2020 on Rene Dupree's podcast. According to RVD, segments involving he, Katie Forbes and a female friend were penned by TNA chiefs but left Twitch execs flabbergasted that they'd even be aired.
Whipped cream, sexually suggestive content and the rest of it had no place on the platform, and Twitch wanted to let TNA know all about it. So, they temporarily banned the promotion from putting content on the servers. Rob pointed out that this put a dent in the viewership, because a fair number of people consumed TNA content via Twitch at the time.
Ouch.
Van Dam told Dupree that the whole thing was "ridiculous" from the beginning. He raised an eyebrow when he saw some of the things written in the scripts, but his approach was very much just to say "yeah, whatever" back then. So, he, Forbes and pals went along with everything TNA asked them to do. It was too explicit for Twitch, and the admins weren't exactly chuffed by what they were seeing.
Eventually, Twitch did lift the ban, but TNA had to be mindful of any other sexual scenes they fancied producing. The line, 'Let me see that Rob Van D***' may live in the minds of pro wrestling fans forever. It certainly kept a Twitch executive awake that night!
RVD's skit changed the rules on what was appropriate for company programming, including on third party platforms.