The Rise & Fall Of TNA | Wrestling Timelines
5. March 2, 2017 | TNA Is No More, Impact Is Too Late
As successful and wildly acclaimed as WrestleMania 17 was, the WWF Attitude Era peaked in 2000. The trend was not built to last. Shock value wears off, definitionally, because the audience becomes desensitised to it.
A full 17 years after 2000, TNA finally realises that its crude pun of a promotion name is wildly out-of-date and not particularly appealing to sponsors. The company officially renames itself ‘Impact Wrestling’, and, on March 2, films the first set of tapings under the new banner. This is actually clever, for them. ‘Impact’ is immediately recognisable as a hard-hitting description of a wrestling product, and is strong in terms of brand identity, since the TV show is (somehow) well over a decade old. It’s synonymous and punchy. It’s also far too late.
TNA has spent the vast majority of its existence taking the piss out of its hardcore base and frightening away curious viewers with countless awful headline moments. The first thing most fans learn about TNA is that TNA can’t stop tripping itself up. There is nowhere near enough space, even in a dissertation-length deep-dive, to cover every punchline that has deepened the TNA: avoid at all costs stigma. There’s no space here to delve into the time the Impact Zone caught fire as a result of a pyro mishap at Hard Justice 2006; the time Dusty Rhodes sarcastically suggested that every PPV match should be held inside a steel cage, which an enthusiastic Dixie Carter took seriously and created the Lockdown pay-per-view; the time Samoa Joe was kidnapped by ninjas with no explanation nor pay-off; the time…
Like rays of sun piercing a fraying, mildewed roof, some good stuff still gets through in 2017. Lashley’s World title run revives his career; his matches are fun and refreshing hoss fights, his cool presence and massive frame a reminder of why many fans got into wrestling in the first place. Eli Drake, the future LA Knight, is a stupidly entertaining blowhard drenched in charisma. Impact Wrestling actually does what it set out to achieve all along: the promotion out-does WWE with a joyously soap opera storyline. This culminates in an incredible wedding segment, during which Braxton Sutter finally decides to dump Laurel Van Ness and declare his love for Allie.
Big, broad matches. Excellent talkers. Crazy storylines. This stuff would have played so well in 2000. It would have played equally as well in 2023. In 2017, though, trends shift towards incredible in-ring action.
By 2017, NXT has firmly established itself as the WWE brand that it is cool to like. The TakeOver specials are revered for lengthy, back-and-forth matches and the revival of stunning tag team action. And, in yet another LOLTNA moment, its tenuous grasp on the #2 U.S. promotion spot is seized by a Japanese company. New Japan Pro Wrestling has spent the last five years as the favoured promotion of discerning tastemakers. Hiroshi Tanahashi’s stunning babyface artistry; Kazuchika Okada’s slow-burn epics; Tetuya Naito’s disruptive cool factor; Kenny Omega’s terrifying mastery of danger and drama: NJPW is cool, and it’s expanding stateside. Being The Elite and its irreverent takedown of WWE is more popular than Impact doing WWE-style storylines really quite well.
Beyond the creative woes, Impact Wrestling can change its name, but it can’t help itself. Old faces return and leave in acrimonious circumstances, as is tradition, but this time, it’s Jeff Jarrett, not Russo, whose doomed attempt to merge his tinpot Global Force Wrestling outfit with Impact becomes another distracting, litigious mess.