| Impact Wrestling | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Sports entertainment Professional wrestling |
| Created by | Jeff Jarrett Vince Russo Dutch Mantel |
| Starring | Total Nonstop Action Wrestling roster |
| Opening theme | "Sinister Rise Above" by Dale Oliver |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of episodes | 390 (as of December 29, 2011) |
| Production | |
| Location(s) | Impact! Zone |
| Camera setup | Multiple-camera setup |
| Running time | 120 minutes (including commercials) |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Fox Sports Net (2004–2005) Webcast/Urban America Television (limited markets) (2005) Spike (2005–present) |
| Picture format | 480i (SDTV), 1080i (HDTV) |
| Original run | June 4, 2004 – present |
| External links | |
| Website | |
Impact Wrestling (stylized as IMPACT WRESTLING and formerly known as TNA iMPACT!)[1] is a professional wrestling television program for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) that currently airs in the United States and Canada on Spike.[2] Impact Wrestling is filmed at the Impact Wrestling Zone (Soundstage 21 at the Universal Studios Florida theme park of Universal Orlando Resort in Orlando, Florida) where admission is free.[3] Tapings of the show take place on Monday and Tuesday night and are aired on its 9pm Thursday time slot.[4] The show's current opening theme is called: "Sinister Rise Above" by Dale Oliver.
Contents |
In May 2004, TNA announced that they had negotiated a television deal with Fox Sports Net (FSN) where they would get a one-hour timeslot on Fridays in most markets, putting TNA on unrestricted cable and satellite for the first time.[5] TNA began taping TNA Impact! that month and aired the first episode on June 4, 2004. Impact! was also syndicated throughout Canada (on RDS) and Europe (on The Fight Network and, also later, both Bravo and Bravo 2 in the United Kingdom, as well as Eurosport). TNA's contract with FSN expired in May 2005 and was not renegotiated, with the last episode airing on May 27, 2005. The series as a whole gained little success, averaging a 0.3 household rating.
TNA was left with no television deal and, therefore, had no means of promoting their monthly pay-per-views (although Impact! did continue to air on certain regional networks in place of TNA Xplosion). On July 1, TNA began offering new episodes through their website, first using BitTorrent downloads, then by streaming through RealPlayer.[6][7] To save on production costs, four hours of the show were recorded in a day and made available throughout the subsequent month.[8]
At the same time, TNA began seeking a more profitable television outlet, finally negotiated a Saturday night timeslot with Spike TV, now known simply as Spike, and started airing Impact! on October 1, 2005. Two episodes were taped every other Tuesday, airing them on the subsequent Saturday.[9] TNA's syndication contracts for the show on local TV channels, from after the FSN contract, were converted to contracts for their syndicated show, TNA Xplosion. They are no longer paying for the timeslot, though Spike controls their advertising revenue.[10] Because of viewership growth, Impact! was moved to Thursdays in April 2006, and later to an earlier primetime slot in November. Tapings were moved to Tuesdays.[11]
In June 2006, episodes became available at the iTunes Store.[12]
The show expanded to two hours on October 4, 2007, still starting at the same time.[13]
On January 17, 2008, Spike presented an event entitled "Global Impact!", which featured TNA wrestlers in matches against talent of New Japan Pro Wrestling.[14]
On March 27, Impact! aired live for the first time in the show's history in its regular timeslot.
Announced in a release on TNAwrestling.com on April 2, 2008, TNA came to terms on a deal that had the show airing in Australia starting April 5. Up until then, they had only broadcast their monthly pay-per-view events on Main Event. The contract expired in March 2011 and was not renewed.[15] In May 2011, the show was picked up by FuelTV, which began airing it every Saturday at 8:30 AEST, starting on June 11.[16]
On October 23, 2008, TNA aired its first Impact! outside of the Impact! Zone in Orlando. It was broadcast from Las Vegas, Nevada. They also made the transition to HD and announced that all episodes after this would be broadcast in High Definition.
On January 4, 2010, the show went head-to-head for the first time with TNA's rival-promotion WWE Monday Night Raw. This would be the first time since March 2001 that two major wrestling promotions went head-to-head in a Monday night television ratings competition. TNA advertised the debut of Hulk Hogan and his return to professional wrestling, while WWE promoted the return of Bret Hart to Raw, who last made an appearance in November 1997 before the Montreal Screwjob.[17] On this night, Impact! was watched by more than 3 million viewers for the opening hour, afterwards towards the end of the show, the viewership declined to 2.2 million viewers, this was the highest viewership in the show's history; Raw was watched by 5.6 million viewers, the most since August 2009.[18]
On February 15, 2010, TNA made the announcement that Impact! would move to Monday nights beginning on March 8, 2010.[19] The show will air live on a bi-weekly basis and taped the other week. On the March 8 edition, Impact! debuted their new theme song.[20] Beginning with the April 12, 2010 show, it was aired at 8:00pm Eastern on Spike TV. This change was made as a result of the increase in ratings from the March 29, 2010 show (which aired at 9:00pm Eastern) and the April 5, 2010 show (which aired at 8:00pm Eastern).[21] The final Monday Impact! scored a 0.78 rating (rounded to 0.8) and after that, it was shifted back to Thursdays, the reason for this return to Thursdays was due to reduced television audience figures on Mondays.[22]
On May 3, 2010, TNA announced that the show would be returning to Thursday nights beginning on Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 9:00pm Eastern.[4] Commenting on the move in an announcement posted on the TNA website, Brian J. Diamond (Spike TV's Senior Vice President of Sports and Specials) said, "The fans have spoken and with their input we have determined the best time slot to maximize the TNA audience is on Thursday nights where we are confident it will be among the most-watched shows with young men". In the same announcement, TNA president Dixie Carter is quoted as saying, "Our fans made it clear that they preferred the Thursday night time period. By moving to Thursdays, this is a win/win opportunity for both TNA and the fans. We are looking forward to delivering what the fans are asking for!".[4]
On June 24, 2010, Spike TV expanded “TNA Thursdays” to three hours with the addition of TNA Reaction (stylized as "TNA ReAction" or, alternatively, as "TNA ReACTION"), which will become a regular one-hour docu-series immediately preceding TNA iMPACT! from 8:00-9:00 Eastern. “ReAction" will focus on the stories and characters of TNA Wrestling and preview the upcoming episode of “TNA iMPACT!”[4][23] TNA Impact! was also re-branded as "Thursday Night" Impact due to its return to Thursdays.
TNA Wrestling president Dixie Carter announced on January 13, 2011 that on February 24, 2011, the promotion would be holding Impact! tapings at the Crown Coliseum in Fayetteville, North Carolina.[24]
On May 3, 2011, at the tapings of the May 12 edition of Impact!, the show was re-branded Impact Wrestling with the slogan "Where Wrestling Matters", with the color scheme changing from red to blue, white and gray.[1][25][26] On July 11, 2011, it was announced that TNA would hold Impact Wrestling tapings on August 25 at the Von Braun Center in Huntsville, Alabama, on September 21 at the Knoxville Coliseum in Knoxville, Tennessee, and on October 26 at the Macon Coliseum in Macon, Georgia.[27]
| Channel (timeslot) | Avg. rating |
|---|---|
| FSN (Fri. 3pm) | 0.3[28] |
| Spike (Sat. 11pm) | 0.7[29] |
| Spike (Thu. 11pm) | 0.9[30] |
| Spike (Thu. 9pm) | 1.0[31] |
| Spike (Thu. 9pm; 2hrs) | 1.2[32] |
| Spike (Monday 9pm; 2hrs) | 0.7[33] |
| Spike (Monday 8pm; 2hrs) | 0.9[33] |
| Spike (Thu 9pm; 2hrs) | 1.1[32][34] |
Generally, the show features four to seven matches over the course of the two hours, as well as numerous interviews and segments interspersed between the matches.[35] Due to the nature of the wrestling business, advertisements for merchandise and upcoming pay-per-view events often serve as bookends for the commercial segments.
When the show was on Fox Sports Net, all matches had a time limit (10 minutes for normal singles matches and 20 for tag team matches and the main event) and the station's Fox Box was used.[36] In the event of a time limit draw, the winner was determined by the NWA Championship Committee, a group consisting of three veteran wrestlers. Since leaving the channel, TNA discarded the time limit concept, but in late 2009, they brought back the time limits.
| Commentators | Dates |
|---|---|
| Mike Tenay and Don West | June 4, 2004 – August 13, 2009 |
| Mike Tenay and Taz | August 20, 2009–present[37] |
| Episode Title | Date | Rating | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Live Impact! | March 27, 2008 | 1.0[38][39] | First live Impact! ever. |
| Live HD Impact! | October 23, 2008 | 1.1[39] | First live HD Impact! outside of the Impact! Zone. |
| Impact! 200 | July 30, 2009 | 1.3[40][41] | 200th episode of Impact! on Spike. |
| Super Impact! | October 15, 2009 | 1.0[40][42] | Special 3 hour episode of Impact! leading up to Bound for Glory. |
| New Years Knockout Eve | December 31, 2009 | 0.6[40] | 4 Hour All Knockout edition of Impact! Also featured the Top 3 PPV matches of 2009 as voted by the fans. |
| Monday Night Impact! | January 4, 2010 | 1.5[43][44] | Live 3 hour edition of Impact! airing on a Monday Night before and during WWE's flagship show Monday Night RAW. |
| The Whole F'n Show | August 12, 2010 | 1.2[45] | A pay-per-view style show on free TV |
| Before the Glory | October 7, 2010 | 1.3[46] | Special live episode of Impact! leading up to Bound for Glory. |
| Segment | Type | Host(s) | Period active | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rough Cut | Interview segment | TNA Roster | February 2008 - April 2009 | A in-depth interview about someone's life and career in professional wrestling. Also used as a video package interview to hype feuds between two or more wrestlers, on some occasions |
| $25,000 Fan Challenge | Wrestling Challenge | Awesome Kong w/Raisha Saeed |
May 2008 - July 2008 | A fan entered the ring to compete with Awesome Kong. If they won they get $25,000 and the TNA Knockout Championship. The contest ended with Taylor Wilde defeating her, making her the third champion in history. |
| Karen's Angle | Interview segment | Karen Angle | July 2008 - October 2008 | Karen hosted a talk show interview segment. The segment came to an end when it was announced on Impact! that Karen was taking time off to focus on her family. |
| O.D.B.'s Angle / Trash Talking with O.D.B. | Interview segment | O.D.B. | November 2008 - December 2009 | Took the place of Karen's Angle after she left the company. |
| Hardcore History 101 | Interview segment | Mick Foley | February 2009 - April 2009 | Behind the scenes stories from Foley's career.[47] |
| Off the Wagon Challenge | Wrestling challenge | Beer Money, Inc. (Robert Roode and James Storm) |
February 2009 - April 2009 | Open challenge for Beer Money's TNA World Tag Team Championship. If the challengers lost by pin or submission, the wrestler who was pinned or submitted is fired. |
| Double J Double M A Open Challenge | MMA challenge | Jeff Jarrett | December 9, 2010 – January 6, 2011 | An open challenge hosted by Jeff Jarrett, where any fan who could make him submit in a mixed martial arts match, would win $100,000. |
In addition to being broadcast on Spike in the United States,[48] the show is also broadcast internationally in many different countries.
| Country | Network | Ref |
|---|---|---|
| Austria, Germany, Switzerland | Sky Sport 2 | [49][50] |
| Australia | FuelTV | |
| Canada | The Fight Network Spike RDS (Réseau Des Sports) |
[51] |
| Chad, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe |
Setanta Sports Africa | [53] |
| Denmark | Canal 9 | [49] |
| France | Ma Chaine Sport | [49] |
| India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka |
Star Sports | [54] |
| Ireland | Setanta Sports | |
| Israel | EGO Total | [55] |
| Italy | GXT | [49][56] |
| MENA | Al Jazeera Sports | [57] |
| Mexico | Viva Sports | [58] |
| New Zealand | The Box | [59] |
| Portugal | Sport TV | [49][60] |
| Turkey | Beyaz TV | [61] |
| United Kingdom | Challenge | [62] |
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