The Rise & Fall Of TNA | Wrestling Timelines

26. October 1, 2005 | Spike

After months in the TV wilderness, a swerve of which Vince Russo himself would be proud rocks wrestling: TNA lands a deal with Spike, the former home of WWE. This is big. While this deal mostly results from WWE’s unearned expectation that the USA Network will award them with a record lucrative rights fee through leaving Spike (they don’t), this does not matter for TNA. They are happy to exist as far cheaper, similar programming. The relationship is mutually beneficial, in that Spike receives effectively free content paid for by a company interested, initially, in the exposure. Panda Energy continues to pump vast sums of money into the project in hopes that Spike will eventually reward iMPACT with a rights fee. Profitability is a long way off. Spike is available in approximately 100 million homes and has become synonymous with wrestling. The idea seems sound. The first episode however draws 850,000 viewers (a 0.78 rating), which is inconclusive; while the number is a significant upgrade on the FSN numbers, which reached 350,000 on a particularly good week, the number is barely above the average pulled by ECW on Spike precursor TNN in 1999 (0.7). That number wasn’t considered good enough at the time. 

The re-debut of iMPACT is not abysmal or even asinine, but it does underscore that TNA can kill Vince Russo, but they can’t kill the idea; the show is a very rushed and shouty presentation, on which some good stuff happens (AJ Styles Vs. Roderick Strong), but is so short (4:01) that it barely registers.