Trivia / Total Nonstop Action Wrestling

• Adored by the Network: Or rather, the streaming services. Ever since being bought by Anthem, the company's programming has been frequently seen on "live TV" streaming apps targeting "cord-cutters" such as Pluto TV, Fubo, and YouTube TV, sometimes even having a dedicated channel. It makes sense from a business standpoint: Impact has a big library of shows and name recognition that's cheaper to license than bigger promotions, and the deals give the company a wider reach compared to staying on Anthem's cable channels (which are often on higher-tier packages)
• Breakup Breakout:
  • Out of The Gathering, CM Punk and Alexis Laree (Mickie James) were signed on by WWE and became world-known megastars in it. Julio Dinero did not, and retired in 2010, with the high point of his career being perhaps his stint during the last two years of ECW, and having been booked in the infamous Heroes of Wrestling PPV (as Julio Fantastico).
  • After America's Most Wanted broke up, James Storm formed another successful tag team, Beer Money, Inc. with Bobby Roode, and eventually even managed to win the TNA World Heavyweight title. Chris Harris meanwhile went to WWE, got saddled with the infamous Braden Walker gimmick, got released after three weeks, and his one-off return to TNA in 2011 saw the audience chant "Braden Walker" at him.
  • Out of Triple X, Christopher Daniels later formed another team with Frankie Kazarian, and even made a return to Ring of Honor that saw him win the world title, while Low Ki became known around the world and even had a brief stint in WWE. Elix Skipper, meanwhile, after the original split of Triple X was put in the Diamonds in the Rough faction, which went nowhere, and then was part of a Triple X reunion… only for Daniels and Low Ki to be released (Daniel in storyline, Low Ki for real). Skipper retired in 2009.
  • After the end of The British Invasion, Magnus would manage to win the TNA World Heavyweight title, the leave TNA for the NWA under Billy Corgan and win the NWA Worlds Heavyweight title, and become a revelation for his reign with the Ten Pounds of Gold. Douglas Williams meanwhile, while ironically being the one who was pushed first (joining Fortune and winning the TNA X Division and Television titles before Magnus won the world title) would eventually be phased out into OVW and later out of the company, and eventually retired in 2018 (although he would later announce his return in 2021).
  • Gunner was barely the breakout of his team with Murphy, winning the Television title and the Tag Team titles with James Storm before managing to end up in WWE as Jaxson Ryker. While his tenure in Stanford was relatively low-key and ended in infamy, it is still a lot in comparison with Murphy, who seemed to sink into obscurity in the full decade between being released by TNA in 2011 and showing up on NWA Powerrr as "Judais" in 2021.
  • Shannon Moore is the more famous member of Ink Inc. in comparison to Jesse Neal. Granted, he already was well-known before the team formed, having stints in WCW and WWE, but his poor tag team partner Neal is perhaps best known for the controversy caused when he revealed that he qualified for food stamps while still working for TNA.
  • Chris Sabin surpassed his Motor City Machine Guns partner Alex Shelley by winning the TNA World Heavyweight title first.
  • No Limit debuted by defeating Unione, The World Class Tag Team and Apollo 55. The initial hype died off quickly. They regained heat by running with La Ola Amarilla in CMLL, but Tetsuya Naito would not recover as a solo wrestler until he hooked up with Rush's Los Ingobernables and returned to New Japan Pro-Wrestling to form his own version. From then on, he would become a multiple-time IWGP Interncontinental Champion and ultimately win the IWGP Heavyweight title. Yujiro Takahashi bounced back more quickly, even joining Bullet Club, though he still gets a lukewarm reception in North America, and would get saddled with EVIL's fan-splitting House of Torture sub-group.
• Career Resurrection: Austin Aries, Low Ki and Awesome Kong had all had some degree of frustration surrounding their departures from TNA and were all contemplating retirement after having seemingly ran their courses in other promotions before TNA somehow convinced each to return and keep wrestling.
• The Cast Show Off: Samuel Shaw drew graphics for all the matches on the April 3rd 2015 Impact.
• Creative Differences
  • Terminating their 10-year deal with NWA in only three years. It was reported as NWA abrogating, but in truth both companies wanted out of it.
  • Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin refusing to blade for their feud with Johnny Devine and Team 3D ultimately led to them leaving.
  • Hiroshi Tanahashi made a couple of inoffensive TNA dates in 2006, so following the "third IWGP belt" saga that saw Kurt Angle return the original IWGP Heavyweight Title belt Brock Lesnar refused to drop back to NJPW, they sent Tanahashi, their ace, to TNA for significantly more dates only to pull him out earlier than agreed after coming to the conclusion nothing would be done with him.^note It's also been reported that Tana was informed he was getting the IWGP title on his return to Japan, and immediately put in his notice with both companies' blessing.
  • Someone at New Japan most likely got a sense of déjà vu to when Jushin Thunder Liger lost the IWGP Junior Heavyweight title on WCW Monday Nitro when The British Invasion beat Team 3D for the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Titles in 2009 without notification.
• Creator Backlash
  • Jerry Jarrett hated what the promotion he co-founded turned into. He wasn't too happy with his other creation, either, though they later ironed things out.
  • Swathes of TNA talent who had less-than-amicable splits with the company. According to Bruce Prichard, some of their biggest names quit on bad terms with company, including Hulk Hogan. AJ Styles, once regarded the heart and soul of the company, admitted that when he finally left after nine years of Undying Loyalty he "didn't shed a single tear". The fate of the TNA Originals in WWE varies, but at least AJ is treated like the megastar he is.
• Creator's Favorite:
  • Back when Dixie Carter was the majority owner, most of the money that should go to talent instead went to a bunch of Z-list celebrities and past-their-prime wrestlers who didn't add anything to the product.
    • J-Woww from Jersey Shore, who showed up for one night to stink up the joint, was paid $10,000 at a minimum. Admittedly, J-Woww and the other Jersey Shore cast members initially encouraged curious fans to tune into TNA before watching their show, but this cross-promotion was quickly rendered pointless when her segment was pushed back due to the neverending introduction of Immortal, and actually ended up in the same timeslot as Jersey Shore itself. Despite this, TNA tried to bring her back to feud with another Jersey Shore cast member, Angelina Pivarnick. Angelina pocketed $7,000 in what turned out to be the lowest-rated segment of Impact she participated in.
    • TNA signed two Survivor contestants, Johnny Fairplay and Jenna Morasca. Fairplay was paid $300k for a mere 8 appearances in TNA, had creative control and was given insurance. As for Morasca, she was part of the infamous "Jenna Morasca vs. Sharmell" match at Victory Road 2009. Stunning. Morasca was paid $500,000 during her time in TNA.
  • Other offenders included Dusty Rhodes, Eric Bischoff, and Hulk Hogan, each of whom put a spotlight on their sons and daughters. (Dustin Rhodes, Garrett Bischoff, and Brooke Hogan, respectively.)
• Dear Negative Reader
  • When the infamous Spoony One launched his vlog Wrestle Wrestle!, he opened it by trashing Impact in his usual hyperbolic style. (Although some of his critiques were not invalid, particularly regarding Tommy Dreamer's EV 2.0. faction.) One of his fans posted a link to the video on Dixie Carter's Facebook page. To the astonishment of everyone, Dixie started tweeting him in response, arguing he was just being mean for the sake of it. The head of a nationally broadcast wrestling promotion actually took the time to start a flame war with an internet smark. Spoony ran with it for a short time, addressing Dixie directly in the next few videos and even volunteering to join the company as a booker. Dixie realized that spending time arguing with Spoony was counter-productive and left him alone after that.
  • True story: Dixie once got trolled by a fake JR account. How does she not have anything better to do?
  • Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff, Kurt Angle, and Matt Hardy upped the ante on their Twitter accounts at various points.
• Distanced from Current Events: In the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Impact retired any mention of the country itself regarding the Russian-born Knockout Masha Slamovich.
• Executive Meddling:
  • Whenever Dixie Carter got involved with the actual booking, it frequently wound up embarrassing the company, but it soon came out that she also severely mismanaged talent and budgets. This article is a comprensive look at how different Dixie's sugary on-screen persona is from the bratty, laughably-bad businesswoman.
    1. In an infamous promo after Bound for Glory '09, Dixie publicly told her roster to "step it up" and improve their game, at a time when TNA were working to repair their rep and were putting out solid shows. In interviews, Dixie always went on and on about how loyalty is so important to TNA when she's never shown any to the roster: TNA Knockout Taylor Wilde (former KO Champion) got spotted working at a Sunglasses Hut and was forced to admit that her pay was so marginal she needed to work a second job (as did several others) to cover her bills. Jesse Neal qualified for food stamps to support himself and his fiancée. Gail Kim was not paid even a third of what WWE had had offered in 2008, despite her amazing feud with Awesome Kong. Some of the ECW Originals were reportedly paid a pitiful $250 for their appearance; many in the industry were critical of Dixie Carter since Hardcore Justice was estimated to have sold at least three to four times better than the average TNA PPV. Jesse Sorensen is a sad case: he was signed in 2011 and built-up as a strong contender for X-Division Championship vs. Austin Aries. While he was still employed by TNA, his pay was so dogshit that he had to work two different jobs. During the 2012 edition of Against All Odds, Jesse hurt his neck during a top-rope moonsault from Zema Ion. This caused panic among his fans and family, who feared he would never walk again. Soon after, Dixie approached Jesse's mother, assuring her that TNA would take care of the situation... except they didn't, leaving Jesse and his family to eat the medical bills amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars. His mother had to sell her restaurant and file for bankruptcy. Jesse was fired in 2013 because of budget cuts. All this while Hogan, his talentless daughter Brooke, and Bischoff were being paid no less than $35,000 a week.
    2. Ric Flair quit TNA via a text message. ("This wasn't part of our agreement. I'll see you when I see you") Prichard also indicated that TNA had been issuing paychecks late for more than three years. Flair said in his RF Video shoot a couple years back that he quit TNA because he felt the stuff they were asking him to do was beneath him, e.g. sign autographs in the lobby of buildings before shows alongside wrestlers he's supposed to be feuding with, pose in the ring with fans for $25, booking him for house shows he wasn't even advertised for. The text was sent after supposedly resolving the house show issue...then he received a text from Prichard about appearing at some random house show in Louisiana which, again, he wasn't advertised for. Also, he once asked TNA for a measly $500 draw against his guarantee, and they supposedly went ballistic.
    3. Dixie is also a major mark who got played by ex-WWE nobodies ("Big John” Gaburick) or mercenaries (Vince Russo, Bruce Pritchard, Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff), yet dismissed people who know how to book (Dutch Mantell, Terry Taylor, Paul Heyman, even goofy Jeff Jarrett). Russo left TNA in February 2012. In 2014, after months of rumors and denials, he was confirmed to be working for TNA as a consultant when he accidentally CC'd an email to PWInsider. After trying to spin it as a swerve on his Twitter, Russo came clean on his website◊, an admission he'd soon delete as well. But in trying to keep Russo's input a secret, TNA also had to lie to the roster and their business partners about it, since Russo had been dismissed by Spike for creative reasons. Not long after this came to light, news came out that Spike had responded by pulling the plug on their partnership with TNA. Not only did Dixie lie to everyone about re-hiring Russo, she was determined to lie about being cancelled, as she reportedly told everyone that TNA was voluntarily leaving Spike due to lack of promotion. In a true scumbag move, people in the TNA front office told indie promoters to wait until the Monday after the news broke to book TNA talent, as "they'd likely be cheaper" then. Just when people thought it was over, the cockroach of professional wrestling found a new home to infest: Destination America. It was revealed that Viacom was willing to keep TNA around and transition them to CMT, another network under their umbrella, but Dixie jumped into bed with Destination America after being promised multiple shows. The move from Spike lowered buyrates and lost over half their viewers.
    4. Those "multiple shows" were soon cancelled due to abyssmal ratings, and Destination America booted TNA after barely a year. Aside from money issues, their hand was forced by difficulties working with Dixie, who sent an email ranting about DVR numbers (Dixie attempted to inflate viewer numbers by demanding that DVR numbers be incorporated into them) and deriding Destination America and its parent company Discovery Networks as "dummies"—accidentally CC'ing at least one of those executives in the process. She would also no-show a quarterly meeting with the network the week afterward.
    5. Dixie's brilliant plan to get more investors was to offer them 10% of TNA's shares so that she could keep a controlling stake. That's basically asking people to donate money; something nobody is going to do thanks to Dixie's history of bad business decisions.
    6. It was later revealed that TNA were $3.4 million in debt and were getting sued from all sides. Billy Corgan himself sued them to leverage a takeover (see below), but then other problems came to light. Stuff like: the tax lien, other outstanding debts that creditors are chasing (Aroluxe, a production company, and more). He backed off as far as he could and took Anthem's check. He has repeatedly said since that, if he knew how bad things truly were, he'd have never tried to buy it and that Anthem is much better-suited to handling the mess than him.
  • TNA were known to interfere with the booking of promotions who used their talent. The joke being that TNA wrestlers were supposedly independent contractors, allowing them to work however and wherever they please. Some examples include TNA's insistence that a) Kong not lose the NWA Women's world title clean, b) the Motor (or rather, Murder) City Machine Guns beat the Ring of Honor Tag Team Champions Kings Of Wrestling. In the former case, MsChif won the title by countout, which is supposed to be impossible. In the latter, the Briscoes did a run-in and triggered a disqualification, which used to be grounds for dismissal per the ROH Code of Honor—a code which became all but irrelevant thanks to stunts like this.
  • Not exclusive to Dixie: Allegedly, TNA offered a lucrative deal to Jeff Hardy, while offering Matt Hardy (who basically carried TNA on his back for all of 2016) a fraction of it. Then they tried to prevent them from legally using the "Broken Matt" gimmick outside of TNA, going as far as to get an ROH PPV removed from DISH Network. When it seemed they were close to a settlement, Anthem tried to insert a clause entitling them to a percentage of the earnings from the Hardys' work outside of TNA (including Jeff's artwork and music). Promoters don't often own the gimmicks of wrestlers anymore, not even WWE. Management was shuffled around a bit. (Exit drunken Jeff Jarrett, enter Scott D'Amore and Don Callis.) Suddenly, they completely relinquished the Broken gimmick to the Hardys and restructured everyone's contract so Impact no longer own anybody's act.
  • TNA has also been on the receiving end of this kind of meddling: Spike TV's insistence of using Impact to promote Bellator, which led to several short stints from Bellator fighters that amounted to nothing, before finally bearing positive fruit with Bobby Lashley's stellar world title run. Lucha Underground cut Hernandez out of their shows, which had the sad effect of obliterating TNA's top heel stable at the time, the Beat Down Clan.
• Fan Community Nickname: In the same way that Cheff Jeff Hardy fans are called the Creatures of the Night, D'Angelo Dinero calls his fans the Congregation.
• Fake Nationality: Shocker was the only Mexican national on the 2006 version of Team Mexico.
• Follow-Up Failure:
  • In 2010, a combination of poor booking and a disastrous attempt to go head-to-head with Raw on Monday Nights à la WCW Monday Nitro soured TNA's reputation: Hoping to renew interest, TNA changed the name of its weekly flagship program from TNA iMPACT! to Impact Wrestling in 2011. In March 2013, TNA attempted to take its show on the road and tour around America just like WCW did; however, they could not sell enough tickets to cover the costs of touring. The loss forced TNA to move back to the Impact Zone and make drastic cutbacks to almost every area of business, which in turn led to a number of their biggest and longest-serving stars quitting upon being faced with significant pay cuts.
  • Ring Ka King, an Indian spinoff show by Jeff Jarrett. It featured a number of TNA-era talents in addition to original Indian talent, and received favorable reviews and ratings. It was not renewed for a second season and was effectively replaced by the unaffiliated CWE. You can watch the entire television series on YouTube.
  • In June 2017, the company announced its merger with Global Force Wrestling, a company started by Jeff Jarrett after he left TNA, which whom they had done crossovers with previously. The plan was for the promotion to adopt the GFW name while retaining the Impact TV series, hence the show's own on-air name change to GFW Impact!. However, following a series of bizarre backstage incidents that included a ponzi scheme, Jarrett was placed on a "leave of absence" and the merger (which had never been set in stone) fell through in October, leaving them with little more than a few GFW title belts that needed to be covered up with Impact stickers.
• God Does Not Own This World: Although Billy Corgan lost his case, it resulted in Dixie Carter being ousted from TNA's leadership: she sold majority ownership to Anthem Sports and Entertainment, the owners of Fight Network and partial owners of the Pursuit channel (where they later moved the re-branded Impact Wrestling in 2019). Anthem left her with a 5% ownership stake and a token position within the company, far away from any corporate decision-making, as her only remaining tie to it.
• Network Decay: Had TNA not convinced Spike to drop them, they likely would have ended up dropped in the long run or have been forced to water down their product back to Fox Sports Net-levels due the fact Spike wanted to become a more family friendly network. (Then again, the Fox Sports Net era wasn't exactly hated, with additions such as Samoa Joe).
• Network to the Rescue:
  • WWE, to their credit, had the good grace to inform TNA when one of the latter's ex-employees attempted corporate espionage.
  • Billy Corgan. Not only is he responsible for turning TNA around creatively after their move to Pop, e.g. making use of an array of characters and outside-the-box on-location segments, he singlehandedly saved the company financially during the weekend of Slammiversary 2016 by buying shares to give them interim funding. Corgan succeeding Carter as TNA President was initially met with much acclaim.
  • In the end, TNA were bought out by Anthem; their first year of ownership was spent paying off the debts racked up under Carter's regime. New management began in earnest with their January 2018 tapings, leading to the aptly-titled Redemption PPV. The product went on to receive rave reviews, especially for their Slammiversary XVI PPV event.
  • It reached its ultimate conclusion when after using Twitch as secondary home, Anthem bought AXS TV, giving finally IMPACT a permanent home.
• No Export for You and Screwed by the Network
  • Averted. In the UK, TNA aired on a channel called Bravo. It was taken over by Sky, who closed it down. As Sky already airs WWE, it was assumed that TNA would be dropped, but Sky put it on game show channel Challenge instead, which at the same time got launched on Freeview to replace Channel One, thereby increasing TNA's audience instead of removing it!
  • But inverted in the U.S. TNA's B-Show, Xplosion, isn't aired anywhere on U.S. TV, and is only shows in foreign markets. It is pretty easy to find online, however, and is aired for free on their Twitch channel.
• Paying Their Dues: It's believed the real reason Kazuchika Okada was sent to TNA for a learning excursion was for this, as NJPW knew that TNA would do nothing meaningful with him, especially considering that Vince "If you want lucha libre, go to Japan!" Russo was booking. The humility he would gain from the experience was to make him much more appreciative of the main event push he would get with his return, in which he became one NJPW's top stars within a month. What supports this is that Okada was pulled out early but left in TNA much longer than Tanahashi or even No Limit before him. However, it's also been rumored that TNA's treatment of Okada is a major reason why the partnership between the two promotions soured. Either way, Okada has a very low opinion of TNA and isn't above doing an occasional Take That! (though he is still good friends with most of the TNA roster from around that time, by the looks of it) and it was reported that when the now-renamed Impact did manage to re-establish their partnership with New Japan in 2020, Impact's first act was to have their management make a proverbial beeline to Okada to apologize to him (even through Impact's management by then was different to the one to mistreated Okada). Okada would eventually make his return to the promotion in 2024 with an appearance in a six-man tag match (teaming with the Motor City Machine Guns.)
• Real Song Theme Tune: The current theme song for the weekly Impact Wrestling show is "We Own The Night" by Shanrock, John August Pregler and Bernard James Perry.
• Recycled Script:
  • An angle features a frustrated Ken Anderson joining a stable where Bully Ray is either field general or outright leader. It starts off great for him but eventually he hits a couple snags and Bully Ray begins to question and antagonize him. Inevitably the tension leads to him being betrayed and forcibly kicked out of the group, with Bully directing traffic. Finally, after a short time away, Ken comes back primed for vengeance and whoops him some Bully ass. This occurred with both Immortal in 2011 and Aces And Eights in 2013…the latter resulting in the end of the stable at the hands of Anderson.
  • AJ Styles is taking part in a war that involves the future of TNA. Christopher Daniels, AJ's best friend, comes back to TNA to come to his aid in this struggle and becomes part of the faction AJ fights alongside, tagging up with AJ on several occasions during this time. Sometime after the egomaniacal superstar force that tried to lay siege to TNA is defeated and/or weakened, Daniels starts and challenges AJ to a match which AJ wins. Daniels starts getting ambitious and jealous, accuses AJ of viewing him as a sidekick, and rubs in his own self-perception that he's as good or better than AJ. This leads to the two falling out and having bitter heat with each other as they continue to fight over envy and pride. Officially this happened twice, during/after TNA Frontline vs. Main Event Mafia in 2009 and during/after Fortune vs. Immortal in 2011, but shades of this pattern can be traced back to even before the two's real-life friendship became a part of their characters. In early 2003 they teamed once or twice as part of TNA's first takeover stable Sports Entertainment Xtreme, which AJ was simply an ally of while Daniels was a member, then in 2005 "Daniels is jealous of AJ, cue feud" would serve as the impetus to kick off their infamous X-Division Championship rivalry.
• Recycled Soundtrack:
  • Rashad Cameron's "Mr. 360" is a re purposed version of Jerrelle Clark's "Mr. 630".
  • Taeler Hendrix's theme is an instrumental version of Jenna Morasca's theme.
  • Mason Andrews uses an instrumental remix of Jeff Hardy's "Modest".
  • Taken up to eleven with "Sacrifice". It was originally used as the theme of the first PPV of the same name, and is repeatedly used as a stock theme. It has been used for, most recently, Gunner, Murphy and Alex Silva.
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor:
  • Teddy Hart was blackballed from TNA in 2004 for having a fight with CM Punk at a local restaurant. This happened because in late 2003 there was a four-way tag team scramble cage match in ROH in which Teddy endangered many of his coworkers by doing insane high-flying moves off the top of the cage after the match was over without warning. This caused the entire ROH locker room to unite against him and throw him out. It was believed that Punk was blackballed for this as well, only for him to clarify that he left because "creative had nothing for him", and out of protest to TNA pulling out many of its wrestlers from ROH due to the RF video scandal (which happened around the same time as the Hart fight, in case you're wondering how the two could be confused)
  • TNA released Angelina Love in September 2009 after she found herself facing deportation due to not having a legal work visa. Eventually, everything was resolved.
  • Bubba the Love Sponge leveraged his long friendship with Hogan to bully TNA talent. After he made disparaging comments about the victims of the 2009 earthquake in Haiti, Awesome Kong kicked the shit out of Bubba backstage. Bubba complained and got Kong fired, earning him a stiff punch in the nose from Mick Foley. Both were real-life incidents. Bubba was gone soon afterward.
  • Spike TV's parent Viacom declined to renew TNA's Impact Wrestling contract when it expired in the end of 2014, allegedly because the network found out the promotion had re-hired Vince Russo, which was against the wishes of Spike's executives.
  • Alberto El Patron was released after he no-showed the Lucha Underground vs. Impact Wrestling in April 2018. They might've been able to forgive it, had he not been main-eventing the show with then-Impact World Champion Austin Aries.
• Romance on the Set: Diamante and Keira Hogan were the first woman/woman couple to be signed to the same major promotion, until the former left the company.
• Stunt Casting:
  • Convicted felon Adam "Pacman" Jones was once in a tag team with Xavier Woods and R-Truth. (Jarrett was a fan of his NFL team.) TNA were threatened with legal action if he so much as took a bump. So his contract was only for a non-physical role. He couldn't do anything other than stand on the apron or "make it rain" on his opponents before his teammates made the pin. He would offer stacks of cash to his opponents before the match to just walk away. That didn't stop TNA from booking him and R-Truth to beat Sting and Kurt Angle to win the TNA Tag Team Championship. He'd later return (for an one-off in 2013) to body slam Bad Influence (Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian).
  • Johnny Fairplay lied about his grandmother being dead on Survivor to get a... thing. Contrary to popular belief, he was a wrestling manager for far longer than he was on reality television (since 1998). Morasca is a fashion model-turned Survivor contestant from 2002.
• Throw It In!: In 2010, TNA had a no-DQ Steel Asylum match where the booked winner (Homicide) could not make it out of the cage. It became "no contest" when he dropped from the top of the structure and they started improvising.
• Troubled Production: TNA was backed by Panda Energy, a multi-million dollar energy company owned by Dixie's parents, despite TNA generating little-to-no profit. Following Hogan's and Bischoff's wasteful tenure, the Carters finally had enough and put Dixie on a budget managed by her mom. Said budget was significantly smaller than it was originally. The loss of the Spike TV deal further hurt the budget, and much of the talent and the production crew were being paid late. Come 2016, TNA was more or less broke. They were kicked out of their original headquarters and had to move into their merchandise warehouse, unable to hold tapings because TNA was so short on cash, and still paying their talent and production team late. Their only sources of income were their TV deal with POP, merchandise sales, and the occasional tour, since both the house show market and the PPV market were effectively dead. Nobody was investing because Dixie was intent on retaining ownership. Billy Corgan was a minority shareholder at one point because TNA needed the money and no one else was willing to lend it to them. He was acrimoniously driven away during a power struggle with Dixie after he tried to sue the company (while he was its official president no less). The company's troubles only ended when Dixie was finally bought out by Anthem, who kicked her upstairs and started a major restructure of the entire promotion.
• What Could Have Been
  • According to Russo, the promotion was planned to be more adult oriented (as in explicit sex) during its early NWA years, hence the TNA name.
  • Dan Severn was entering his second reign as world heavyweight champion when TNA gained control over the NWA titles. Since he couldn't make it to the first TNA taping Severn was stripped of the belt.
  • Shortly before his death, Curt Hennig was planned to defeat Jeff Jarrett for the World Heavyweight Title.
  • TNA found it had three of Generation Next's founders in January of 2006 and accordingly put them together. It only took a month for Aries and Roderick Strong to get suspended though and two matches after this suspension TNA decided it was done with Strong entirely until 2010, just to get sent right back out after a single match.
  • The return of the Main Event Mafia was cancelled when Kevin Nash, and Booker T instead made a deal with WWE to return there, forcing TNA to change who "they" where just before the reveal.
  • Paul Heyman was in talks to join the company. He reportedly wanted both a) full creative control and b) the immediate firing of all but one of the former WWE talent so he could build a younger roster to carry the company forward. Both Spike TV and TNA management reportedly had no issues with the deal, but Dixie Carter refused out of loyalty to these veterans as well as other people Heyman would likely fire (e.g. Vince Russo). The failed Heyman deal may have helped Dixie come up with a unique idea, though: she decided to put together an ECW "reunion" of her own. In 2010, for the second year in a row, TNA held the title of "Worst PPV of the Year": Hardcore Justice 2010.
  • Several well-known indy stars tried out and/or were offered contracts over the years, but declined and/or signed elsewhere. Místico contacted TNA in 2008 after turning down WWE but TNA couldn't come up with anything that let him keep his CMLL dates either. TNA would have had the chance to book T&A but April Hunter declined a long term contract due to the lack of health benefits (and T was renamed Velvet Sky). Other prominent cases include Tyler Black, Jon Moxley and Moose (who did go to AAA but turned down a TNA contract in favor of Dragon Gate USA and ROH). Masada was offered a job with the bonus of bringing Teddy Hart back in 2016 but Masada got arrested for public drunken stumbling and brought several other wrestlers including Jeff Jarrett (who was trying to negotiate the deal) and Hart himself( who had paid for the liquor) down with him.
  • Brooke Hogan pitched an angle where Kiera Hogan would be outed as her father's illegitimate daughter, based on the fact they had the same last name. While Impact would sign Kiera, Brooke was no longer with them when it did.
  • After his run in Lucha Underground, they tried to sign Ricochet & his girlfriend Tessa Blanchard, but apparently couldn't come to a deal; Ricochet ended up signing with WWE in 2018, with Blanchard signing with Impact a month later.
  • When Impact got dumped by Destination America, Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins took over as president (both on-screen and off) with the intent of rebuilding the company. In actuality, this turned out to be a negotiating ploy by the Carters, and Corgan wound up suing "his" own company — in quotation marks because Dixie's fine print denied him from purchasing a controlling stake in Impact. Her legal team seemed honestly perplexed that Billy ever expected to see his money again. (He wants to exercise his contractual rights? That bastard!) Corgan eventually settled with Anthem, and would later purchase the rights to the NWA.
  • Sammy Guevara, currently under contract with All Elite Wrestling, was once considered to show up in Impact Wrestling as part of the collaboration between both companies at the time, but the Impact management decided to not include him due to creative differences with Guevara. He gets replaced by Impact's newest signee, Black Taurus, who is also competing for AAA.
• Word of God: Is it the show or the entire company that was rebranded to "Impact Wrestling" in 2011? According to Dixie Carter, it's just the show.
• Written by Cast Member:
  • Jarrett's interminable run as NWA Champion. Not for nothing he was nicknamed "Triple J."
  • Dixie was promised a new Monday Night War and big money in exchange for handing creative control of her company over to Hogan and Bischoff. Hogan in particular was paid $140,000 a month, more than most people on the roster made year-round. After he'd finished with his head-chopping mission (half of TNA's midcarders were shown the door) and bled the company dry with his huge salary, Hogan chose not to re-sign with them. Any amount of research beyond Hulk Hogan! I know that name! should have made her think twice.
  • Eric Bischoff holds a victory over The Young Bucks…ahem, Generation Me. Mick Foley went from a berserker capable of winning the world title to a gullible fool while feuding with Bischoff in his final weeks.
  • In 2013, the same year Dixie turned heel, she got her very own action figure. TNA promoted the release on Twitter with a contest to take pictures with the figurine; responses included the figure at the inaugural NXT PPV and being stood on by a Vince McMahon figure. According to Prichard, Dixie wanted commercials promoting her action figure, and he and others instead went to a strip club and put the action figure next to a pole.
• You Look Familiar:
  • "The Pope" D'Angelo Dinero was formerly Elijah Burke in WWECW.
  • Fans of CWF Hollywood recognize Eli Drake by his real name Shaun Ricker as the last heir to Percy Pringle's legacy.
  • Much like Eli Drake above, fans of CWF Hollywood recognized Norv Fernum as "Pretty" Peter Avalon, one half of the tag team PPRay.
  • Mica previously played a Mexican guy named Camacho in WWE.
  • Jade is better known in Ring of Honor, CZW, and other promotions as Mia Yim.

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