TNA Thursday Night iMPACT! Review - March 5, 2026

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

TNA Knockouts World Champion Arianna Grace def. Jody Threat

I figured this would have been saved for Sacrifice, but I'm not complaining. Threat was never a true threat (no pun intended) to the title as much as she was a warm body for Grace to beat in her first title defense. There wasn't anything out of the ordinary about this whatsoever, but it served its purpose and didn't overstay its welcome. I do wonder who Grace will defend against at Sacrifice now, if anyone.

ODB and Mama June Embarrassed TNA Knockouts World Tag Team Champions The Elegance Brand

Elegance Brand insulting a "celebrity" in the crowd (in this case Mama June, with whom I'm barely familiar) is the sort of stuff I don't want to see them copy from WWE. They tried it on their AMC premiere and it sucked. Thankfully, this turned into an angle with ODB returning and embarrassing them. The segment itself wasn't great at all, but at least it looks like it's leading to something with ODB and Elegance Brand.

The System (Bear Bronson and Brian Myers) def. B.D.E. & Rich Swann, The Righteous, and Sinner & Saint in a TNA World Tag Team Championship No. 1 Contender's Four-Way Tag Team Match

This was a solid showcase for some of the teams TNA has in its tag division. The System just won that eight-man tag team match featuring The Hardys recently, so they were the correct choice to go over here. B.D.E. and Swann are working well together as partners and Sinner & Saint had a chance to shine, but The Righteous losing yet again doesn't do them any favors. Nonetheless, this was a fun, nicely-paced four-way tag team affair.

Moose and Alisha Edwards Addressed The System

Moose has ties to the Atlanta area, so this segment especially worked in front of this crowd. He established that he's coming for every member of The System one-by-one, and Alisha pretty much agreed. The problem is, what the hell is she going to do? And isn't this likely leading to her just rejoining The System, anyway? It feels like we're dragging out the inevitable, but at least Moose showed good fire in his promo here.

Elayna Black def. Mara Sade

This was another match I'm surprised they didn't hold off on until Sacrifice, but there's nothing wrong with doing the first match now and possibly doing a rematch there. This was a fairly average outing from them, but they were given a decent amount of time and I thought both of them had fine showings. Black cheating to win keeps the feud alive and sets up the need for another encounter.

Frankie Kazarian Hosted The King's Speech with Elijah; A.J. Francis Attacked The Home Town Man

It became clear that Kazarian would be Elijah's next rival when they briefly crossed paths while Elijah was making his entrance a week or two ago. This was a standard segment to kick off the feud. Francis attacking Home Town Man stemmed from them getting into in the back, but Francis throwing him off the stage happened at the end of The King's Speech. Stuff progressed here, but it wasn't anything overly interesting.

TNA X-Division Champion Leon Slater def. Nic Nemeth

I would have switched this with the main event segment since that felt almost anticlimactic compared to what was a strong match from Slater and Nemeth here. When Nemeth pinned Slater last week, I thought we'd get them facing off for the TNA X-Division Championship at Sacrifice, but apparently not. The action was entertaining and Slater pinning a former TNA World Champion (who is still in possession of the Call Your Shot Trophy) is huge for him.

Daria Rae Reinstated Steve Maclin; Santino Marella Made Mike Santana vs. Maclin for the TNA World Championship Official for Sacrifice

We all knew where this was headed as soon as Maclin brawled with Santana backstage a few weeks ago and we saw him pop up at No Surrender, but they made his "re-signing" official here as well as their match for Sacrifice. The dueling authority figures does nothing for me, but on the bright side, this segment was rather quick and painless with Santana in particular playing his role well.

Overall Show

As you could tell from what I wrote, there were three different matches on this show I thought they'd save for Sacrifice, but there's nothing wrong with giving them away on television to make iMPACT! feel more important. I just hope they can make Sacrifice more worthwhile than No Surrender, but that's hardly a guarantee with only one match announced. At any rate, this was a middle-of-the-road edition of iMPACT!. It benefited from being live, but Slater vs. Nemeth was far better than almost anything else.

SEE MORE: TNA Reviews