The Rise & Fall Of TNA | Wrestling Timelines

Impact Wrestling, in yet another brutal joke, presents closed-set tapings during the COVID-19 pandemic without looking, sounding nor feeling drastically different. It feels like it has been shot on the moon for years. The ailing outfit receives promotional support from the most unlikely of sources in December 2020: AEW. 

On December 2, 2020, Kenny Omega captures the AEW World title from Jon Moxley with the help of Impact’s Don Callis, his close real-life friend, at the Winter Is Coming TV special. In a wild cliffhanger, Omega says that he’ll see everybody on the next episode of Impact, thus sparking a working relationship. At Rebellion, in a main event opposite Rich Swann, Omega sets an Anthem-era PPV buy number that, per Dave Meltzer, drew nine times as many buys as the prior year’s Bound For Glory. 

The relationship fizzles by the end of the year. It was Omega’s idea, but he’s physically thrashed, and the inter-promotional stuff while novel does not work without tribal live fans in attendance. Nobody can boo him for taking their promotion hostage.

While AEW crushes Match of the Year charts in 2022 as the new destination for seminal in-ring action, Impact quietly enjoys a very good if understandably overlooked year, in the ring, anyway, highlighted by Josh Alexander against company stalwart Alex Shelley at Emergence. Impact has no unique identity nor selling point, and the good stuff is much of a muchness in a landscape long-defined by strong in-ring, but promotion loyalists are rewarded. 

In October 2023, Impact Wrestling announces that the promotion will revert to the TNA name. It’s a publicity stunt, but it’s not unsuccessful. Conversations start to happen. This month coincides with a totally unexpected and extravagantly great three-match run from Will Ospreay, the consensus best wrestler alive. His match against modern Impact great Speedball Mike Bailey at Bound For Glory on October 21 is particularly outstanding. Nobody sees this coming, since Ospreay is soon to be a free agent and has his pick of WWE or AEW. It happens because TNA in its prime was bigger in England than anywhere else. The Essex-born Ospreay grew up a massive TNA fan, and wants to check Impact off his pro wrestling bucket list. 

Brand nostalgia and the best wrestler in the world are no match for TNA’s genetic incompetence, however, and on February 7, 2024, it is announced that D’Amore has been fired. This seems odd. D’Amore is very well-liked, ushered in an era that if nothing else was not embarrassing, and, faced with two major cable rivals in WWE and AEW, drew its best live attendance in eight years at Hard To Kill on January 13. That show also generated the best PPV buy number in a decade. In the February 12, 2024 issue of the Observer, Meltzer touches on the industry-wide rumour: the very wealthy D’Amore had made a play to purchase TNA outright after clashing with Anthem over the budget. D’Amore is too ambitious for Anthem, it would seem, and thus the impasse is broken. He’s gone. Still, TNA is back, and it’s just like old times! This is not a good thing. 

On March 3, 2025, PW Insider’s Mike Johnson reports that Delirious - the booker perceived to have brought the ROH boom to an end with his drastically overlong matches and general dithering on when to push new acts - has taken TNA creative over from de facto booker Ariel Schnerer. Delirious drags TNA back to the days of scathing reviews, and the timing is very TNA, because, after some curious crossover appearances here and there, the company strikes up a formal working partnership with WWE on January 16, 2025. Much like with Vince Russo in 2006, TNA makes a risible change in creative at the crest of a massive opportunity. 

The motive behind the WWE/TNA deal cannot be accurately deduced, but the cynical take amongst insiders is that the market leader wishes to artificially inflate TNA’s popularity; that way, TNA, over which WWE exercises a degree of control, can supplant AEW as the #2 promotion stateside. This narrative is furthered by multiple members of the pro wrestling media, at least one of which holds an intense dislike for Tony Khan’s promotion. The AMC deal is announced on December 2, 2025 by President Carlos Silva. 

This works, to an extent, in that TNA’s deal with prestige station AMC - which doubles TNA’s potential viewership and per Dave Meltzer’s December 8 estimate garners TNA around $10M per year in rights fees - seems unlikely to happen without the big-time association. 

It also doesn’t work, because the Delirious-booked January AMC debut is a laughing stock. Viewership is less than impressive over subsequent weeks, dropping to a 0.03 in the 18-49 demo by April 23. In parallel, AEW, elevated by a well-booked World title picture and the drawing power of a reenergised MJF, enjoys a surge in popularity, drawing its best ratings and live attendances in years. This is about the opposite of TNA becoming the #2 promotion.