TNA iMPACT! Review - January 15, 2026

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

AJ Styles Addressed the Audience

Styles' entrance wall popping up well before his classic entrance music hit was a weird call. Nonetheless, this was a hot way to start the show and I'm happy WWE lent TNA Styles for this occasion. Granted, Styles' promo was brief, but it was nice to hear from him at all. Thankfully, he popped up another two times in separate backstage segments with Mike Santana and Frankie Kazarian, even eyeing Kazarian's TNA World Championship at one point. Styles needs to wrestle in TNA at least once before he retires this year and that gave me hope it will happen.

TNA World Tag Team Champions The Hardys and Elijah def. Order 4 (The Great Hands and Mustafa Ali)

Elijah and The Hardys had fun chemistry together, even though this didn't last long. Elijah will be facing Ali at Genesis, so this served as a solid preview of that. We didn't get much wrestling on this show, so it would've been great for this to get more time. The crowd was still hot for everything they did, specifically The Hardys who continue to come off like rock stars after all these years.

Daria Rae Scolded Santino Marella and Introduced Elayna Black

Marella was apparently responsible for bringing in Rae (the former Sonya Deville in WWE) as TNA's new authority figure, yet was shocked when she quickly turned heel. He looked like an idiot for that. Rae should excel in the role much like she did when was she in WWE and this was a fine first promo from her, but a heel on-air authority figure isn't exactly what TNA needs as it enters this new era. Meanwhile, I like the addition of Black to the Knockouts division. She actually made some appearances for TNA not long before she was released from WWE last year.

The Elegance Brand (M and Heather by Elegance) def. The IInspiration to Win the TNA Knockouts World Tag Team Championship

Elegance Brand now have a Mr. Elegance in their ranks. He even aided M and Heather in getting the belts back. The IInspiration beat them for the titles late last year and retained against them at Bound for Glory, so I personally didn't care that Elegance Brand regained the gold. The match itself wasn't all that good, either. With any luck, Perez Hilton, who has not been relevant in decades, will not be a permanent member of Elegance Brand despite appearing with them here.

TNA Knockouts World Champion Lei Ying Lee vs. Zaria Was Made Official for Genesis

Dani Luna, who was recently named the number one contender to the TNA Knockouts World Championship, can't appear at Genesis due to visa issues, so her open challenge was answered by Sol Ruca and Zaria. Ruca determined that it should be Zaria getting the shot because she deserves it. It sucks that Lee vs. Luna isn't able to happen as advertised, but Zaria is a quality replacement on such short notice and this did an effective job of setting it up.

The System Addressed the Audience

It was announced weeks ago that JDC will be having his retirement match against fellow System member Eddie Edwards at Genesis. There's nothing wrong with the simple story they've told up to this point, nor was there anything wrong with JDC and Edwards' exchange here, but this really could have been relegated to a backstage segment. It just felt like a waste of time for it to play out on the stage.

Mike Santana def. Frankie Kazarian to Win the TNA World Championship

Before the bout, TNA president Carlos Silva introduced former TNA president Dixie Carter, which hilariously drew boos from the crowd. Bully Ray came out to embrace her in a hug before sitting in on commentary for the main event. Santana vs. Kazarian was largely entertaining and the best thing on the entire show, though I'm well aware that's not saying much. It's a shame it fell apart during the finishing sequence, but on the bright side, Santana becoming a two-time champ was the correct outcome. It was established that he and Kazarian will face off again for the title at Genesis this Saturday.

Overall Show

I'm sorry but not only was this the definition of a disappointing show, it was an absolutely abysmal edition of iMPACT! on the whole. For a company that calls itself Total Nonstop Action, this show was nothing but total nonstop talking. There was even a segment earlier on where Ryan Nemeth was interacting with a bunch of unknown actors at ringside (I didn't bother to review it for obvious reasons), not to mention the countless video packages featuring highlights of TNA in its heyday and all of the other crap that existed simply to fill the two hours. It was almost like TNA was doing a poor impression of Raw's debut on Netflix a year ago. The main event wasn't enough to salvage this embarrassment of a premiere. And this was supposed to get viewers excited for the Genesis pay-per-view? TNA has lost a lot of talent lately and desperately needs to bounce back because this was a weak start to the AMC era.

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