A Lasting IMPACT!: A TNA Retrospective
‘TNA is the Motor City Machine Guns coming down here and busting their asses and trying to make a break in this business. TNA is Black Machismo doing his damnedest to entertain every single fan in this building and show ‘em what’s up. TNA is Samoa Joe coming in here and doing what he does best, wrestle and be the best damn professional wrestler in the world. TNA is a bunch of hard-working, young athletes who are looking to change the wrestling world - guys who held down this business while others profiteer from it. TNA is the men who come in here, risk their lives on scaffolding, on wires, while others show up and pad their pensions.’
Samoa Joe, Turning Point, 2007
Most discussion of TNA/Impact Wrestling’s history is marred with negativity revolving mostly around the constant mismanagement and frequent trips to death’s door. All it takes is a quick Google Search for ‘LOLTNA’ to find an extensive chronicle of all their mistakes, some of them truly deplorable and head-scratching. These are obviously justified observations, but with that, the stuff that people loved and made the company great often gets overlooked and buried by the overriding narrative of TNA as a ‘diseased’ company. The sins of the management have buried the accolades of the talent. Luckily, as of late, the historiography has started to swing back to a more balanced judgement. So, I want to do my part and put a spotlight on those positive aspects and remind people why TNA was awesome.
The first thing that grabs you when rewatching the golden era of TNA is the overall presentation and aesthetic of it all. TNA’s first years were spent at the Tennessee Fairgrounds, affectionately titled the ‘TNA Asylum’, but I think for the true prime of the company, one has to shift their attention to Orlando, Florida. More, specifically, the Impact Zone. There’s a certain magic that comes with the Impact Zone. RAW had its metal industrial vibe, and SmackDown! its silvery shine, both clearly having staggering budgets and production values. IMPACT! felt much more intimate. It was a smaller building, being one of the sound stages at Universal Studios, and whilst it was far above many of the independent wrestling companies of the mid-2000s, it didn’t have all the glitz and glamour of a WWE show. In some respects, IMPACT! felt a lot like Robot Wars. In the Impact Zone’s first form, the wrestlers emerged from opposite sides of the room in these flashing tunnels, dry-ice flooding out of them like they had just teleported in from a 1990s sci-fi movie. The ramp had bright caution-yellow markings as if the place had been made in a post-apocalyptic construction yard. The pyro was smaller, effective in the cosier setting, but was amplified when it was mixed with a lot of lasers. Like, everyone had lasers in their entrance. They really made the most of what they had. Although other American companies had broadcast from a single place, like WCW Saturday Night from Center Stage in Atlanta, the Impact Zone really felt like a living, breathing space. With the added aspect of TNA not being a huge company, tuning into seeing a few hundred people, if that, all cramming into this building felt like you were watching some sort of underground fight club.
Sticking to the presentation, no wrestling programme is complete without a commentary team, and this prime era of TNA had a fantastic pairing at the desk. In the role of play-by-play was the aptly named Mike Tenay. Tenay came from WCW, having worked on both Nitro and Thunder, and brought the more traditional, familiar side of commentary. He wore a tuxedo for every TNA appearance, and had a wealth of knowledge that earned him the nickname of ‘The Professor’. In this exciting new promotion, he felt like a beacon of the ‘professional’ side of pro wrestling. As play-by-play goes, I think Tenay is one of the best. Beside him, was Don West. Don West was a madman.
West came from the world of sports memorabilia on the Shop at Home Network, as in he was the guy appearing on the TV to sell you stuff, and he was damn good at it. Like, ‘over a hundred million dollars in sales’ good. When it came to being a commentator, that frantic salesman energy translated incredibly well. Don West commentated like he hated having air in his lungs. Whenever he got excited, Don would yelp and holler til he was gasping for breath, even if it was as small as someone being in the building.
The duo worked great; Mike Tenay as the proper, well spoken sports commentator, and Don West as the raving lunatic getting sucked into the drama. Just try to not get excited when Don is having a meltdown because someone did a flip, it's like getting a second-hand high. Sadly, Don was eventually replaced by Taz of all people, being written off as a surly alcoholic who suddenly hated Mike Tenay and refused to work with him. But, he did stay on to oversee merchandising, so we continued to get more of his mad sales to make up for it.
There was something more obvious that made TNA’s programming stand out; the ring. Now that I’m an older, more seasoned wrestling fan (is that something to be proud of?), I know now that many places in Mexico use a hexagonal ring. But, as a kid having only ever seen wrestling rings with four sides, seeing one with six was fucking mind-blowing. Like, are you kidding me? How do tag team matches work then? Which way do they run into the ropes? It was the weirdest, yet most intriguing thing I have ever witnessed. Seeing the two added sides just furthered the idea that IMPACT! was a completely different product to what WWE was offering.
For a large part, IMPACT! really was offering something different. Perhaps the most memorable aspect of TNA’s in-ring product was the X-Division. The X-Division was very much a descendant of WCW’s cruiserweights, but treated with higher regard (though they were still looked down on by some in comparison to the heavyweights). The X-Division is responsible for many of TNA’s greatest matches and most memorable moments, as well as nurturing the in-ring style of the modern era. Just pointing to Petey Williams innovating the Canadian Destroyer is evidence enough, but rewatching some of the division’s matches makes it even more obvious. The death-defying high-spots, the fast, high-octane action, so many of these matches could take place on a show today and not feel out of place at all. It was guys like AJ Styles, Samoa Joe and Christopher Daniels, the holy trinity of that division, that solidified it as a core element of TNA programming. In a discussion of the X-Division, I would be remiss if I did not bring up the Ultimate X match.
Ultimate X is perhaps my favourite gimmick match of all time. The concept is simple (kinda). Much like a ladder match, there is a prize suspended above the ring, but here, it is in the middle of two intersecting cables, supported by four beams, in the shape of an ‘X’. To win, participants scale the structure and claim the prize. Think a ladder match, but the ladders have been replaced by tightropes. For whatever reason, TNA had a strange fascination with the ‘X’ branding. The X-Division Championship was a belt with a massive red ‘X’. When an Ultimate X match wasn’t for the title, they hung a literal big red ‘X’ above the ring instead. Hell, because of all that the letter ‘X’ has now appeared 13 times in the past two paragraphs (including the one in this sentence).
I have a sneaking suspicion the X is made of chocolate.
Of course, the other in-ring standout that rightly garners much praise is the Knockout’s division. Now, the recent How2GailKim episode went over how great the women were in TNA, and better than I’d be able to properly cover here, but I’ll give it a bash. So, we’re talking about the mid-2000s here where women’s wrestling in the American mainstream is a far cry from where we are at now. WWE had their ‘Diva Search’ going, the bra and panties stipulations, and the performers would be lucky to get four minutes for an actual match. If you look at what TNA were doing with their Knockouts, whilst there were some storylines and characters that weren’t much better than what WWE was offering, they felt like a division of actual wrestlers. Their matches were given dedicated time and space on television and pay-per-views, making for a much better product. I do have one theory as to why I liked the TNA Knockouts much better. So, I was born in 1999, on the day that Mr. McMahon won the WWF title at a SmackDown! taping. As a result, the raunchier content didn’t exactly connect with my little prepubescent self. A lot of WWE’s Diva content at that time just ended up boring me. Sure, TNA had its fair share of titillation based programming, but it was far from being the main draw of the Knockouts. Why would I want to watch an evening gown Battle Royale when I could turn on IMPACT! and watch ODB and Awesome Kong beat the piss out of each other with steel chairs? What more could a boy want?
Why would I want to watch an evening gown Battle Royale when I could turn on IMPACT! and watch ODB and Awesome Kong beat the piss out of each other with steel chairs?
Whilst the Knockouts and the X-Division are definitely heralded as big parts of making TNA great, one aspect I don’t think gets enough love and recognition is the tag team division. With AEW touting their focus on tag team wrestling and the recent revival of the form, I think it's worth looking back at just how competitive and exciting TNA’s division was over the years. The company had some of the best teams of the modern era, and rivalries for the tag belts held a solid presence on the card. The Motor City Machine Guns revolutionised the whole cruiserweight tag style, being cited as a major influence on teams like The Young Bucks for their creativity and ability to quickly chain moves together. Beer Money, Inc. being possibly the best odd couple ever of the rich businessman Bobby Roode and alcoholic cowboy James Storm. LAX added themselves to the mix by being absolute killers, having one man literally called Homicide and Hernandez throwing people as far as he could with the Border Toss. Team 3D, AKA The Dudley Boyz, were able to really shine in a deep tag roster, having some of the best matches of their careers.
Keeping on that point of Team 3D, the notion that TNA was the land of WWE rejects collecting paychecks isn’t entirely true. Sure, there were a fair few lower card WWE guys picked up for no real reason other than they had a bit of a name, there was an equal amount of people coming into TNA, genuinely appreciative to have a spot on television and doing their best with it. In a lot of cases, being as young as I am (sorry oldies), TNA was my first exposure, or at least that I can remember, to guys like Team 3D, Christian, Rhyno and Scott Steiner. Possibly the most genius move TNA did with criticisms about the cluster of former WWE and WCW guys in the top spots was to form The Main Event Mafia, literally joining them together in a stable with their whole motif being to take those said spots.
Goodfellas who, ammiright?
Another cool aspect of the TNA roster, especially towards the early years of IMPACT! was the dynamic roster they had. Whilst they had their core group, they also had a bit of an open door to the indies, bringing in wrestlers for a match here and there. So, every now and then, you’d get people like a fresh-faced Roderick Strong pop up like a tertiary character in The Simpsons. On top of that, beginning partnerships with Japanese promotions, and holding fairly regular invitational tournaments added even more variation to the mix. One episode even had a match between AJ Styles and Hiroshi Tanahashi years before they would meet in New Japan Pro Wrestling. It added a touch more excitement to tuning in, curious to see who would be appearing each week.
Whilst there’s far too much of the TNA originals to cover in this article, here’s a quick list of some of my favourite things from my memories of TNA:
Petey Williams being adopted by Scott Steiner, becoming ‘Little Petey Pump’ and getting his own chainmail.
Alex Shelley being a paparazzi cameraman stalking Sting at home.
Eric Young being scared of his own pyro.
Eric Young becoming a superhero.
Eric Young as an evil mastermind of ‘The World Elite’.
A video game character literally coming to life, attacking the Motor City Machine Guns, and becoming a full time wrestler.
Everything about the madman that is Monty Brown.
The Rock ’n’ Rave Connection using Guitar Hero controllers as their instruments.
Curry Man and his Japanese promos being made up of just saying the names of Japanese wrestlers.
Shark Boy, a man dressed as a shark, surrounded by his family (also dressed as sharks) in a hospital bed, being woken from a coma by shattering glass and becoming ‘Stone Cold’ Shark Boy, Texan accent and all.
The good news is that IMPACT Wrestling today is doing much better compared to its dark days under Hogan and Bischoff, and for anyone who wants to revisit that golden era, they now have their own streaming service, and better yet, actively post old matches on their YouTube. Overall, TNA has a complex, twisted history. For every shining jewel of great in-ring product and exciting feuds, there was a baffling Russo-ism or shoehorned Dixie Carter angle. The quote used at the top of the article probably best shows this off, coming from Samoa Joe venting his own frustrations with the company on a live pay-per-view. As much as management couldn’t get out of their own way and made some truly bizarre decisions, TNA had a fantastic set of wrestlers and production-people eager to do something truly brilliant. To me, that’s what TNA was; hard-working people who might not have been given an opportunity on a larger scale, doing their absolute best to make something truly special and memorable - and in my opinion, they succeeded.