TNA Wrestling has been breaking company attendance records in bigger venues and generating more buzz within the industry. The timing for all this growth couldn’t have come at a better time with Bound for Glory, its biggest show of the year, on the horizon. Leading up to the October 12 pay-per-view, the collaboration between TNA and WWE’s NXT brand has also taken an unexpected turn. Some of the best from each side have put together teams to square off against one another in a special Showdown episode of NXT October 7 on The CW.
Needless to say it has been a busy time for Carlos Silva, who fully took the reins of TNA in February after already being named president of Anthem Sports Group last December. Anthem is a Canadian multinational media company that has sports and entertainment properties like TNA and AXS TV in its media portfolio.
Although Silva doesn’t come from the world of wrestling, he brings a wealth of experience and a proven track record. He has been wheeling and dealing within the TV, digital and media convergence space for more than 25 years. Ahead of a monumental stretch in TNA, we put Silva in the hot seat to set the table for what’s to come.
NXT vs. TNA (WWE)
How do you reflect on the last few months as you’ve found yourself more entrenched into the day-to-day of TNA? What have you taken from the experience so far?
Carlos Silva: It’s a great question. It has been a great bunch of months coming out of Slammiversary. Building up to Slammiversary was amazing, but I didn’t know if all the results would come together. They did, and we continue to build on that heading into Bound for Glory. What I can say is I’ve had a lot of fun doing it. We have a great team. When you’re in the live entertainment and sports business, you work a lot of weekends, and you fly to a lot of cities. But when you’re having fun, it doesn’t feel like work. That’s certainly how it has been in TNA with the team. So far so good. It’s fun getting wins. It was fun getting a win at Slammiversary. I think the team and all of us are working hard to get another big win at Bound for Glory and break another record. I’d say it has been awesome.
This business is so unique where the locker room is very close. You coming in as an “outsider,” how was it earning the trust of the talent and overall team?
Look, you hear these things when you go to a lot of places. I wasn’t an MMA guy either because I’d been in and around the Olympics and other sorts of other sports before stepping into MMA years ago. Now I’ve stepped into pro wrestling. Everyone has a kneejerk reaction. “This guy doesn’t know. This guy doesn’t understand.” I think it’s with every situation where you try to surround yourself with good, smart people who have been around pro wrestling for years. The great thing about TNA is it has been around for 23 years. It was an awesome foundation. I think it would have been very difficult for me, not having been in this space, to come in and maybe launch a new promotion. That wasn’t the case at all. We had a great foundation. It’s hard for businesses, let alone ones in pro wrestling, to be around for 23 years. I got lucky with that. Then many of the things with live sports and entertainment and the events business are the same. They are not different. Knowing what cities to go to, knowing how to build audiences, knowing what to do on the digital side, understanding the production side and TV production and distribution and how to build that live entertainment and sports business.
It’s something that I’ve done and have teammates I’ve brought along with me who have done it at the highest level. From the Olympics to some of the biggest events on the planet. We’ve tried to mesh the two together, and I think it’s going well across the board. Certainly, I think the partnership with WWE NXT has been great. They’ve been great partners in sort of bringing us along too. Now we just have to execute. We have to come to the event every day. There is no free lunch, and you have to perform next time. Now we’re concentrating on October 12 as the next big tentpole. We just had an awesome event in Edmonton live on Friday night and then did two taped shows. They told me how great it is when the energy in the arena is like that. So, we’ll keep building on it.
EXCLUSIVE: After their incredible #TNAVictoryRoad main event, @LEONSLATER_ and @TheBadReed were given the All Star awards for our Edmonton events. pic.twitter.com/FT9RrwLmI7
— TNA Wrestling (@ThisIsTNA) September 27, 2025
You’re letting the people hired to do a job do the job you trust them to do. So often executives will try to have their hands in everything and almost get in the way of people. I’m sure that your approach is appreciated. Another thing I like is that you implemented this All-Star Award. What has this meant to your team?
Just as a fan myself of sports and an athlete myself, I see what the other leagues do. We’re all students of the industry if you’re inside sports and entertainment. We’ve got this great locker room and these hardworking folks that are traveling around the country and the world to entertain and put the product out there. I always loved the celebration in the locker room when the coach would give away the game ball. So I try to take that and what others do to celebrate victories. I’ve gotten some of those over the years and have them on my desk from years ago from playing tennis even.
So we put this idea together and launched the all-star award and first gave it away a few months ago. We’ve been pretty consistent at every single event we award another all-star, or a couple like in Edmonton this last week with Leon [Slater] and Myron [Reed]. It has been great. Everyone is celebrating together. The cheers from the locker room when we’re in the arena or when we do the meeting. It has been amazing. I think everyone enjoys it. It’s just a little bit of a thank you for all the hard work that everyone is doing. As much as there are only one or two people that are chosen, it seems like everyone is enjoying the award as well, which is what you want.
You’ve talked before about a timeline when it comes to a possible new TNA network or streaming deal. What kind of update can you provide on this as we go into Bound for Glory?
We’re now in active negotiations with a partner, and we’re going to work through that. I can’t really put a timeline on how long that will take. The good news is the process has started. We’re no longer just talking to a bunch of people to sort of gauge interest. Now we have an interested partner and working through potentially a deal for 2026. It’s going to happen as soon as it can happen. We were working on it as recently as yesterday, exchanging papers and trying to figure it out. We’re excited about it and keep pushing it forward to get this over the finish line. It’s done when it’s over the finish line.
You touched on the partnership with WWE NXT. You have the Showdown show where TNA talent will be featured heavily on their show. This also provides amplification for Bound for Glory. Talk about the collaborative effort to get to this point.
Working with the NXT folks as well as WWE folks has been very easy. There has been great coordination. We’ve kind of supported each other with last-minute asks on both sides, which I think is a testament to a good partnership. It’s not just one asking. We might ask, or they might ask, and we always find a way to move things forward. This big Showdown episode of NXT happening down in Orlando is going to be great. You saw it on The CW live with the teams sort of aligning. I think the theme is building. There is also intrigue and maybe a little strangeness the way certain teammates are on each team, but they have certain alliances and allegiances to the other organization. Whether they’ve come from that organization or been there or holding the belt from one organization even though they work for the other. I think all of that there. I think as a result it’s going to be awesome Tuesday night on NXT down in Orlando.
What can you say is the future of this partnership through Bound for Glory and then into the rest of the year?
Each of these tentpoles are about big moments. As a sports guy building the season of TNA, we’re going to hit that last bit tentpole at Bound for Glory. I think it’s going to launch us into 2026. Slammiversary certainly started that launch and now Bound for Glory will propel us into 2026. Then, sort of to our pleasant surprise, working with NXT, this Showdown is happening. It’s another big amplifier for us. I think about how we’ll also then be at Full Sail University, which is a great location with a lot of history. We’re going to go back to El Paso, which was spectacular earlier this year. There were so many great moments down in El Paso. The crowds were amazing. Then I think you’ll see very quickly going into November the schedule for January through March starts to roll out with our other big tentpoles and events. Then hopefully that will coincide with an announcement about where we’re going to be in the U.S.A. in addition to our other great markets like Canada, India, Mexico, South America and other areas where we have deals in place.
TNA Wrestling (WWE)
You’ve been doing live Impact episodes, sort of easing back into this format again more regularly. Live is so important, especially with social media. Is there a push next year to move into having more frequent live Impact shows on a weekly or biweekly rather than monthly? What’s the feel?
You sound like you were in my staff meeting today, which is great. All of us that are new to the organization are live sports and entertainment executives. I brought in a new executive producer in George Veras, and he is working closely with Eric Tompkins (VP of TV production and executive creative director) and our team down in Nashville. We all want to do more live. We’re all live guys. So, I think building TNA and continuing to be healthy as an organization gives us the ability to do more live. In a perfect world, I’d love to be live every week. But there are different operational implications and budgets to being live every week including a place to do some of them because you’re probably not going to be traveling 52 weeks a year. The short answer is we’re going to continue to do more live in 2026 and lay out that schedule right now. The talent responds to live in a way that is great also. They all tell us, so we want to continue to build this all together and do more live in 2026.
As we head into the end of the year, you have some great goals and developments in the works. You come from the business of acquisitions, buying and selling properties. What’s the thought process when it comes to TNA as a company for the long-term under the Anthem banner
I have built up and sold a number of properties throughout my career. I think the key to all of that is having a great product. We’re going to keep building the product and keep building the audience and keep building the digital platforms and the social. We’re going to keep building our partnerships we have with WWE and NXT, which is great. That’s going to bring in sponsorships. We are going to keep building up the engine. If we do all that, yeah, there could definitely be people that come and knock on our door and say, “can we give you investment dollars?” Or they may say, “can we buy you?” But if we don’t build the product or make it great, none of that other stuff happens. That’s a great problem to have. And I’m happy to talk about that great problem as we continue to build TNA. Right now, we’re concentrating on getting through 2025, kill it at Bound for Glory, and then build the rest of the year so we can launch into 2026. Opportunities come your way when you’re healthy and have a great product.
WWE NXT: Showdown, October 7, 8/7c, The CW
TNA Bound for Glory, October 12, 7/6c, Pay-Per-View and TNA+
TNA Impact, Thursdays, 8/7c, AXS TV and TNA+