Total Nonstop Action Wrestling
(
TNA) is a privately controlled
integrated-media and
sports entertainment company that deals
primarily in
professional
wrestling. It uses the
television,
the
Internet, and live events, with
additional major
revenue sources from
product licensing and direct product sales.
Dixie Carter is the
president of
the company and co-founder
Jeff Jarrett
is the
vice president of
creative writing. In 2002,
Panda Energy International
purchased the majority of its shares.
The
company has its headquarters in Orlando, Florida
; its trading company TNA Entertainment, LLC operates out of Nashville,
Tennessee
. The company previously bore the name "NWA
Total Nonstop Action" — at the time of its formation it belonged to
the
National Wrestling
Alliance (NWA). 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.
TNA became the first American promotion to make exclusive use of a
hexagonal wrestling-ring (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, but has
slowly phased out this rule. TNA's business focus is on
professional wrestling, a
simulated sport that
consists of
wrestling combined with
acting and
theatre. It
is currently the second largest
professional wrestling
promotion in North America, behind
World Wrestling
Entertainment.
History
Formation
The concept of TNA Wrestling originated shortly after the end of
World Championship
Wrestling (WCW) (2001). Bob Ryder,
Jeff
Jarrett, and
Jerry Jarrett went on
a fishing trip and contemplated their futures in the
business of wrestling. The
World Wrestling Federation
(WWF) remained the only wrestling product on U.S. national
television — WWF had purchased WCW in March 2001,
and
Extreme Championship
Wrestling had filed for
Chapter 11
bankruptcy that same year. Ryder felt that this situation led
many television stations to regard wrestling as bad for
business, and suggested a company that does not
need television, but rather just goes straight to
pay-per-view. Of the three, only Jeff Jarrett
took the discussion seriously (the other two thought of it as "just
fishing talk").
The Jarretts found the help they needed, and the company put on its
first show on June 19, 2002. This night, however, 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 the schedule
called for them 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. The ring crew
fixed the rope with the help of Ron and Don Harris, and everyone
went live hoping for the best.
TNA Xplosion and Weekly PPVs
The original TNA business model differed from that employed by WWE
in several key ways. By not touring like other major federations
had done, TNA could keep costs down. Until the introduction of the
syndicated show,
TNA Xplosion,
in late 2002, TNA's weekly
pay-per-view
show operated as the company's main source of revenue, in place of
monthly pay-per-view events used by other promotions. These shows
started on June 19, 2002 and were held mostly at the
Tennessee State Fairgrounds in Nashville to lower
production costs. 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. TNA held its first three-hour monthly
pay-per-view,
Victory Road, on
November 7, 2004.
TNA Impact!
TNA began airing
TNA Impact! (officially typeset "TNA
iMPACT!") on June 4, 2004 on
Fox Sports
Net, and it soon replaced the weekly pay-per-views as TNA's
primary broadcast, while the monthly events became the main source
of revenue. The contract was not renewed one year later with the
show getting consistent low ratings. As a result, TNA was left 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. TNA later
secured a deal with
Spike TV and
aired its first episode on October 1, 2005. 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.
Expansion
Apart from their weekly shows, TNA started running
house shows on March 17, 2006.
In October 2006, TNA started holding some of its monthly
pay-per-views outside of its 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. In April 2006, TNA announced a
partnership with
YouTube where TNA supplied
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. 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.
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. In 2008 TNA conducted its first
tour of the UK, with most shows selling out. 2009 saw the promotion
first touring Germany.
In May 2009,
Bravo in the UK
started airing a new TNA television series called
TNA Epics which showed past matches and
events from the "TNA Video Vault". Epics ran for 8 episodes in the
UK before going off-air, but all 10 created episodes are still
available in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
TNA footage appears in the wrestling documentary,
Bloodstained Memoirs. On June 21,
TNA launched an online video vault subscription service, where
subscribers could watch past pay-per-views by choosing either one
of three payment options.
Celebrity involvement
Since its inception, several
celebrities
have appeared with TNA in a variety of roles.
Different features
Ring shape and locations
Distinctively in the United States
professional wrestling
promotion scene, TNA utilizes a hexagonal ring as opposed to
the traditional square ring. Steel-cage matches, referred to as
Six Sides of Steel matches, also take place in the ring;
in addition, the promotion holds a 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, referred to as the TNA Impact!
Zone, in Universal
Studios
, Orlando, Florida as opposed to an arena,
presenting more of a regional promotion atmosphere.
X Division
The high-flying, high-risk style of wrestling had become one of the
features of
World
Championship Wrestling and
Extreme Championship
Wrestling in the late 1990s. 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 and
throughout 2009, the X Division is generally regarded as one of the
key attractions of TNA and was replicated in several
independent promotions.
Championships
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 controlled and owned exclusively by TNA.
Traditionally, NWA World Champions regularly defended their titles
against local contenders in the various NWA territories. This did
not often happen 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 have won the
TNA Triple
Crown.
On May 13, 2007, the NWA withdrew recognition of TNA's champions,
leaving the two NWA titles vacant. TNA invented new titles, the
TNA World Heavyweight
Championship and the
TNA World Tag Team
Championship, and unveiled them later in that week. TNA credits
wrestlers who held the NWA World Heavyweight and World Tag Team
championships as former TNA champions; for example, it bills
Ron Killings as a two-time TNA World
Champion, yet his two reigns involved the NWA World Heavyweight
Championship. Along with this, TNA redesigned the X Division title
belt.
The
TNA Women's World
Championship commenced on October 14, 2007 at
"Bound for Glory".
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. On
October 23, 2008 on a live edition of
Impact! from Las Vegas,
Booker T opened a briefcase and revealed the
TNA Legends Championship
and declared himself the first champion. Following the victory of
this title by
A.J. Styles on March 15, 2009, it established him as
the first
TNA
Grand Slam winner, as he already achieved the Triple Crown. TNA
also recognizes when their wrestlers hold a Championship sanctioned
by
New Japan Pro Wrestling.
On the August 20 episode of
Impact!, TNA announced plans
to create
Knockout
Tag Team Championship.
Champions
| Championship |
Champion |
Date won |
Date aired |
Event |
Previous Champion |
| TNA World
Heavyweight Championship |
A.J. Styles |
September 20, 2009 |
September 20, 2009 |
No Surrender |
Kurt Angle |
| TNA Global
Championship |
Eric Young |
October 18, 2009 |
October 18, 2009 |
Bound for Glory |
Kevin Nash |
| TNA World Tag Team
Championship |
The
British Invasion (Brutus Magnus and
Doug Williams) |
October 18, 2009 |
October 18, 2009 |
Bound for Glory (2009) |
The Main Event Mafia
(Booker T and Scott Steiner) |
| TNA X Division
Championship |
Amazing Red |
October 5, 2009 |
October 8, 2009 |
Impact! |
Samoa Joe |
| TNA Women's
Knockout Championship |
ODB |
September 20, 2009 |
September 20, 2009 |
No Surrender (2009) |
Vacant |
| TNA Knockout Tag
Team Championship |
Taylor Wilde and Sarita |
September 20, 2009 |
September 20, 2009 |
No Surrender (2009) |
First |
|
Other accomplishments
Creative team
Jeff and Jerry Jarrett did the initial booking, followed by
Dusty Rhodes; while
Vince Russo focused more on writing. At times,
the position of booker has been coterminous with the on-screen
position of Director of Authority.
Authority figures
When TNA first launched, it billed the on-air authority figure as a
representative appointed by the National Wrestling Alliance. It did
this 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. Watts started feuding with
Don Callis (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
Dusty Rhodes defeated and replaced
him.
The NWA Championship Committee, established in 2004, comprised 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 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,
appeared in the form of "special referee"
Earl Hebner, "consultant"
Dave Hebner and "messenger"
Christy Hemme. The current face of "TNA
Management" emerged at
Slammiversary 2006 in the form of
Jim Cornette, who has been called the
"Management Director" in press releases following that
pay-per-view. On October 23, 2008, on the first
high-definition episode of
Impact!, TNA announced that
Mick
Foley had become TNA's (
kayfabe)
Executive Shareholder. In September 2009, however, Cornette was
released from his TNA contract.
See also
References
- http://www.tnawrestling.com/content/view/156/84/
- http://www.tnawrestling.com/content/view/1512/84/
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