The Most Iconic Title Holder For Every TNA Championship In History

Over the course of its near-two-decade history, TNA (now known as Impact Wrestling) has boasted some of wrestling’s best stars on its roster including home-grown talent, WWE stars, and past-their-prime legends. Many of those stars have also held championship gold in the company, with a rare few having the distinction of defining their respective title to become its most iconic champion.

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If one includes the NWA-affiliated belts from the early years and the various revamps of the Legends Title, Impact Wrestling has had 12 championships over the years. So let’s take a look at the most iconic champion for each one.

12 TNA Legends Championship - Booker T

Soon after Booker T turned heel and joined the Main Event Mafia, he did the sort of thing totally befitting a bad guy in a group of overprivileged wrestling stars: made up a championship for himself. And thus Booker T became the inaugural and iconic TNA Legends Champion, not unlike how Ted DiBiase was the iconic Million Dollar Champion. Other wrestlers would win the belt from Booker but couldn’t define it the way that he did.

11 X Division Championship - Samoa Joe

Like WCW’s Cruiserweight Division before it, the X Division was where fans expected matches of a higher quality than whatever shenanigans were going on in the main event scene, often featuring high-flying wrestlers with indie cred. Five-time champion Samoa Joe wasn’t exactly a high flyer -- though his Elbow Suicida was killer -- but did a lot of his best work in the division, including one of Impact’s greatest matches of all time.

10 TNA Global Championship - Eric Young

After Eric Young won the Legends Championship in 2009, he reinvented it as the Global Championship, and would ultimately define it. As leader of the international heel stable World Elite, Young decided that he would only defend the championship internationally and against no American talent, giving the Global Title a uniqueness that distinguished it from not only other belts in Impact, but also from other iterations of the belt.

9 NWA World Tag Team Championship - America’s Most Wanted

Before the Impact Tag Team Championship, there was the NWA World Tag Team Championship, defended in Impact from 2002 to 2007, and its iconic tag team was James Storm and Chris Harris, collectively known as America’s Most Wanted. When Impact was in its infancy, AMW worked to establish the tag team division, ultimately becoming one of the company’s best duos ever.

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More than just the definitive tag team of this era, America’s Most Wanted were also one of the most decorated, having held the NWA Tag belts six times.

8 Knockouts Tag Team Championship - The Beautiful People

Before its (pretty good) resurrection in late 2020, the Knockouts Tag Team Championship was mostly considered a great idea that was ultimately failed by poor booking. After all, the belt’s last champion before hiatus was a man. But the iconic tag team for this title has got to be The Beautiful People -- any combination of Angelina Love, Madison Rayne, and Velvet Sky -- who proved to be one of the most enduring groups of the Knockouts Division.

7 NWA World Heavyweight Championship - Jeff Jarrett

Jeff Jarrett was co-founder of the promotion then known as TNA, and thus was one of its most definitive stars during its early years until he left the company in 2014. The promotion was largely the Jeff Jarrett show, which means that he frequently had the NWA World Heavyweight Title around his waist, holding the belt for six reigns between 2002 and 2006.

6 TNA Television Championship - Devon

In 2010, the TNA Global Title became the Television Title, and its iconic champion may surprise some fans: Devon of Team 3-D. Obviously better known as a tag team specialist, Devon proved an underrated singles guy, enjoying a strong babyface run with the TV Championship before his membership in the heel stable Aces & Eights came to light. He’d also become its last champion, losing the belt to Abyss, which led to its deactivation because Abyss vanished.

5 Impact World Tag Team Championship - Beer Money Inc.

When it comes to the Impact Tag Team Titles, there are a couple of suitable candidates for “most iconic.” Motor City Machine Guns and Latin American Exchange are the most obvious examples, but the distinction might just go to Beer Money Inc.

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Composed of James Storm and Bobby Roode, Beer Money Inc. actually lasted longer than Storm’s previous tag team, going eight years compared to AMW’s four. Together, Storm and Roode would hold the belts five times over the course of their run.

4 Impact Grand Championship - Moose

The Impact Grand Championship is a bit of an odd duck in the promotion’s history, as it strived to be something resembling the Ring of Honor Pure Title but got mired in confusing rules and ultimately lasted less than two years before being unified. But its iconic champion has got to be Moose, who’s yet to hold another title in Impact aside from his unsanctioned TNA Championship, and had been Grand Champion for nearly 300 days.

3 TNA King of the Mountain Championship - Bobby Roode

In 2015, the former Legends Championship underwent yet another revamp, becoming the King of the Mountain Championship. In classic TNA fashion, it seemed like the champion would be determined via the company’s signature multi-man match, the King of the Mountain match, but this only happened a few times over the course of its existence. The iconic champion for this belt would have to be someone closely associated with Impact, and Bobby Roode is the guy for it, as he was a homegrown star for the company.

2 Impact World Championship - Kurt Angle

Once the relationship between Impact and the National Wrestling Alliance ended in 2007, the Impact World Championship was established in the place of the NWA World Heavyweight Title and has been held by pretty much every notable star in the company.

However, the iconic champion for this belt may just be Kurt Angle, who was arguably the face of the company at times. In a lot of ways, Angle is the ideal of what Impact was during his run -- he was an ex-WWE guy but one who was actually successful in the company rather than someone holding on to former glory. With six title reigns, Angle has held the Impact World Title more times than anyone else.

1 Knockouts Championship - Gail Kim

With its establishment in 2007, Impact’s Knockouts Division put mainstream women’s wrestling on the map thanks to competitive matches including a groundbreaking feud between Gail Kim and Awesome Kong. Kong’s great, but Gail Kim would prove to be the definitive Knockouts Champion, doing her best work with Impact and holding the title seven times over the course of her career until her retirement in 2019.

NEXT: Every Original TNA Knockout, Ranked From Worst To Best