The Rise & Fall Of TNA | Wrestling Timelines

3. December 21, 2018 | Cold Pursuit

Scott D'amore Impact Wrestling
IMPACT Wrestling

A meagre 140,000 is the best number that Impact can muster on Pop TV, but the move to a new station, Pursuit, is not great news. 

Pursuit is available in even fewer homes (30M), and is an outdoors and hunting channel that nobody with a tentative interest would even begin to think would air pro wrestling, if they were bored enough to trawl through the upper reaches of the TV listings to begin with. This seems inexplicable, and mostly is, but the deal is made because A) Impact was rejected by an assortment of networks and B) Pursuit is partially owned by Anthem. This, obviously, rules out anything remotely orbiting a rights fee. 

Impact is just waiting around to die at this point, sustained, barely, by its international distribution. It’s grim. There is no place for it. There’s a fiercely dedicated sect of wrestling fans out there who treat the latest burial of a supernatural wrestler in WWE as a national tragedy, but the reception of the Impact ‘Undead Realm’ material suggests that they are a vocal minority, and that Hardy's personality, not the elastic reality, drove the success of the Broken gimmick.

If there was even a remote opportunity to tempt back fans disillusioned with WWE and Vince McMahon’s WCW 2000-level creative, well, tough: the heavily rumoured All Elite Wrestling league, powered by the hottest fleet of free agents in history and a genuine movement supported by the success of BTE and the independent All In pay-per-view, is days away from being announced to the world. 

Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick (Creative Writing BA Hons) is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over a decade of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential UK institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!