10 Ways AEW Is Nothing Like TNA
7. TV From The Get Go
Truth be told, comparing AEW and TNA is a fool's game. The two share some similarities, but few of these matter in any sort of meaningful way. They are both wrestling promotions that exist outside of the Vince McMahon universe, but there are thousands of such promotions. The only reason the two get compared is in the hope that AEW will go the way of TNA; it won't.
TNA came into being in 2002, when the wrestling world was in a very different place to where it is today. It was an industry struggling to stay in the limelight, a form of entertainment that had lost its shine and was heading back to the fringes. WWE was the only pro wrestling game on TV at the time so the Jarretts made the decision to go a different route, offering weekly pay-per-view events as opposed to a TV show. Getting on TV wasn't the aim.
For AEW, nothing could happen without getting a TV deal first. The advent of the WWE Network and the evolution of the pay-per-view business has seen television overtake it as a primary source of income for the entertainment world. The brains behind AEW knew that a TV deal was the most important thing to secure, more important than any individual pro wrestler. That deal was found and Dynamite was born, meaning AEW started from a far more advantageous spot than TNA, no matter the circumstantial differences.