Formation

The concept of TNA Wrestling originated shortly after the end of World Championship Wrestling (WCW) (2001). Bob Ryder, Jeff Jarrett, and Jerry Jarrett went on a fishing trip and contemplated their futures in the business of wrestling. The World Wrestling Federation (WWF) remained the only wrestling product on U.S. national television — WWF had purchased WCW in March 2001, and Extreme Championship Wrestling had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy that same year. Ryder felt that this situation led many television stations to regard wrestling as bad for business, and suggested a company that does not need television, but rather just goes straight to pay-per-view. Of the three, only Jeff Jarrett took the discussion seriously (the other two thought of it as "just fishing talk").

The Jarretts found the help they needed, and the company put on its first show on June 19, 2002. This night, however, in a dark match just before they went on the air, a 450lb wrestler named Cheex hit the ropes with so much force that one of them broke. The estimated repair time was 30–60 minutes, which they did not have because the schedule called for them to go live in a few minutes, whether the ring was ready or not. Backstage, the producers shuffled the schedule so that some non-wrestling segments went first to give the ring crew some more time, but they did not have many of them. The ring crew came up with a creative way[citation needed] to fix the rope with the help of Ron and Don Harris, and everyone went live hoping for the best.
[edit] TNA Xplosion and Weekly PPVs

The original TNA business model differed from that employed by WWE in several key ways. By not touring like other major federations had done, TNA could keep costs down. Until the introduction of the syndicated show, TNA Xplosion, in late 2002, TNA's weekly pay-per-view show operated as the company's main source of revenue, in place of monthly pay-per-view events used by other promotions. These shows started on June 19, 2002 and were held mostly at the Tennessee State Fairgrounds in Nashville to lower production costs. After 27 months, TNA felt that they had a fanbase that would support three-hour pay-per-views and ceased their weekly shows on September 8, 2004. TNA held its first three-hour monthly pay-per-view, Victory Road, on November 7, 2004.