Total Nonstop Action, or TNA, for years held the title as being the most popular promotion in the UK.
This may shock many people, given the immense footprint the WWE has on the wrestling landscape. Since Greg Dyke cancelled the wrestling in 1988, Vince McMahon’s promotion has been the top dog with very few being able to challenge it in popularity.
Stars like Hulk Hogan, Bret Hart and the British Bulldog made sure that nobody could touch them in the 1990s and they were followed by Stone Cold Steve and The Rock bringing a boom period like no other.
However, things changed in the 2000s. While the WWE were happily working away behind a paywall on Sky TV, Jeff Jarrett’s TNA decided to make their audience using free TV.
Broadcasting weekly on Challenge and Bravo, TNA quickly began drawing bigger audiences than the WWE ever could. This was certainly due to the accessibility of being on Freeview, opening up themselves to millions more homes than the WWE could dream of on Sky.
People like Sting, Kurt Angle and AJ Styles became wrestling stars, not John Cena or Randy Orton. TNA grew in the country even bigger than it did in the US, becoming the de facto number one promotion in Great Britain.
Despite being based in America, TNA’s biggest-ever attendance came at a show in England. Not only that, but it was an untelevised house show!
TNA Had Their Biggest Ever Show At Wembley Stadium In January 2009
At the start of 2009, TNA embarked on an ambitious tour of the British Isles.
The Maximum Impact! Tour saw the company run six live events, starting in Ireland and travelling through Scotland and England, leading up to a final show at Wembley Arena.
It was a really star-studded event. Unlike when WCW would run their house shows back in the day, all of the top stars (minus Sting) travelled to the UK for these house shows.
This included X-Division stars like Alex Shelley and Jay Lethal, tag teams like Team 3-D and Beer Money Inc, and even two top stars for a massive main event between Jeff Jarrett and Kurt Angle.
Young TNA stars AJ Styles and Samoa Joe even teamed together, beating Matt Morgan and Abyss in the semi-main event. This wasn’t a run-of-the-mill, low-effort house show card. If this was on PPV, you’d be happy with what you spent your money on.
Despite not wrestling on the card, WWE Hall of Famer Mick Foley even made an appearance! The former WWE Champion ran down to the ring during the main event, helping Jarrett nail Angle with a guitar to pick up the win and send the British crowd home happy.
It really was a good card and one that could, maybe should, have been a televised special. Even if they made it a UK-only show, exclusive to Bravo as a one-off to test the waters, it would have done well and drawn a big rating for the company.
The company was clearly happy with the tour and the Wembley Arena show. Mick Foley and Dixie Carter announced during the show that TNA was returning to Wembley Arena for a live show later that year.
They did return for two more house shows in the next two years, but the first actual episode of Impact wouldn’t take place in Wembley Arena until 2012.
Exact numbers for the attendance are hard to come back and reports vary between 7,000 and 12,500. It is likely towards the smaller end of the scale, but we do know that the English crowd surpassed TNA’s domestic record attendance which was for Lockdown 2013.
7,200 fans filled the Alamodome in San Antonio Texas for that event. The untelevised live event at Wembley Arena on January 24th 2009 certainly drew more than that, likely closer to the 8,000 fans mark.
TNA continued a strong relationship with the UK fans over the coming years. The advent of the British Bootcamp series saw UK indie stars like Marty Scurll, Rockstar Spud, Mark Andrews and Grado all make names for themselves in the company and draw even more fans to watch the product.
However, poor booking and changing channels would erode their fanbase, with the creation of AEW with a slot on ITV ending any chances of TNA getting back to the glory years in Britain.
As of 2025, TNA’s biggest attendance remains the roughly 8000 fans who packed Wembley Arena that night. They don’t look close to breaking that any time soon, although AEW managed it tenfold when 81,035 fans attended AEW All In 2023 in Wembley Stadium.
