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Total Nonstop Action Wrestling |
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| Type | Privately held limited liability company |
|---|---|
| Founded | May 10, 2002 |
| Headquarters | Nashville, Tennessee |
| Key people | Dixie Carter - President Jeff Jarrett - Vice President |
| Industry | Professional wrestling Sports entertainment Lucha Libre |
| Parent | Panda Energy International |
| Website | TNAwrestling.com |
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) is an American professional wrestling promotion founded by Jeff Jarrett and his father Jerry Jarrett in May 2002. The current majority share owner is Panda Energy International.1 The company, which trades as TNA Entertainment, LLC, operates out of Nashville, Tennessee, with an office in Orlando, Florida.
TNA showcases Lucha Libre style Cruiserweight action under the X Division, while also concentrating on the heavyweight division, featuring heavyweights such as Samoa Joe, A.J. Styles, Booker T, Scott Steiner, Christian Cage, Sting, Abyss, Matt Morgan and Kurt Angle, primarily under a sports entertainment style. Recently, several shoot-style matches have been featured.
Upon its formation, TNA was a member of the National Wrestling Alliance, with the company known as NWA Total Nonstop Action. TNA was granted exclusive rights to both the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and the NWA World Tag Team Championship. TNA withdrew from the NWA in 2004, but was permitted to continue to use the championships until the NWA abrogated the agreement in May 2007.2
TNA is the first American promotion to use a hexagonal wrestling ring exclusively as opposed to the more conventional four-sided ring. The organization also employed the unconventional rule that a championship can change hands as the result of a disqualification or countout. This rule has since been slowly phased out.
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The concept of TNA Wrestling started on a fishing trip between Bob Ryder, Jeff Jarrett, and Jerry Jarrett, where they were contemplating their futures in the business of wrestling. World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) was the only wrestling product on television (following WWE's March 2001 purchase of World Championship Wrestling and Extreme Championship Wrestling filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy that same year), which Ryder felt led many stations to believe that wrestling was bad for business. Ryder suggested a company that does not need television, but rather just goes straight to pay-per-view.
Jeff Jarrett was the only one of the three who took the discussion seriously (the other two thought of it as "just fishing talk"), and began formulating the business plan in his head 24/7. His first goal was to get former World Championship Wrestling people, such as Jeremy Borash, into the project. In the DVD The History of TNA: Year 1, Borash described the early company as "a skeleton crew, and there wasn't any specific job titles. It was 'Who's gonna cover this? Who's gonna cover this? Who's gonna cover this,' and we all just kind of slid into our roles."
Jeff Jarrett argues in The History of TNA: Year 1 that the hardest part of formulating the company was finding financial backing. In his own words, "You're asking people to invest... um... not small change... a substantial investment into an idea... into a theory, versus something that's tangible, that's up and running. That's how the normal course of business goes. This was a completely different sell."
Almost just as difficult was selling the weekly pay-per-view concept to the pay-per-view companies. In his own words, "That was something that In Demand, DirecTV had never even considered, a weekly pay-per-view wrestling series for ten dollars every Wednesday night! That in and of itself was a gigantic mountain to overcome, selling it to the pay-per-view companies."
The Jarretts found the help they needed, and the company had its first show on June 19, 2002. This night, however, they needed help in a different manner, because in a dark match just before they went on the air, a 450 lb wrestler named Cheex hit the ropes with so much force that one of them broke. The estimated repair time was 30-60 minutes, which they did not have because they were about to go live in a few minutes, whether the ring was ready or not. Backstage, the producers shuffled the schedule so that some non-wrestling segments went first to give the ring crew some more time, but they did not have many of them. Fortunately, the ring crew came up with a creative way to fix the rope, and everyone went live hoping for the best.
The original TNA business model was different from that employed by WWE in several key ways. By not touring like other major federations have done, TNA was able to keep costs down. Until the introduction of the syndicated show, TNA Xplosion, in late 2002, TNA's weekly show was provided over pay-per-view to act as their main source of revenue, in place of monthly pay-per-view events used by other promotions.3 These shows started on June 19, 2002 and were held mostly at the Tennessee State Fairgrounds in Nashville to lower production costs.4 After 27 months, TNA felt that they had a fanbase that would support three-hour pay-per-views and ceased their weekly shows on September 8, 2004.5 TNA held its first three-hour monthly pay-per-view, Victory Road, on November 7, 2004.
TNA began airing TNA Impact! (official typeset "TNA iMPACT!") on June 4, 2004 on Fox Sports Net and it soon replaced the weekly pay-per-views as their primary broadcast while the monthly events became the main source of revenue.6 The contract was not renewed one year later with the show getting consistent low ratings. This left TNA with no television deal other than the monthly pay-per-views, so on July 1, 2005, TNA turned to broadcasting Impact! from their official website, while seeking a new television outlet.78 TNA would finally secure a deal with Spike TV and air its first episode on October 1, 2005.9 Since the move, Impact! achieved considerably higher ratings and was moved twice, now having a primetime slot on Thursdays. Impact! expanded to a two-hour format on October 4, 2007.10
In the UK, Impact! is shown on Bravo on Saturday nights at 9 p.m. In Australia, Impact! is shown on FOX8 on Saturday Nights at 9:30 p.m
Apart from their weekly shows, TNA started running house shows on March 17, 200611 and in October, TNA started holding some of their monthly pay-per-views outside of their central filming location. TNA has also expanded into other areas with the development of a video game with Midway Games, titled TNA Impact!, released in 2008.12 In April 2006, TNA announced a partnership with YouTube that would see TNA supply YouTube with exclusive video content in exchange for hosting, leading to the production of internet shows. In January 2007, TNA's mobile content deal with New Motion, Inc. led to the introduction of TNA Mobile and mobile fan voting.13 TNA has also launched the TNA U program to help promote the brand and has started airing podcasts through YouTube which they call TNA U TV,14 as well as the TNA Addicts Show, which consists of promotions for the upcoming Impact as well as Q&A sessions from the fans to the hosts. The TNA Addicts Show has been canceled and will no longer be done by TNA Wrestling.
In August 2007, live events coordinator Craig Jenkins stated that TNA intended to stage eight pay-per-views and 96 house shows outside Orlando, Florida in 2008.15
Since its inception, several celebrities have appeared with TNA in a variety of roles.
Different from other United States professional wrestling promotions, TNA utilizes a hexagonal ring as opposed to the traditional square ring. Steel cage matches are also held in the ring, and referred to as Six Sides of Steel matches; in addition, the promotion holds a now annual pay-per-view called Lockdown which features every match on the card inside the cage. Also, although TNA runs some house shows and a few PPV events in arenas, TNA holds most of its events at a set location (Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida) as opposed to an arena, presenting more of a regional promotion atmosphere.
The high-flying, high risk style of wrestling had been one of the features of WCW and ECW. Rather than emphasizing the fact that most wrestlers who perform this style are under 220 lb (100 kg) by calling it a cruiserweight division, TNA decided to emphasize the high risk nature of the moves that these wrestlers perform. There is no upper weight limit on the X Division or its title, though in practice, most of the wrestlers in this division have been cruiserweights, with Sonny Siaki, Samoa Joe, and Kurt Angle, being notable exceptions. To further emphasize this point, the slogan "It's not about weight limits, it's about no limits" is used to describe the division. Although it was de-emphasized throughout 2007, the X Division is generally regarded as one of the key attractions of TNA and was replicated in several independent promotions.
Capitalizing on the popularity of mixed martial arts, TNA has begun to incorporate shoot style matches into their product. A.J. Styles versus Scott Steiner met in a shoot-style collegiate Wrestling match on Impact!. Another shoot-style match was Kurt Angle versus Tomko (who was cut on the eye during the match) in a shoot sparring match on Impact!; whether this match was legitimately a shoot or simply shoot-style is unclear.
TNA originally recognized the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) World Heavyweight and World Tag Team Championships, in addition to the X Division Championship, the only championship created and owned exclusively by TNA. Traditionally, NWA World Champions regularly defended their titles against local contenders in the various NWA territories. This was rarely the case when TNA used the titles, with TNA leasing the titles from the NWA in order to free the champion from these obligations. Wrestlers who win all three titles are said to have won the TNA Triple Crown.
On May 13, 2007, the NWA withdrew recognition of TNA's champions, leaving the two NWA titles vacant.2 New titles, the TNA World Heavyweight Championship and the TNA World Tag Team Championship, were created and unveiled later in that week. Wrestlers who held the NWA World Heavyweight and World Tag Team championships are credited with being former TNA champions; for example, Ron Killings is billed as a two-time TNA World Champion, yet his two reigns were of the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Along with this, TNA redesigned the X Division title belt. The TNA Women's World Championship was created on October 14, 2007. Gail Kim won a 10-woman gauntlet match to become the first Women's Champion in TNA. She is also the first to hold both the TNA Women's World Championship and the WWE Women's Championship.
| Championships | Current champion(s) | Date won | Date aired | Previous champion |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TNA World Heavyweight Championship | Sting | October 12, 2008 | October 12, 2008 | Samoa Joe |
| TNA World Tag Team Championship | Beer Money Inc. (Robert Roode and James Storm) | August 10, 2008 | August 10, 2008 | The Latin American Xchange (Hernandez and Homicide) |
| TNA X Division Championship | Sheik Abdul Bashir | September 14, 2008 | September 14, 2008 | Petey Williams |
| TNA Women's Knockout Championship | Awesome Kong | October 23, 2008 | October 23, 2008 | Taylor Wilde |
| TNA Legends Championship | Booker T | October 23, 2008 | October 23, 2008 | First |
The creative team is headed by Jeff Jarrett and consists of Dutch Mantel and Vince Russo.28 Prior to this, booking power was typically vested in the hands of a small number of people. Jeff and Jerry Jarrett were initially responsible for booking, followed by Dusty Rhodes, while Russo focused more on writing. At times, the position of booker has been coterminous with the on-screen position of Director of Authority.
When TNA first launched, the on-air authority figure was billed as a representative appointed by the National Wrestling Alliance. This was done for storyline purposes only, however, and the actual "representatives" already worked in some capacity for TNA.
From February 19, 2003, TNA had no active authority figure until July 23, 2003 when Erik Watts made his return to TNA as the Director of Authority.29 Watts started feuding with Don Callis, who was billed as TNA Management Consultant, ending with Watts forced to quit. On February 18, 2004, TNA named Vince Russo the new Director of Authority, a position he held until November 7, 2004 when he was defeated and replaced by Dusty Rhodes.
The NWA Championship Committee, established in 2004, was a group of wrestling veterans who acted as arbitrators, determining a winner in the event of a time-limit draw. The committee consisted of Harley Race, Larry Zbyszko and Terry Funk, with Funk later being replaced by Roddy Piper without ever having appeared on TNA television. After Race and Piper left TNA, the Committee essentially ceased to exist as a physical on-screen body, although Zbyszko continued to be referred to as a member of the committee while simultaneously acting as on-screen authority figure, booking matches and giving title shots.
In October 2005, Larry Zbyszko began to repeatedly reference an ambiguous authority within TNA known only as "TNA Management". "TNA Management" has, in the past, been represented by "special referee" Earl Hebner, "consultant" Dave Hebner and "messenger" Christy Hemme. The current face of "TNA Management" was revealed at Slammiversary 2006 to be Jim Cornette, who has been called the "Management Director" in press releases following that pay-per-view.
On October 24, on the first high-definition episode of Impact!, it was announced that Mick Foley became TNA's (Kayfabe) Executive Shareholder.
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