For almost 25 years, TNA Wrestling has managed to survive despite being such a snake-bit company from the very start.
It began with the Jarretts almost shutting down NWA: TNA after only a few months due to dwindling finances before being saved by Panda Energy. From there, it would be a long series of ups and downs as TNA tried to find its footing on TV and bring in big name free agents like Sting, Kurt Angle, Booker T, Jeff Hardy, and others. The company would have its best financial year in 2009, finally turning a profit, only for things to crater over the next few years.
The signings of Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff to be major on-screen characters and effectively drive the show’s creative direction backstage is where things began to turn. Their signings emboldened TNA to move its flagship show Impact from Thursdays to Mondays and challenge Monday Night Raw directly in the hopes of sparking a new wrestling war, akin to WWF and WCW in the 90s.
This did not happen.
TNA Impact was beaten so badly in the ratings that the show moved back to Thursdays after only a few weeks. Things spiraled further with the signings of aged-stars like Scott Hall and The Nasty Boys, rehashing the New World Order and Four Horsemen in the laziest ways possible, damaging the Knockouts and X-Divisions so badly it took years for both to recover, and so much more.
It all seemed to coalesce in a show where then-TNA President Dixie Carter, who was also the show’s top heel at the time, infamously clutched to Hulk Hogan’s leg on Hogan’s final episode of Impact before his departure. Many felt this was “art imitating life” a little too accurately.
TNA would continue to hobble along from there. It got booted off Spike after it was revealed Vince Russo had been offering input into the show’s creative “off-the-books,” and the network had made it clear it was happy to keep Impact on the channel as long as Russo wasn’t involved in the show.
It hopped around from random low-level networks like Destination: America and POP! for years after that. Billie Corgan would come in briefly to try and help with the company, but this would end in a lawsuit by Corgan against TNA claiming he was lied to about his return on investment into the promotion.
Things would start to look up when Anthem Sports & Entertainment purchased the majority ownership in the promotion in 2017, changing the name from TNA Wrestling to Impact Wrestling. It would also partner with Jeff Jarrett’s new promotion, Global Force Wrestling, before Anthem cut ties with Jarrett after only a couple of months and a planned-acquisition of GFW by Anthem didn’t happen.
Former-TNA talents Scott D’Amore and Don Callis would be brought on as executive vice presidents of Impact and effectively run the promotion. The show began airing on AXS, which Anthem had recently purchased as well, along with streaming platform Twitch. It would put together a talented roster including names like the Lucha Bros, LAX, Brian Cage, Steve Maclin, Taya Valkyrie, The Rascalz, Rosemary, Tasha Steelz, Deonna Purrazzo, Jordynne Grace, and many others. The overall creative was looking up and the promotion was on seemingly stable footing, enough that it made through the COVID-19 pandemic and really started gaining momentum.
Don Callis would ultimately depart for AEW, leaving D’Amore as the “top dog” backstage at Impact.
During and shortly after the pandemic, Impact would have a partnership with AEW that saw Kenny Omega win and hold the Impact World Championship for a brief period.
By the end of 2023, it was announced Impact would be reviving the TNA Wrestling name in January 2024. It then held its first pay-per-view back under the TNA Wrestling name, Hard to Kill, which was a widely praised show and the most successful pay-per-view to that point in company history. This was followed by one of the most universally praised episodes of Impact in history.
It would also begin a partnership with WWE at the same time as the rebrand, with then-Knockouts Champion Jordynne Grace appearing as a surprise entrant in the 2024 Women’s Royal Rumble.
However, things began shifting for the worse again only a month into 2024 when D’Amore was suddenly let go by Anthem at the start of February. He was replaced by Anthony Cicione, President of Entertainment at Anthem. Cicione resigned as President of TNA only a year later, with Carlos Silva taking over for Cicione.
While a clear picture of what happened will likely never be put together, it is known at this time D’Amore had overtures to purchase TNA from Anthem.
The next two-years, TNA continued along on AXS and worked primarily with WWE’s developmental brand, NXT, as part of the promotions’ partnership. It would put on two of its most successful shows ever, Slammiversary 2025 and Bound For Glory 2025, and land a TV deal with AMC, a deal many fans theorize WWE played a role in helping TNA land in hopes TNA could draw viewers away from AEW.
However, the promotion would slowly start to lose talent as Jordynne Grace and Joe Hendry would sign with WWE while Josh Alexander, Speedball Mike Bailey, and Deonna Purrazzo left for AEW. Others like Alex Hammerstone and Gisele Shaw left to work a variety of promotions, from returning to MLW for Hammerstone to Gisele Shaw rejoining her old boss D’Amore for the relaunch of Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling.
It suffered another exodus at the end of 2025 as Ace Austin, Jake Something, Killer Kelly, and The Rascalz would all depart, with all save for Kelly signing with AEW. Trey Miguel, however, would find himself back in TNA in short order after Warner Bros Discovery nixed his signing due to old, homophobic posts on Twitter, despite Miguel already apologizing for those posts years earlier.
And then Impact premiered on AMC, which appeared to go as poorly as it possibly could have. The show was panned for what many felt was poor creative, questionable production choices, confusing cameos, and all notable debuts being former-WWE names.
It drew comparisons to a Hogan and Bischoff era Impact in all the wrong ways.
Questions about how much of an actual “partnership” continued to arise during this time, too, as NXT talents would hold TNA’s top two titles and the only NXT talent that ever seem to appear on Impact are lower-card talent.
And that brings us to today, April 10, 2026
You may be asking why the long-winded history lesson?
It is to provide a clear image of the luck, or lack of it really, that TNA has always suffered from, made worse by the fact many of their biggest wounds are self-inflicted. And this continues to be the case in two big pieces of recent news.
The one-two punch started with news that Dani Luna had her request for her release from TNA granted. It was met with a collective shock from fans as it seemed like Luna had been positioned to be the next top star in the Knockouts Division. She was expected to win the title at Genesis 2026, but due to sudden travel-issues, she missed the show and wouldn’t return to TV for several weeks. She then lost a three-way match for the Knockouts Title to NXT talent Arianna Grace at Sacrifice on March 27, 2026.
Filmed her final match with TNA at the following day’s tapings, losing her match to Jada Stone that aired about two weeks later on April 10.
The second “punch” hit even harder as suddenly, multiple matches announced for WrestleMania week featuring an AEW talent vs. a TNA talent were cancelled as TNA pulled their talent from the matches. Moose was reportedly slated to wrestle on the MLP Multiverse show, Nick Nemeth vs. MJF at an upcoming Create-A-Pro show, an unannounced MJF vs. Bear Bronson match at GCW, and Leon Slater vs. Ricochet at the 2026 Mark Hitchcock Memorial Supershow was cancelled.
Slater vs. Ricochet and Nemeth vs. MJF were the two highest-profile cancellations.
TNA immediately found itself in fans and pundits crosshairs for what many felt was a petty move by TNA and Silva that benefitted no one and only hurt their own talent. It only got worse as more came out about why the cancellations happened, including “partner conflicts” and alleged anger over AEW Collision being moved from Saturday to Thursday due to the NCAA Final Four.
It was noted, however, that was a Warner Bros. Discovery decision and not an AEW one, as the promotion reportedly wanted to stay on Saturday and air after the College Finals because of the viewership overrun.
Even if AMC and WWE had some input into it, the onus from pulling the talent falls solely on TNA for a universally-panned decision. This has led to speculation that TNA could suffer another talent exodus because of this due to how many people are effectively working on per-appearance deals and not making much money, relatively speaking, especially compared to the small handful of salaried talent like Moose.
Speaking for myself, both of these are massive black eyes on current TNA management and their running of the promotion.
Dani Luna seems bound for superstardom and being able to capitalize on that potential ahead of anyone else would have been huge. Luna could have been the new face of the Knockouts Division, taking a spot once held by names like Gail Kim, Awesome Kong, Deonna Purrazzo, Mickie James, and Jordynne Grace. Instead, it seems as though she feels her time and efforts in pro wrestling are put to better use focusing solely on the independent scene over staying with TNA.
The general belief is she will spend as long as she wants to on the indies, but there is already many fans sharing their hope she gets signed sooner rather than later.
As for pulling the talent, what can I add that hasn’t been brought up by everyone else. It is a stupid, petty choice made for what may allegedly be even dumber and pettier reasons. While Moose appears to be a TNA life and Nemeth doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, current X-Division Champion Leon Slater is widely-seen as the next big young free agent set to hit the market in 2026.
At only 21-years-old, English-born Slater has become a sensation in professional wrestling between his time in TNA and work on the UK and US independent scenes. He has already made appearances on NXT and even tagged with NXT star Je’Von Evans for John Cena’s retirement show at Saturday Night’s Main Event XLII. He also knows several of AEW’s top stars, most notably Will Ospreay who Slater said previously he spent plenty of time and learning from on the independents.
He has connections everywhere and is going to be in very high demand, meaning he is likely leaving TNA before the end of the year. Any hope of possibly retaining him is only hurt by a decision like this to pull him from his match against Ricochet, a match said to be an actual dream match for Slater.
And then there’s the harm this does for TNA’s relationships with independent promotions and make them hesitant to book TNA-contracted talent. GCW Owner Brett Lauderdale and AEW coach and Create-A-Pro co-owner Pat Buck are just two of the people to speak on this, saying how TNA is only damaging itself with decisions like this.
These might be the two most devastating self-inflicted wounds TNA has suffered since the departures of AJ Styles and Samoa Joe in 2014 and 2015, respectively. The two were widely seen by fans as top “homegrown” names in TNA and losing them was perceived as two massive black eyes on the promotion.
But it now seems to be “par for the course” for TNA, it seems, and it doesn’t appear to be changing any time soon. No matter how many times TNA tries to get trending in a good direction, it always seems to fall victim to the same “LOLTNA” reaction from fans at this point because, well, its just what TNA does.
It will continue on as it has, with TNA somehow managing to scrape by until it experiences a brief upswing one again, only for some self-inflicted wound to not only bring TNA back to Earth, but somehow crater the promotion again. TNA will get lucky finding potential marquee talent before anyone else, like Leon Slater and more recently Dutch-born Belgian wrestler Ricky Sosa, and giving them a platform to get their name out there before leaving to one of the bigger promotions.
The only question is what will TNA do to seriously harm itself the next time?
Minimum Wage Nerd 