The Rise & Fall Of TNA | Wrestling Timelines

9. November 19, 2014 | Destination: Destination America

TNA, a promotion that could never be described as popular, declines badly when Spike cancels Impact - but the promotion announces that it has found a new home: Destination America, owned by Discovery Communications. The deal is signed for a number of years, but, ominously, an out clause is inserted after just one. 

In a suspicious message that the oldest TNA fans and staff have heard before, the talent is told that this is not in fact a huge step-down; the company will receive unprecedented promotional support. Some immediately point out that, were this the case, Impact would air on the Discovery Network, which is available in every home that has access to cable in the U.S.; Destination America is available in just over half. Detailed information on the rights fee is scarce, but given what happens in just under a year, Discovery evidently feels it is too much. Dave Meltzer claims in the October 24, 2016 Observer that the fee was “considerably lower” than was paid by Spike. 

It’s at this point that TNA begins life, of a sort, as a zombie promotion, the mostly ignored existence of which is barely fathomable.