TNA Entertainment logo (2004-present) | |
Company type | Privately held limited liability company |
---|---|
Industry | Professional wrestling |
Founded | May 10, 2002 |
Headquarters | Nashville, Tennessee, USA |
Key people | Dixie Carter, President Jeff Jarrett, Vice President Chris Sobol, Vice President of Operations |
Revenue | N/A |
Number of employees | Over 85 |
Parent | Panda Energy International |
Website | www.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 and now owned by Panda Energy International. The company, which trades as TNA Entertainment, LLC, operates out of Nashville, Tennessee, with an office in Orlando, Florida.
TNA was originally a member of the National Wrestling Alliance, with the company known as NWA-TNA, but withdrew from the NWA in 2004, in the process acquiring the rights to the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and NWA World Tag Team Championship until the year 2014.
TNA is the first American promotion to exclusively use a hexagonal ring as opposed to the more conventional four-sided ring (the Mexican Asistencia Asesoría y Administración promotion also frequently utilizes a six-sided ring). TNA is also unorthodox in that championships can change hands as a result of a disqualification or count out, thereby nullifying the "champion's advantage," and heels and faces approach the ring via separate entrance ramps.
History
After the closure of World Championship Wrestling and Extreme Championship Wrestling in March and April 2001 respectively, there was still a demand for Southern-style and cruiserweight wrestling that Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation was not fulfilling. TNA attempted to cater to this niche market by offering an alternative to the (then) WWF and by recruiting many former WCW and ECW performers who had not signed with WWE. On May 10, 2002, J Sports and Entertainment (a limited company with Jerry Jarrett as chief executive officer and Jeff Jarrett as president) announced the formation of Total Nonstop Action. Total Nonstop Action held its first weekly pay-per-view in Huntsville, Alabama on June 19, 2002.
While several companies, such as World Wrestling All-Stars, had attempted to fill the void that the closure of WCW and ECW left, TNA has experienced the greatest longevity. Some suspect that a partial motive behind the creation of TNA was to provide employment and mainstream exposure for Jeff Jarrett, the son of long-time wrestling promoter Jerry Jarrett, who was unemployed after the collapse of WCW and was unable to find work with the McMahons (allegedly because he blackmailed Vince McMahon for a large sum of money to wrestle a single match after his contract expired while he held the WWF Intercontinental Championship in 1999). [1]
From its formation, TNA lost large sums of money, leading to the initial investor, the HealthSouth Corporation, withdrawing financial support (HealthSouth was having its own problems, being investigated for accounting irregularities.). In October 2002, Jerry Jarrett sold his controlling interest in the company to the privately-held company Panda Energy International. On October 31, 2002, Panda Energy and J Sports and Entertainment created the privately held limited liability company TNA Entertainment (J Sports and Entertainment was later dissolved). Jeff Jarrett was appointed Vice-President of TNA Entertainment, while Dixie Carter, the daughter of Panda Energy chairman and chief executive officer Robert W. Carter and a former TNA publicist, was appointed President. Panda Energy owns seventy-one percent of TNA Entertainment, LLC. [2]
Dixie Carter is an avid wrestling fan and has become highly involved with the day-to-day operation of the company. Panda Energy also appointed Chris Sobol, the Panda Manager of Business Development, as TNA Vice President of Operations and former Panda Energy executive Frank Dickerson as chief executive officer (Dickerson later left the company in November 2005, and was replaced by Kevin Day, who himself left the company in May 2006). TNA has continued to lose money since the takeover by Panda Energy, with costs of approximately $1,000,000 per month not offset by revenue, but Panda Energy has repeatedly reaffirmed their commitment to TNA. [3] In September 2005, Robert Carter estimated that TNA would become profitable by 2006.
In May 2005, the Nelson Corporation tendered a $10,000,000 USD offer to buy TNA from Panda Energy. The offer was withdrawn on May 31, 2005 after Panda Energy failed to express any interest. A $20,000,000 USD bid by Morphoplex, then a major TNA sponsor, in late 2005 was similarly rejected. [4]
Business model
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. TNA's original system of programming comprised of weekly cable pay-per-views.
While most major promotions had aired monthly PPVs, not having a weekly network, syndicated, or cable show from the outset was a radical departure from the norm. The weekly TNA PPVs were priced at $9.95 USD per week, much less than the monthly WWE PPVs, which were $34.95 at the time. The weekly events were also transmitted free - albeit with a six-month delay - on The Wrestling Channel starting March 2004, this being the company's first foray into the international market.
Initial estimates by TNA showed that about 50,000 PPV buys would be needed each week for TNA to break even. Actual buys, according to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, ranged from anywhere between 5,000-15,000 on a weekly basis. After 111 weeks, TNA ceased their weekly PPVs on September 8, 2004. On Sunday, November 7, 2004, TNA Wrestling held its first three hour PPV TNA Victory Road 2004, with buys for the PPV estimated to be in the low 10,000s.
TNA began airing TNA iMPACT! on June 4, 2004 on FOX Sports Net. iMPACT! was taped on Tuesdays in Soundstage 21 at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida and then broadcast between 4:00 P.M. and 5:00 P.M. on Fridays on FSN in most markets (iMPACT! was also syndicated throughout Europe and Asia.). TNA purchased the one hour time slot from FSN at the cost of $30,000 a week, with the weekly PPV earnings being their main source of revenue.
On May 27, 2005, TNA aired its final episode of iMPACT! on Fox Sports Net. iMPACT! averaged a 0.2 household rating over the course of its existence. This left TNA with no television deal other than the monthly PPVs, so on July 1 TNA teamed up with RealNetworks to stream iMPACT! from their official website via RealPlayer. They also enabled people to download iMPACT! through BitTorrent. At the same time, TNA began seeking a more profitable television outlet. TNA first began negotiations with WGN, with a proposed Monday evening time slot running parallel to WWE RAW, but they could not come to an agreement. TNA then began negotiations with Spike TV for a rumored Saturday night time slot, a traditional wrestling time slot dating back to the days of WCW's WCW Saturday Night and the WWF's Saturday Night's Main Event. On July 21, TNA announced that they had secured a deal with Spike TV to air iMPACT! as part of Spike TV's "Slammin' Saturday Night" block, beginning in the autumn of 2005.
From September 27, 2005 until March 28, 2006, TNA taped two episodes of iMPACT! every second Tuesday, with the first episode airing on October 1, 2005. Unlike the Fox Sports deal, TNA is not paying for the time slot; instead, Spike TV controls advertising revenue. Until March 2006, the primary sponsor of TNA was the health drink manufacturer Morphoplex, which paid TNA $200,000 USD per month.
On November 7, 2005, it was confirmed that TNA has a video game deal with Midway Games. In the past, video games have been a major source of revenue for other wrestling promotions. The game, tentatively titled TNA iMPACT!, is currently scheduled to be released in 2007 for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox, Xbox 360 and Wii. [5]
TNA held their first house show at the Compuware Sports Arena in Plymouth Township, Michigan on March 17, 2006. They have come to an agreement with the United Wrestling Federation to promote a series of TNA-branded house shows throughout the Mid-Atlantic States and southeastern United States, the majority of which will be based in Virginia.
On February 6, 2006, Spike TV announced that iMPACT! would be upgraded to a weeknight primetime slot Thursdays at 9:00 p.m. ET, starting on April 13, 2006. However, TNA wrestlers were notified on March 14 that iMPACT! will instead be moved to 11 P.M. ET Thursdays, after UFC's The Ultimate Fighter. Encore broadcasts will be moved to Saturdays at 11 P.M. ET. As a result, episodes were taped every second Monday starting on April 10, 2006. The penultimate Saturday episode of iMPACT! on April 1, 2006 was televised opposite the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony on the USA Network, marking the first time that TNA and WWE programs aired head to head. The April 1 episode of iMPACT! scored the lowest rating since November 2005.
In April 2006, TNA announced a partnership with YouTube that would see TNA supply YouTube with exclusive video content in exchange for hosting. In the same month, TNA also announced the debut of TNA Global iMPACT!, a weekly thirty-minute online video show to be hosted by Jeremy Borash and Christy Hemme. The first episode of Global iMPACT! aired on May 3, 2006.
In July 2006, TNA announced they would be going on the road for their October pay-per-view TNA Bound For Glory 2006, which will be broadcast live from Detroit, Michigan from the Compuware Sports Arena. This would be the first time TNA has held a pay-per-view outside of their central filming location.
Booking committee
Episodes of iMPACT! and pay-per-views are booked by a committee headed by Scott D'Amore and containing Jeremy Borash, Mike Tenay, Dutch Mantell, and Bill Banks. As President and Vice President of TNA Entertainment respectively, Dixie Carter and Jeff Jarrett hold veto power over any decision. Prior to the creation of the committee, 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 Vince Russo, and then by Dusty Rhodes. At times, the position of booker has been coterminous with the on-screen position of Director of Authority.
X Division
The high-flying, high risk style of wrestling had been one of the key reasons that viewers tuned in to 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 Wrestling decided to emphasize the high risk nature of the moves that these wrestlers perform (there is no upper weight limit on the X Division title, though in practice most of the champions have been cruiserweights). To further emphasize this point, the slogan "It's not about weight limits, it's about no limits", coined by TNA commentator Mike Tenay during the company's first broadcast, is used to describe the division. Although it was de-emphasized throughout 2004, the X Division is generally regarded as one of the key attractions of TNA and was replicated in several independent promotions. It was featured in the October 4, 2005 DVD release The Best of the X Division, Volume 1.
Authority figures
Director of Authority
Between July 23, 2003 and June 16, 2005, the on-screen authority figure within TNA was the "Director of Authority". Three people held the position: Erik Watts, Vince Russo and Dusty Rhodes. The position was effectively abandoned after Rhodes resigned from the company.
- Erik Watts (July 23, 2003 - January 28, 2004)
- Vince Russo (February 18, 2004 - November 7, 2004)
- Dusty Rhodes (November 7, 2004 - June 16, 2005)
NWA Championship Committee
The NWA Championship Committee 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 it is still referenced for purposes of angles. Zbyszko, the sole remaining member of the Committee still employed by TNA, is referred to as an "NWA Championship Committee member".
TNA Management
In October 2005, Larry Zbyszko began repeatedly referencing 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 newest face of "TNA Management" was revealed at TNA Slammiversary 2006 as Jim Cornette, who has been called the "Management Director" in press releases following that pay-per-view.
Tournaments
Chris Candido Memorial Tag Team Tournament
The Chris Candido Memorial Tag Team Tournament is an annual tag team tournament held to commemorate the memory of the late Chris Candido. As per Candido's role in TNA (prior to his death) of being the veteran who mentored young rising stars, teams are composed of established veterans pairing up with young rising stars. The inaugural 2005 Tournament was won by Sean Waltman and Alex Shelley.
Super X Cup Tournament
The Super X Cup Tournament is an annual tournament to determine the best wrestler in the X-Division and to determine a number one contender to the TNA X Division Championship. The tournament consists of eight superstars in standard single-elimination format competing for the trophy and title shot. The 2003 Tournament was won by Chris Sabin, and the 2005 Tournament was won by Samoa Joe.
The 2004 Super X Cup Tournament was a twenty man gauntlet match held at TNA Victory Road 2004 that was won by Héctor Garza. However, Garza would later be deported back to Mexico due to drug possession charges and therefore never got his title shot.
America's X Cup Tournament
The America's X Cup Tournament was a series of international competitions held in early 2004. Tournament rounds consisted of two teams of four X-Division stars (each from a different country) facing off in a series of matches. Points were awarded to teams based on victories attained by their members. The tournaments included Team USA, Team Canada, Team Mexico, and Team Britain. Team Mexico enjoyed the most success, winning the America's X Cup and defending it against the other teams for a long period until finally losing it to Team USA in the World X Cup Tournament.
World X Cup Tournament
The World X Cup Tournament is an international tournament consisting of four teams of four X-Division superstars competing for the World X Cup trophy and worldwide X-Division dominance. Points are awarded to each team based on match victories, but formats and point levels change from year to year.
The inaugural event, the 2004 World X Cup, featured Team USA defeating Team Canada, Team Mexico, and Team Japan to win the tournament. After skipping a year in 2005, it was revived in 2006. The 2006 World X Cup saw Team Canada and Team USA tie for first place at TNA Sacrifice 2006, prompting a sudden death final on the next TNA iMPACT! in which Chris Sabin defeated Petey Williams to win the World X Cup for Team USA once more.
Current champions
TNA recognizes the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) World Heavyweight and World Tag Team Championship as their top titles. Traditionally, NWA world champions regularly defended their titles against local contenders in the various NWA territories. This has rarely been the case since TNA began using the titles in 2002, but TNA has leased the titles from the NWA until 2014, removing these obligations from the champion. The X Division Championship is the only championship created and owned exclusively by TNA. Wrestlers who win all three titles are said to have won the TNA Triple Crown.
Championship | Current champion(s) | Date won | Air date |
---|---|---|---|
NWA World Heavyweight Championship | Jeff Jarrett | June 19, 2006 | June 29, 2006 |
NWA World Tag Team Championship | A.J. Styles and Christopher Daniels | June 18, 2006 | June 18, 2006 |
TNA X Division Championship | Senshi | June 19, 2006 | June 22, 2006 |
See also
- List of TNA pay-per-view events
- Total Nonstop Action Wrestling alumni
- Total Nonstop Action Wrestling programs
- Total Nonstop Action Wrestling roster
- TNA iMPACT!
- TNA X Cup
References
- ^ Chyna's book for fans only
- ^ TNA News: New group makes offer to buy controlling interest in TNA from Panda Energy
- ^ Ex-Hockaday girl wrangles wrestlers
- ^ News on TNA possibly being sold
- ^ TNA Announces Video Game Deal With Midway