Real Reason For Tommy Dreamer's TNA Exit, Dreamer Responds To Backlash (TNA News)
New report says Tommy Dreamer's "statements are not accurate" regarding his TNA exit.
While last week's TNA departure of Tommy Dreamer was said by both parties to be a mutual decision, there's now a little more information on Dreamer's TNA exit.
For those who may have missed it, the Innovator of Violence announced his TNA departure live on Busted Open Radio, which was soon followed up by a formal press release from the Anthem outlet. As well as an on-screen presence, Tommy had been operating as the company's Head of Creative and Talent Relations. That same week also saw the TNA exits of, amongst others, former World Champions Sami Callihan and Tessa Blanchard. Callihan had been working backstage and involved in the promotion's marketing department following his in-ring retirement last year, and he received a call from management that he expected to be the offer of a spot on the TNA creative team, only to instead be fired. As for Tessa, she requested, and was granted, her release after being asked by TNA to choose between her TNA and CMLL commitments; the Diamond chose CMLL.
To circle back to Tommy Dreamer, a new report from Falsh Finish suggests that the mutual decision maybe wasn't all that mutual, with TNA sources saying Dreamer's "statements are not accurate," and stating that the veteran didn't want to build up new talent, despite having control over who received a push. Given the big move to AMC earlier this year, there was a belief that the booking and creative hadn't been good enough, and that change was needed.
Sources inside TNA indicate to False Finish that Tommy Dreamer's statements are not accurate. Dreamer did not want to build contenders and in fact had control of who got pushed.
The belief is that the culture will change for the better. The feeling is that the booking and… pic.twitter.com/PgFWeVgCkG
— False Finish (@FalseFinishHQ) June 24, 2026
While Tommy Dreamer has yet to comment on the above report, he has addressed criticism of certain creative decisions, not least the decision to not have Mike Santana win the TNA World Championship at Slammiversary 2025.
With TNA riding a wave of positivity ahead of Slammiversary this time last year, the event broke the company's North American attendance record by packing a reported 7,623 people into Long Island's UBS Arena. In the main event, it was Santana and Joe Hendry challenging for Trick Williams' TNA World Title in a triple-threat match, with Santana having been on a tear as a singles star, having detailed his past struggles and issues, with a great job done of making him into someone on the cusp of greatness, with Santana as the hometown hero who had his young daughter in the crowd, who had his close friends like Konnan, Amazing Red, and Homicide in the crowd, and who the fans were going crazy for as he seemed destined to finally win the big one, to become the TNA star to take the company's biggest prize back from the clutches of an NXT talent, with Santana hitting Joe Hendry with two of his patented Spin the Block finishers... only for, yeah, the air to be sucked out of the room, as Trick Williams threw Santana out of the ring and covered Hendry for the 1-2-3.
Despite the rest of Slammiversary being a good-to-great show, the main event - particularly the finish - received plenty of backlash from fans and critics alike, with TNA missing the chance to do something special by crowning Mike Santana its new World Champion at such a special time in such a special place in front of such a special crowd.
Now, Santana would eventually win that title at Bound for Glory three months later, and while it was great to see him share that title win with his daughter, it perhaps didn't hit quite as hard as it would've at Slammiversary. It also wasn't helped by Frankie Kazarian trying to attack Santana after the match.
Speaking on Busted Open (via Fightful), Tommy Dreamer defended the backlash to all of this:
"Mike Santana’s story. I’m so close with Mike, and his daughter and his family, and when I talk about the internet, everyone wanted Mike to win at Slammiversary, and it’s cool. Then, who do you face at Bound for Glory? And when Bound for Glory beat Slammiversary in attendance, you know you made the right decision. It’s so easy to make everybody happy, but you also have to make people mad to get you to where you wanna go, and then when you draw more people, it’s like, you did your job right, and no one’s gonna give you that credit for it. It’s a thankless job, but I’m thanked by the people and their text messages.”
Purely from your writer's perspective, there is some merit in what Tommy Dreamer says there, but in a world where the curtain has been fully pulled back and the industry is more open than ever as to its inner workings, there's always the risk that making such a decision risks getting any heat on the promotion and decision-makers rather than on any talent, per se, or worse yet, when the company has a history of past questionable creative decisions, there's the risk of turning fans off as they roll their eyes as yet another bad call. Also, sometimes you just have to be able to judge the moment and the momentum around an event and give the fans what they want. Not to mention, when Mike Santana finally did win the TNA World Title, he held it for a month and didn't have any successful title defences before Frankie Kazarian cashed in his Call Your Shot option.
Mike Santana has since won the TNA World Championship back, regaining it from Kazarian on the AMC premiere back in January, and he walks into this year's Slammiversary on Sunday, where he'll defend the gold against Nic Nemeth. However, with plentiful rumblings that Santana could be WWE-bound when his TNA deal expires this summer, it remains to be seen whether he walks out of Slammiversary with that TNA World Championship still around his waist.
It's been quite the up-and-down year for TNA so far in 2026, with there so much buzz around the promotion ahead of that move to AMC and what that might mean financially. Viewership numbers were steady-to-good after that move, but there appears to be a little bit of unrest behind the scenes. First up, ahead of that AMC premiere, Jake Doyle and the Rascalz opted to swap TNA for AEW. By April, the incredibly talented Dani Luna was granted her release, which was followed earlier this month by Myla Grace and former World Champion Steve Maclin likewise being granted their release, with reports that Maclin in particular was unhappy with creative and the company's pay structure.