I have the answer to that. It was always the plan. You just weren’t paying attention.

Darby has always been viewed as an underdog in AEW. He is significantly smaller than the rest of the roster, can get thrown further and higher than anyone else and he generally doesn’t spend a lot of time on the mic in front of the crowd. His character isn’t just about shattering physical glass with his body but also that metaphorical glass ceiling that people try to place him under. Darby embodies a punk rock spirit by fighting against the establishment. This isn’t about fighting against his own company; it is about fighting against the pecking order that his peers and wrestling fans try to force on all wrestlers. There are power levels at play here that need to be shaken up. Darby has been battling this ever since he started. He is resilient despite what he puts his body through, despite the losses he has accumulated in high profile matches and how many other chosen ones there are. It blows my mind that every 7–14-year-old boy doesn’t view Darby as their favorite wrestler. He taps into a part of the culture that has never been fully realized by the larger wrestling community in recent years.

I could go through the history of Darby Allin in AEW and explain why him climbing Mt Everest and holding the AEW flag at the summit meant more than just a photo op. I could touch on how his feud with The Death Riders was a win and a failure. He didn’t dismantle them as he might have hoped for, but he knocked their confidence levels down a few notches while improving his own. Maybe his tag run with Sting, closing out the legendary career of the WCW Legend that led to him feeling acknowledged and worthy of being in that spot. Perhaps I should go into how the headlock takeover loss to MJF years ago putting him at his lowest point in his career to now coming full circle and catapulting him into the world title scene?

I think I will sum up why Darby winning the title makes complete sense by invoking the name of a character from another Warner Bros’ property…. Arya Stark

The smallest of the Starks, Arya always had a rebel spirit. She was defeated so many times, yet she kept fighting through it all. She kept training and took down her family’s assassins. She trained to become anyone she needed to be. Everyone believed that one of the other characters would be the one to take down the big bad Night King. In the end, there was only one person who had endured enough to be able to strike when no one else was paying attention. The same applies to Darby Allin.

MJF wasn’t ready. Similar to The Night King who had just defeated a dragon and was confident he could conquer anything, MJF wasn’t prepared for the person who had been training to take him down. He thought he was already defeated. MJF’s focus for maintaining his championship wasn’t there as he thought he had beaten people much higher up the food chain than Darby. He just defeated Kenny Omega at the strongest he has been in years, how could you blame him?

That small window of opportunity opened up and Darby was ready to strike. Online discourse is that MJF lost in a squash match which is hardly the case. Darby had been preparing for this. He knew all of MJF’s tricks and wasn’t going to let this opportunity to save AEW from what he views as a terrible representative of the company slip by him. It all makes sense. Arya used the Valyrian Steel Dagger which had history to defeat The Night King. Darby used the headlock takeover that had history to defeat MJF.

The power levels in AEW have been changed. People including myself have compared it to Foley winning the title. Someone deemed as not champion worthy, surpassing the expectations and actually having a run with the title. The chase now goes from who can beat MJF to who will main event All In? Can Darby hold it until then or will he lose it quickly to the next challenger? He has finally learned how to capture the world title. Did he learn how to keep it too? Time will tell.

This is huge for TNA and for wrestling fans. There are now 3 major wrestling promotions on huge networks. Accessibility is key to driving growth for your brand. If any company understands this, it is TNA who have been promoting themselves for the longest time. WWE has USA & Netflix promoting them weekly, AEW has TBS, TNT & HBO MAX while TNA has had that one social media staff member who points you to uploads of old matches of current popular wrestlers in other companies whenever something of significance happens. Shout out to that guy or girl. You are always on it.

TNA knows this is their moment. They called in a huge favor from WWE and got “The Phenomenal” AJ Styles to appear. This is his second appearance within 179 days for AJ with the brand, his last being at TNA Slammiversary in 2025. That appearance was his first in nearly 14 years for the promotion. A promotion that offered him a new contract in 2014 for 60% less than what he was already making which ultimately led to his departure where he became an even bigger name. That big name status and history is being used as nostalgia fuel to drive eyes to the product in 2026. AJ has said that 2026 will be the year he retires from professional wrestling so the proverbial carrot on a stick is out there for wrestling fans if he will have one more match in the company that he built his brand on.

AJ Style’s appearance will gain the attention of WWE, TNA & AEW fans. Some AEW fans who refuse to watch the WWE product but love AJ Styles will tune in to see him on non-WWE branded programming. Lapsed TNA fans who gave up on the product will tune in and a portion of the WWE fans will tune in due to the WWE partnership with TNA, while sticking it to AEW. The dozens of tribalists on X are going to be there on Thursday night! How will this translate into actual numbers for the rating? We will get to that a bit later.

Two other major stars are also featured on the first AMC show. Matt & Jeff Hardy. They have been heavily featured on TNA programming since their return to the brand. The IWC (Internet Wrestling Community for my non-marks reading this) have painted The Hardy Boyz as washed up, old and irrelevant in 2025 & 2026. The same has happened to Chris Jericho in recent years but the brand recognition of these wrestlers should be undeniable by anyone with eyes. AMC cited that the Hardy Boyz were wrestlers the network wanted. These guys innovated back in the Attitude Era, transformed themselves into singles stars in the 2000s, reinvented themselves in TNA with the broken gimmicks and continue to be comfort food for nostalgic wrestling fans who are not consumed by work rate or IWC expectations. Sometimes you just want an older band to come out and play the hits. Matt & Jeff do that. Of course there have been missteps in recent years, especially during Jeff’s last WWE & AEW run but The Hardy Boyz have found their rhythm as legendary acts.

The AMC+ page features all former WWE wrestlers including Ash by Elegance (formerly Dana Brooke) who retired abruptly in 2025. TNA is leaning hard on past stars that have had that WWE exposure. That nostalgia push has burned TNA in the past but also benefited them. Sting, Kurt Angle and others had their careers revived in TNA before going to WWE. That is where TNA will have trouble keeping up in the ratings. Their newer stars like Leon Slater are being groomed to become WWE Superstars. Leon was in a match on John Cena’s final show. A TNA wrestler featured on WWE’s biggest retirement match ever, unheard of. TNA President Carlos Silva has already stated he wants to help TNA stars move to WWE if that is what the wrestlers want. We have seen that already with Jordynne Grace & Joe Hendry. The ultimate goal should be to build stars and retain them with your brand. It looks like there may be an exit strategy to WWE not just for the wrestlers, but also the promotion itself.

That leads us to the TNA World Championship match between Frankie Kazarian & Mike Santana. Kazarian being the current champ, someone who has a long history with TNA, a brief 6-month stunt in WWE and an AEW original who chose to leave the company and return to TNA. Santana, another AEW original who has history in TNA and won the title after an emotional journey. The issue with that journey, is that Santana won the title at Bound for Glory, which was too late. If TNA had pulled the trigger earlier at Slammiversary in New York, Santana’s home state, the impact of that win would have been much bigger. TNA decided to wait and crown him in Massachusetts, only to go dark with no new TV and then immediately take the title off of him when they were live again. Afterwards, Carlos Silva attempted to play the dirt sheets with reports that Santana wasn’t responding to calls. An angle that is scary because it harkens back to one of the worst moments in wrestling featuring a former Royal Rumble winner who can’t be named. The majority of the sheets did not take the bait and TNA once again had egg on their face.

This brings us to 1/15. Where will they land and how will it impact the actual #2 company AEW? I’m predicting that TNA does a good number for themselves with at least 430k viewers between traditional cable and the AMC+ app. It challenges AEW but doesn’t beat Dynamite numbers. The problem for AEW is when you have another wrestling company doing bigger numbers than one of your shows. It creates the perception that someone is bigger than you which is a narrative that AEW does not need right now. Collision has had a very rocky history. The creation of Collision was always tainted as it was viewed as a way to keep CM Punk happy and away from The Elite after the infamous All Out brawl. Collision doesn’t run consistently, doesn’t feature as many huge names as Dynamite and overall is booked for the sickos. The problems with Collision are long enough to warrant its own article which I will eventually write but what will happen with this additional competition from TNA?

TNA is going to TNA. I’m excited for them to be on a larger platform, but they do not currently have an identity like they did in the past. There will be a significant drop off in viewers in the 2nd week after the casuals get their fix. A similar issue happened with WWE after their debut on Netflix. WWE is large enough to be able to absorb those lost views, but TNA isn’t. They will most likely begin to settle in the 200k range and below by the end of the year. The WWE partnership will not last forever, we may start to see some additional cracks as the networks begin to not play nice with roster sharing, TNA needing to book based on their own plans rather than what WWE wants to do with them and stars leaving the brand.

TNA will be fine. They will be one of the strongest brands on the channel and will help drive subs to AMC+. The Walking Dead well has pretty much dried up. TNA is cheap and brings in new viewers and advertisers for AMC. While they do not have the star power and roster offerings of WWE or AEW, they still have a lot of exciting wrestlers to catch such as Mustafa Ali, Leon Slater, BDE and Léi Yǐng Lee. They will continue to operate unless they choose to sell themselves to WWE. They will see better gates and higher PPV numbers but grasping the #2 spot isn’t in the cards. If you follow the actions by the company and not what some of their wrestlers are saying, you will realize that was never the plan.

I’m going to be watching live on 1/15 and cheering on everyone involved as this is a monumental moment in their history. Will you?

Back then I was going to FCW (pre-NXT) shows and seeing future talent before they blew up big on the main roster. Going to an armory with a crowd size of 20 people to see Seth Rollins (my favorite ROH wrestler Tyler Black) and Dean Ambrose (Jon Moxley pre & post-WWE) get their reps in prior to moving into the upper echelon of the wrestling world. Guys like Erick Rowan who would go onto be a huge act for The Wyatt Family and technically the last person to have a singles match with The Rock (at Wrestlemania!!!) was there helping people find their chairs. Brad Maddox was working a referee gimmick, and I could tell he was going to be someone that caught a lot of attention. Roman Reigns was working his “Leakee” gimmick. He walked out in trunks trying his best to ooze confidence. My friend and I turned to each other, and both shouted, “THIS GUY SUCKS!” in unison.

I love professional wrestling. It was the one thing from my childhood that got me through some very tough times. We all have our backstories and mine isn’t special by any means, but professional wrestling gave me the mental and physical fortitude to deal with bullying and beatings as a child. Growing up in the late 80s and early 90s, these larger-than-life characters who endured the most physical punishment that I could imagine still made it to the next week. Back then when you were a child, you didn’t know anything about contracts, injury time or filming commitments. You were dazzled by the moves, the entrances and promos. As we all grew up (even the people who were already adults) we found that we got deeper into what was happening backstage rather than on the screen. “Is this a work? Is this a shoot? He isn’t really leaving; he will be back next week.” We lost a lot of what makes wrestling fun. Suspending our disbelief for a few hours while we witness the closest thing to real life comic book characters battle in front of us.

My goal in creating WrestlingMemes.com was to have an outlet that people could enjoy wrestling and not argue over the more tribal aspects of it. I wanted to have something that not only could be consumed by wrestling fans but also non-wrestling fans. First, I started a Facebook page (not to be confused with the other Wrestling Memes Facebook account) and moved to Twitter & Reddit. Life got pretty busy for me, I was a first-time father and building my career. I eventually decided to turn the site into an aggregator of wrestling memes. It was a lazy approach and admittedly I’ve never been satisfied with it. How can I contribute to the wrestling industry? I want to give back, and I want to create something that will benefit it. It was never about getting myself over (unlike some of my peers….)

I’ve decided that the best way to go about that is to offer comedic commentary on the wrestling industry as a whole, create memes and spotlight the indies. I will launch a podcast, and I will build a brand. I’m not doing this to make loads of cash (money is always welcomed) but I am doing this because there needs to be a shift in how wrestling commentary is consumed. A lot of people comment on wrestling with hate in their heart. You can be funny without having to cut someone or something down. It is something that I have worked on a lot in the last 13 years to be a better entertainer. There are certain wrestlers I’m not particularly fond of, but it doesn’t give me the right to dismiss every part of their body of work. We all have our biases but are you able to hold a neutral position while making it entertaining? It is a lost art that Late Night Shows were able to once do. I want to bring that back.

So many people are chasing the one true opinion. They want to choose the A or B option. You have grifters who choose the B option just to against the grain. A lot of them do not believe what they are actually saying. It is their “gimmick”, and they lean into it as that is what their audience expects of them. I will be upfront and let you all know I’m a Centrist. I can see things from both sides and go with logic rather than bias. There are people in the industry and commentating on it that will push an opinion because it fits their narrative & agenda. You have to be able to recognizee that and understand what they are trying to accomplish with their commentary. To quote my favorite band Limp Bizkit in “Making Love To Morgan Wallen”

Come join me in this journey!

If all else fails, hopefully I achieve my true goal which is to get Limp Bizkit into the WWE Hall of Fame or featured on AEW television.