8 Ways TKO Has RUINED WWE
3. The Latest Monopolisation Strategy
Much like TNA Wrestling in 2025, Google isn't yet completely useless.
The search engine's otherwise-deranged AI engine throws up the following as a definition of a "fighter brand"; 'A fighter brand is a lower-priced product launched by a company to directly compete with and capture market share from cheaper rivals, thereby protecting its premium-priced flagship brand'.
In all but the fact that it's inexplicably existed on this mortal coil since 2002, TNA is now a fighter brand for WWE.
Current (as of writing) star Matt Hardy even believes it. He said as much to Ariel Helwani, who fed it back to Tony Khan, who agreed with the sentiment when they spoke cordially in November. The people directly involved with the process know it to be true, so to deny at this point that a series of social media posts of full TNA houses, coverage of their big events across various WWE TV vehicles and the usage of stars across Impact and NXT (in as much as TNA and the developmental have actual stars) aren't to try and fool a section of the fanbase would be naïve or wilfully ignorant.
As is the case with most of these entries, there's a Vince McMahon version of this sort of thing before TKO ever came into the picture. His dalliances with Smokey Mountain Wrestling and Extreme Championship Wrestling in the 90s were rooted in realising they could help him tackle a WCW on the rise. But TKO don't do things by half or - as McMahon was prone to doing his whole career - lose interest in things. The push for TNA's growth has been aggressive to the point of farcical, and shows no signs of slowing down into 2026.