Full Free Show: Impact Wrestling’s First Ever Event

You have to start somewhere. Back in 2002, the wrestling world was in a very different place. WWE was now the lone major promotion in the North American wrestling scene, but some new challengers were approaching. One of these promotions was NWA: TNA, which eventually evolved into Impact Wrestling. There’s a lot of history to be seen there, and some of it is being rolled out of the vault.

And here’s what it starts. Witness the first ever NWA: TNA event, which almost has to be seen to be believed:

FULL EVENT: The First TNA Pay-Per-View EVER! (June 19, 2002) | IMPACT Wrestling Full Events

Impact Wrestling has posted the full version of its first ever show, which originally aired on June 19, 2002 in Huntsville, Alabama. The show was a two hour pay per view event, which was all the promotion offered for the first two years in the way of television. The event includes a match called Gauntlet For The Gold, a twenty man gauntlet match to crown a new NWA World Champion. There are several stars of today and yesterday included, such as AJ Styles, Jeff Jarrett and Scott Hall, plus a team called the Flying Elvises.

Opinion: I’ll give Impact Wrestling credit for this: they certainly have evolved since 2002. While you could see a lot of things from 2002 WWE in today’s modern product, this is something completely out of the past and different. Things have changed over the years, which isn’t the case in a lot of other promotions. It’s good to move forward and surviving as long as it has is rather impressive.

What do you think of the old Impact Wrestling days? What would you like to see make a comeback? Let us know in the comments below.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his Amazon author page with 28 wrestling books. His latest book is the the Complete 1997 Monday Night Raw Reviews.

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