TNA President Carlos Silva Discusses WWE Relationship And Media Rights Deal Ahead Of Slammiversary (Exclusive)

TNA Slammiversary will serve as the company's biggest show in well over a decade, hailing from the UBS Arena on Long Island this Sunday. Headlined by Trick Williams vs. Joe Hendry vs. Mike Santana, the pay-per-view will feature plenty of WWE integration, and potentially even appearances from major names.

The Takedown on SI had an opportunity to speak with TNA President Carlos Silva, who has been doing the media rounds promoting the event. Silva, who took over TNA earlier this year, has become a forward-facing name for the brand and has been eagerly pushing the company closer towards a new media rights agreement.

As noted, TNA has been actively shopping its media rights to several different potential partners. In a previous interview with JohnWallStreet.com, Silva indicated Anthem Sports Group and CAA were evaluating a potential TNA media rights deal to be in the vicinity of $10 million annually. The Takedown on SI asked Silva what that would enable the company to do, should something like that come to fruition.

"I think the first thing, I mean, I'm a live guy. I've been a live guy my whole career. The team that we've built believes in live, I would love TNA to be live every week. Live, every week, is a different animal, logistically and operationally. I know the team that we've got can handle it," Silva told The Takedown.

"The partnerships that we've got would support it. But there's a different cost structure around going live 52 weeks a year, whether you're in a location like a performance center-type of place, some of the year you're traveling, part of the year, it just changes the dynamic around operationally allocating your costs. And I think that would be the first thing that would change."

TNA has experimented more with live programming over the last year, and has done so for extended periods over the company's 23-year history. He believes the audience is clamoring for it as well.

"I know the fans want us to be live every week," he said. "I want to be live every week. It's why we've started to open up some more live windows, because I think the wrestlers perform differently live as well, and they'll tell you when we have our meetings together, they love the energy of live. And so really, that's the linchpin of what it would do for us as, as we sort of go to the next level."

TNA's partnership with WWE has been a big leverage point for the negotiations, with TNA talent being frequently featured on WWE NXT and even beyond, like Joe Hendry at WrestleMania. While many fans were not entirely sure whether or not TNA would benefit from the partnership in the same way WWE has, Silva believes it has been mutually beneficial.

"I think there's been such a great back and forth of how, not only how we've been working together, but, I mean, you just start with Royal Rumble, start with WrestleMania as the two biggest events with, Joe Hendry running in," Silva said. "I was there in WrestleMania in Las Vegas with him running into Allegiant Stadium, holding up the TNA belt, having the announcer announce Joe Hendry as the TNA World Champion in front of that stage. Absolutely great."

Silva went on to praise all of the stakeholders in the agreement, and expressed appreciation for how it has all been handled.

"As we've started to integrate our storylines and our creative together, I think there's just been so much collaboration and so much support on both sides. Whether it's us working with Shawn [Michaels] and Johnny down at NXT, whether it's us working with Dorian [Roldán] at Triple A, where we were in Mexico a couple of weeks ago, as well as on the biggest stages with WWE. I just think so far, so good. And we've just, I think everyone's been having a good time, and I think it's been great for the fans," the TNA president said.

WWE and TNA quarreled for years, with each side taking shots at one another. But the industry has changed radically over the past five years, with both WWE and AEW fostering partnerships with TNA as it shifted into being the No. 3 company in the industry.

Silva believes WWE's collaboration with TNA is just a result of changing minds, and gave props to WWE's current leadership team for making it happen.

"I would probably just say I think the whole wrestling space is different," he told The Takedown on SI. "I mean, as a guy that's been on the outside and been on the sports and media side and sort of just looked at it from the outside, I think it was very much about, only about the promotion, whatever your promotion was. Obviously, with WWE being the leader, it was all about them and them sort of owning the space."

"I think when you're the biggest and you're the leader, you can also then start to open your arms a little bit and bring the whole industry up," he added. "And I think that's the change that's happened. Maybe in the last year or 18 months, certainly with the leadership with Nick [Khan] and Paul [Levesque] at the helm on the WWE side, if I wasn't in the position I was in and I was more a fan and a consumer, I would see that. I see that I'm also now in the middle of it here with TNA, and I really do feel that in a big way."

Silva ultimately thinks that even though the wrestling space may be a crowded one for consumers, TNA is always going to have a seat at the table.

"I feel like there's a group of majors. WWE is far and away the NFL of the space, and that's great. They've built the industry over the last 40 or 50 years. AEW, again, has done a great job over the last six, eight years. They did a magnificent job with their Turner/TBS relationship," he said.

"But we're always mentioned as a major along with them. And there are three majors, and it is WWE and NXT, and it's AEW, and TNA. And I think because of that, there's still plenty of people that need great live original content that fans are crazy, and ecstatic, and happy about every week, that we'll be able to find the right place for us to go and continue to build the fan base."

We’re moving the stage back to accommodate more fans. This event will be TNA’s greatest achievement and trust me it’s going to be PHENOMENAL. #Slammiversary #TNA @ThisIsTNA pic.twitter.com/9BUxjiIQjj
— Carlos Silva (@carlossilva) July 15, 2025

You can find The Takedown on SI's full interview with Silva on its YouTube channel this weekend.

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