by After beginning its company by having weekly PPV’s, TNA signed it’s first weekly syndication television deal in October of 2005. For years, it was the number one show on Spike and it appeared that TNA Impact would always have a home there. Sadly, after a disastrous 2013 and 2014 that was even worse, Spike sent TNA packing!
From there, they had a short ( 1 year ) run on Destination America – READ MORE ABOUT IT HERE – https://keeonsports.com/tna-attempted-re-start-on-destination-america-network-goes-south/
A decent run on POP TV from 2016-2018 ( 2 year run) – READ MORE ABOUT IT HERE – https://keeonsports.com/tna-debuts-on-pop-tv-full-review/
Then, when it looked like POP TV was going to be home for a long while, they switched again on January 11, 2019 to the Pursuit Channel. TNA (then branded as Impact Wrestling) officially debuted on the Pursuit Channel on Friday, January 11, 2019, at 10:00 PM Eastern Time. The move followed the expiration of their previous television contract with Pop TV. Friday nights from 10:00 PM to Midnight ET, featuring the fallout from the Homecoming pay-per-view on its premiere night.
Because the hunting-and-outdoors-focused network had a smaller subscriber base than Pop TV, episodes also streamed live and free on Twitch. Parent company Anthem Sports & Entertainment held a significant minority ownership stake in the Pursuit Channel at the time. The run may be the shortest in their company history for a single network, but let’s take a look and see how night one went for them.
NIGHT ONE ON PURSUIT TV 1-11-19
A recap of the TNA Homecoming PPV from the prior weekend is shown.
Impact World Champion Johnny Impact opened the show to address Killer Kross power bombing his wife, Taya Valkyrie, off the stage at Homecoming. Brian Cage interrupted to demand a rematch, followed by Killer Kross entering the fray. Johnny Impact super kicked Cage and dove at Kross, but Cage recovered to hit a lariat on Impact and stood tall holding the World Title. Eventually Impact would agree to a match later in the night with Kross non-title before granting Cage a title match later on.
The first in ring match was between the Lucha Bro’s and The Rascals in a match that tore the house down. This was a sign of things to come for both teams that would become the face of the Tag Division before Penta and Fenix eventually left for AEW at years end.
A backstage promo from Kross shows his path of destruction headed into tonight’s match. He is put over huge as a very bad man. We then cut back to the ring to see Josh Matthew interview WWE washout Rich Swann. It is not long until Sami Callihan comes out to interrupt thew new TNA X Division Champion. Callihan is just the absolute worst when it comes to being on the microphone as the 25 fans in attendance let him have it.
It is only a matter of time before Swans best friend Willie Mack comes out and challenges Sami to a match in which Mack ultimately wins. This, almost instantly ruining the push and credibility of Sami Callihan and making the prior 30 minutes of the show feel like a complete waste of time.
After a match that put some to sleep, TNA pushed the panic button and sent the incredibly sexy Scarlett Bourdeux to the ring. Nicknamed the “smoke show”, she teased wearing nothing underneath her robe and told the fans they would be getting a strip tease. Before she could make everyone’s dreams come true however, she was interrupted by Scott Steiner who ends up getting a lap dance.
Up next Tessa Blanchard defeated Calli Collins in what can be described as a squash match in a “battle” that lasted less then 3 minutes. It was pretty much a reminder of how much of a badass TNA presented Blanchard as.
The show was pretty awful to this point and Johnny Impact versus Killer Kross was supposed to be the grudge match to possibly save the show and get everyone hyped for weeks to come. It was an incredible match as both men beat the holy Hell out of each until Moose interrupted the match and cost Impact the duke.
So, basically, TNA ended their first episode on a brand new station with their champion getting choked out by a guy who wasn’t even competition for the belt. All in all, the premier episode of TNA Impact Wrestling on Pursuit, was an absolute bust.
