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Written by Tyler Yasembousky
On January 16, 2025 WWE and TNA announced a multi-year partnership.
Here was the official statement that was put out from TNA’s Ariel Shnerer and NXT Shawn Michaels
“This historic relationship demonstrates that collaboration and competition do not have to be mutually exclusive,” said Ariel Shnerer, Senior Vice President of Content & Distribution for TNA Wrestling and Anthem Sports & Entertainment.
“Our partnership allows the TNA Wrestling brand and its incredible athletes to reach a significantly wider audience, while giving WWE and NXT stars an opportunity to cross the line and gain valuable experience, as they join forces with one of the most talented rosters in professional wrestling today. The response to our collaboration over the past year has been tremendous and both companies have benefited, but the fans have reaped the greatest rewards from this talent crossover and working relationship.”
“We look forward to growing and evolving our partnership with TNA Wrestling and its outstanding group of athletes by creating new opportunities to further the development of our talent and to elevate the viewer experience at home,” said WWE Senior Vice President of Talent Development Creative Shawn Michaels.
This wasn’t something out of the blue, TNA talent started appearing on NXT television in 2024 when former TNA Knockouts World Champion Jordynne Grace and Joe Hendry frequently appeared on NXT programming. This was highlighted by an NXT Championship match featuring Hendry and Ethan Page at No Mercy, and an NXT Women’s Championship match featuring Grace and Roxanne Perez at Battleground. Grace would eventually sign with WWE (NXT) and Hendry is expected to join NXT full time very soon.
OK, enough of the facts let’s start getting to the opinion part of this…
This “partnership” has completely sucked for TNA.
TNA has been a company since 2002 — 23 years of being their own brand and at one point they were the second biggest promotion in North America. You can even make the case (and I will) that TNA was better than WWE from about 2006-2010.
They had their incredible X-division, and great main event talent that would become major stars like AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Abyss, Christopher Daniels, Austin Aries, Bobby Roode, James Storm, Alex Shelly, Chris Sabin, Eli Drake (LA Knight), Magnus (Nick Aldis) etc. They also had wrestlers who would were, or would go on to become legends like: Kurt Angle, Sting, Jeff Jarrett, Booker T, Bully Ray, Matt Hardy, Jeff Hardy, Christian Cage, Kevin Nash, Mick Foley, Scott Steiner etc.
TNA fell on hard times after trying to compete with Monday Night Raw in 2009. Moving to Monday’s after hiring Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan to try to compete was a major mistake.
But the brand survived, the show kept going on.
Even when all their top stars left and became names elsewhere, they kept on trucking. They never got close to being what it once was…but it was still TNA. Well except for when it rebranded and became “Impact Wrestling.” Those were some dark days as a TNA fan, and let me be clear I am a fan. I’ve been to TNA live events, I’ve bought the PPVS, and I would watch the television show. There was a time period where it really felt like TNA could go under it any moment especially when a new company arrived on the scene called All Elite Wrestling.
There was a clear new number two product in North America.
So what to do when a situation like this occurs? Well, for TNA they decided to become partners with AEW. It didn’t last long but it did happen. It was long enough for Kenny Omega and Christian Cage to become TNA World Heavyweight Champions.
The partnership with AEW was anything but perfect for TNA. At the very least AEW took it seriously and used their top stars to intermingle with TNA. Kenny Omega was AEW top talent, Christian was a former TNA legend who never held the TNA World championship (he held the NWA Title). They had a match for the title on the very first episode of AEW Rampage. Kenny would also appear on TNA TV, as would Cage after beating Omega for the belt. Cage then would eventually drop the title to Josh Alexander from TNA.
Again, was this the perfect move for TNA? No, they were clearly the B-Side in this relationship, but at least when they lost it was to the top guys of the other company.
Now here we are in 2025, TNA once again is playing little brother but this time to WWE’s development brand.
People seem to forget that fact, for some odd reason this isn’t RAW or Smackdown that TNA is doing business with, this is NXT. This is the show where the WWE trains their talent to eventually get called up to Raw or SmackDown.
But you wouldn’t know from watching who was the developmental brand and which brand was the company that was 23 years old because TNA is always losing to NXT. They lose so often that currently the TNA World champion is a NXT talent (Trick Willams) oh and their TNA knockouts champion is also a NXT talent (Kelani Jordan).
So WWE has been taking the talent they have interest in like Grace and Hendry…they also have their talent holding all the important TNA titles.
What does TNA get from them exactly ? Oh yeah, promotion….
Is it really promotion though when you’re on the third tier television for WWE and every time your talent is on their television, all they do is lose?
For example, next week we have the NXT / TNA invasion, oh wait that name has already been scrapped … .It’s now NXT / TNA SHOWDOWN. They couldn’t even try with the name, that’s how unserious this is.
This week’s NXT episode was a perfect example of why this entire partnership has been awful for TNA.
WWE and TNA buried the Knockouts Division. Ash By Elegance (fka Dana Brooke) had to vacate the Knockouts Title at Victory Road due to injury, so WWE and TNA agreed to crown Kelani Jordan as the new champion.
That alone was an issue.
TNA should not be agreeing to more NXT talent holding their top titles. Then on NXT, Kelani was named captain of Team TNA despite being champion for less than a week. Jacy Jayne called her a traitor, while Kelani claimed she was committing to TNA and wanted to stick it to Jacy. To me, those are just weak excuses. This feels like WWE forcing Kelani into the spot to make Team TNA look stronger from WWE’s perspective.
Need proof…heres the rest of TNA picks were
– The IInspiration (fka The IIconics) – formerly WWE talent
– Mara Sade (fka Jakara Jackson) – former NXT talent
Kelani outright spoiled a future TNA Impact episode by announcing The IInspiration as the Knockouts Tag Team Champions. That show has not even aired yet. What does that tell you? Either Kelani made a massive error, or she was told to do that.
And Mara Sade? She has done almost nothing since becoming a Knockout. Her biggest moment was teaming with The Hardys on an episode. Meanwhile, there are plenty of women who should have been chosen before her: Rosemary, Tasha Steelz, Tessa Blanchard, Killer Kelly, Dani Luna, Alisha Edwards, Lei Ying Lee, Xia Brookside, Jody Threat, Indi Hartwell.
Any of them would have been more fitting.
So this Knockouts team is made up of a current NXT star, a WWE nostalgia act, and a former NXT talent.
That does not represent the Knockouts Division in 2025. It represents WWE controlling the narrative. That is my entire problem with this whole thing, this was pitched as WWE helping TNA. That’s what the press release was all about But instead, it’s just WWE using TNA’s talent to put over NXT.
There are people online defending this saying “Hey TNA will likely get a TV deal out of this in the future” or in which I think is more likely “WWE will probably buy out the company outright.”
As a long time TNA fan, that is wildly disappointing to me. I don’t wanna see TNA become developmental to the developmental. Not for a company that’s lasted on its own for almost 25 years.
TNA has been too proud to be the little, little brother to WWE and AEW.
They used to want to compete as a competitor, now it seems like they are basically begging the WWE to buy them.
I’ve said many times I believe a secret handshake deal has taken place behind the scenes for WWE to eventually merge TNA into their brands full time. Which, in the long run, hurts the industry and hurts all the talent in the business because it’s one less place to go if you don’t have a job in the WWE.
This is why I believe this parasitic relationship between TNA and WWE is eating TNA alive.
Hopefully TNA will be around for their 25 year anniversary … .but sadly I think by then, it will just be another brand another the WWE universe.
When the sale of TNA finally becomes official and becomes public, it will be quite a sad day for this TNA fan.
