TNA World Championship
The TNA World Championship is a professional wrestling world championship created and promoted by Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. It is the promotion's principal championship. Like most professional wrestling championships, the title is won via pinfall or submission. The reigning champion is Mike Santana in his second reign. He won the championship by defeating Frankie Kazarian on January 15, 2026 on Thursday Night Impact!'s AMC debut in Garland, Texas.
Before the championship was created, TNA controlled the NWA World Heavyweight Championship via an agreement with the National Wrestling Alliance. In 2007, the agreement between TNA and the NWA ended, leading to the creation of the TNA World Heavyweight Championship. The championship was unveiled on May 14, 2007, at the taping of TNA's primary television program, Impact!, which aired on May 17, 2007. The inaugural champion was Kurt Angle, who also holds the record for the most reigns at six.
When TNA changed its name and became Impact Wrestling in March 2017, the title was renamed soon after to reflect the change. After Impact Wrestling rebranded to Global Force Wrestling later that year, the title was unified with the original GFW Global Championship at Slammiversary XV and became the Unified GFW World Heavyweight Championship. Following Destination X, the title took the GFW Global Championship name and kept the former TNA lineage. On October 23, 2017, the GFW name was dropped, and the company name reverted to Impact Wrestling when the company severed ties with Jeff Jarrett, and he took the GFW name with him. However, Impact Wrestling kept the Global Championship name for their championship and the title was then called the Impact Global Championship. On the February 1, 2018, episode of Impact!, the title became known as the Impact World Championship. On June 4, 2018, the title was unified with the Impact Grand Championship and on March 13, 2021, it was unified with the TNA World Heavyweight Championship, which was briefly sanctioned in 2021 as a separate title from the Impact World Championship. In January 2024, Impact Wrestling reverted back to the TNA name, thus renaming the title as TNA World Championship.
History
TNA Wrestling was formed as NWA: Total Nonstop Action in May 2002. Later that same year, TNA was granted control over the NWA World Heavyweight and World Tag Team Championships by the National Wrestling Alliance governing body; subsequently becoming an official NWA territory as NWA-TNA. On June 19, 2002, NWA-TNA held its first show; a weekly pay-per-view event. The main event of the telecast was a twenty-man Gauntlet for the Gold match in which 20 men sought to throw each other over the top rope and down to the floor in order to eliminate others, until there were two men left who wrestle a standard singles match to become the first ever TNA-era NWA World Heavyweight Champion. Ken Shamrock defeated Malice to win the vacant championship with Ricky Steamboat as the guest referee at the event.Creation
The NWA World Heavyweight and World Tag Team Championships were contested for in TNA until May 13, 2007, when NWA ended their five-year agreement with TNA, which had allowed the latter full control over both titles. NWA Executive Director Robert Trobich also stripped then-NWA World Heavyweight Champion Christian Cage and then-NWA World Tag Team Champions Team 3D of their respective championships, ostensibly because Cage refused to defend the NWA World Heavyweight Championship against wrestlers from other NWA territories. That same day, TNA were scheduled to produce their Sacrifice event, in which both Cage and Team 3D were to defend their respective championships. On the card, Cage was scheduled to defend the NWA World Heavyweight Championship against Kurt Angle and Sting in a three-way match.That night, the onscreen graphic used to refer to the champions and their respective championships credited both Cage and Team 3D as still being NWA champions. Angle defeated Cage and Sting to win the World Heavyweight Championship.
During subsequent TV tapings for the next two episodes of Impact!, TNA did not acknowledge the NWA ending their agreement with TNA but gave a storyline explanation as to why a new championship was created. Management Director Jim Cornette, TNA's on-screen authority figure at the time, decided that "due to TNA's growing worldwide exposure, the company needed to have its own TNA title belts". At the first episode, broadcast on tape delay on May 17 Angle introduced himself as the "new TNA World Heavyweight Champion". but later on, Cornette stripped Angle of the TNA championship due to the controversial finish of the match at Sacrifice. and scheduled a King of the Mountain match for the championship at TNA's Slammiversary on June 17, 2007. This match type involves five participants racing to gain a pinfall or submission to become eligible to hang a championship belt to win. On May 15, 2007, Jeremy Borash unveiled the TNA World Heavyweight Championship belt on that day's edition of TNA's online video podcast TNA Today.
The five participants for the King of the Mountain match were determined in a series of standard wrestling matches that took place on Impact! leading up to the event, with Angle defeating Rhino in the first bout to gain entry on the May 17 episode of Impact!. On the May 24 episode of Impact!, Samoa Joe defeated Sting to become the second participant. The third qualification match was held on the May 31 episode of Impact! between A.J. Styles and Tomko, which Styles won. The next bout pitted Chris Harris against James Storm on the June 7 episode Impact!, which ended in a double disqualification, therefore neither man advanced to the King of the Mountain match. The final qualification match was won by Christian Cage over Abyss on the June 14 episode of Impact!. Angle ended up winning the King of the Mountain match at Slammiversary over Joe, Cage, Styles and Harris, who was a mystery participant chosen by Cornette, to become the "undisputed TNA World Heavyweight Champion".
Re-branding
In early 2017 After TNA rebranded as Impact Wrestling, the name of its flagship show, the TNA World Heavyweight Championship changed its name to the Impact Wrestling World Heavyweight Championship to reflect the name changes of the company.At Slammiversary XV, GFW Global Champion Alberto El Patron defeated Impact Wrestling World Heavyweight Champion Bobby Lashley to unify the titles, with the GFW Global Championship being dropped and the Impact World Heavyweight Championship changing its name to the Unified GFW World Championship as Impact Wrestling began rebranding once again as GFW. In September 2017, GFW reverted their branding to Impact Wrestling, the championship then became known as the Impact Global Championship.
On the February 1, 2018 episode of Impact!, the title became known as the Impact World Championship. On June 4, 2018, the title was unified with the Impact Grand Championship, with the latter title being officially retired.
At Rebellion, Moose appeared with the old TNA World Heavyweight Championship belt and declared himself the new TNA World Heavyweight Champion after defeating Hernandez and Michael Elgin in a triple threat match, which was originally to be for the Impact World Championship but reigning champion Tessa Blanchard missed the tapings due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While the title was not recognized as an official championship by Impact, Moose had several title defenses. On the February 23, 2021, episode of Impact!, Executive Vice President Scott D’Amore officially sanctioned Moose's self-proclaimed championship. At Sacrifice, Impact World Champion Rich Swann defeated Moose to unify the championships. The TNA title was deactivated, and the Impact World Championship was briefly referred to as the Impact Unified World Championship.
Return to TNA name
As Impact Wrestling returned to its original name, TNA Wrestling, the world title also reverted back to its original name. It has been known as the TNA World Championship ever since.Championship Tournaments
TNA World Heavyweight Championship Tournament (2010)
On the August 19, 2010, edition of TNA Impact!, the TNA World Heavyweight Championship was vacated, after champion Rob Van Dam suffered a storyline injury. The title was put up in a tournament featuring the top eight ranked wrestlers in the TNA Championship Committee rankings. The finals of the tournament would take place at Bound for Glory on October 10.- Angle and Hardy wrestled another draw on the September 16 edition of Impact!, which led to Eric Bischoff making the final match at Bound for Glory a three–way.
TNA World Heavyweight Championship Tournament (2013)