(2023 Update: Hey, kids. This was uploaded last year and published in a brutally incomplete format. Sorry, my bad. So I went back and fleshed this out to feel more “complete.”)
TNA Sacrifice 2007 is a rather interesting show with some bit of backstory and in order to understand the significance of this show as well as my wanting to check it out, we need to bring up a bit of history beforehand.
The company known today as Impact Wrestling began life in 2002 as NWA-TNA and it was, at the time, the flagship promotion of the then-fledging National Wrestling Alliance. Once the major name in professional wrestling, it was relegated to an afterthought once World Championship Wrestling (formerly Jim Crockett Promotions before being bought out by Turner) seceded the NWA in 93 and pretty much buried after Shane Douglas tossed his newly won NWA title to the ground in ’94. And while it got some exposure on WWF television and especially on some UFC shows with Dan Severn as NWA champion, the brand pretty much floundered.
The Jarretts – Jeff and Jerry – were looking to start a new promotion and decided to pursue a partnership with the NWA that would feature the World and Tag-team titles on their new program. So from its conception in 2002, TNA was a member – perhaps its most notable member – of the National Wrestling Alliance before parting ways in 2004. Despite no longer being a member, TNA were still able to use the NWA titles for a couple more years.
In 2007, on the morning of the day in which TNA would air their Sacrifice PPV, then-NWA president (I Don’t Remember And Really, It Doesn’t Matter) decided to sever all ties with TNA, citing TNA’s refusal to have the NWA World and Tag-team champions defend the titles in other NWA promotions… which is funny because TNA was the only thing that gave NWA any semblance of national exposure and nobody cared about them in any event. And as a result, NWA had stripped reigning World champion Christian Cage and reigning Tag champions the Dudley Boyz of their titles, with the World title being the contested in a multi-person tournament called Reclaiming The Gold, which included a number of notable independent stars including Bryan Danielson, and the man who would eventually win the title, future WWE General Manager “Scrap Iron” Adam Pearce.
Meanwhile, TNA was business as usual; as far as they were concerned, Christian Cage was still the World Champion and the Dudleyz (now Team 3D) were still the tag champs. They just weren’t going to use the NWA branding, even though they still possessed the physical NWA belts. However, a couple nights later, TNA would subsequent introduce new TNA championship belts and we proceed to go along on our merry way.
Well, sort of…
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