TNA Impact 2/12/2026: 3 Things We Hated & 3 Things We Loved

Aaaaand we’re back, as we settle in for the long haul with the fifth episode of “TNA Impact.” The company will present its No Surrender event tomorrow, live on TNA+, with tonight’s pretaped episode of “Impact” acting as the go-home show.

Apart from a few last minute announcements for No Surrender, it was a largely uneventful show, with matches that were designed to build up hype and anticipation for tomorrow. TNA’s taping schedule is starting to catch up to it, with the crowd clearly kind of over it by this point in the show. Thankfully, this is the last batch of matches from this taping.

Continuing the trend of “Impact” on AMC so far, tonight’s episode showed that TNA has some strong talent on its roster, but the company isn’t quite putting together a compelling television show just yet. Still, our writers have returned to offer their takes on the good and the bad on display during “Impact.” For a full breakdown of tonight’s events, check out our results page, or read on and let us know if you agree or disagree.

Among the final few matches that TNA had for ABQ tonight, Nic Nemeth and Rich Swann’s showdown was a great way to kick off the show. There is a lot to be said about the current men’s division in the company, but it’s matches like theirs that proved why the company made them their pinnacle stars during two of its most popular periods.

The former world champions did not hold back. While there was a lot of high-flying action, these two matched each other counter-for-counter, but spicier than their previous opponent’s move. Take, for instance, “The Wanted Man” tossing Swann headfirst into the apron. Of course, your first instinct when watching it is to turn the other way – as we all have seen our fair share of injuries that you wish you could’ve prevented had they heard you yelling to duck out of the way at them through the TV. But, I digress. Luckily, Swann bounced back with a kick back counter to Nemeth’s Danger Zone. However, later in the match, as Swann approached with a handspring cutter to finish the match, Nemeth finally got his way, and successfully landed the Danger Zone for the win.

It would be really cool to see where their rankings take them this year. Hopefully, back to the top of the ladder at becoming a two-time TNA World Champion, as each man has only held the world title once in their careers so far. Either way, it was a very swell matchup. But if I may add a dislike here, I wish that they’d give Swann his old theme song back. It slapped!

Written by Brie Coder

This installment of “TNA IMPACT” saw Mara Sade and Ryan Nemeth face off in an Albuquerque Street Fight, a rematch of their Genesis singles bout which saw Nemeth get the win through nefarious means. I still have no clue why it is they were feuding, and hopefully this match was the blow-off to the monumental waste of time the storyline has been.

Nemeth came to the ring donning a shirt boasting him to be the best women’s wrestling champion of the world. Which is just odd. Then Sade made her entrance but found herself attacked at the ramp by Nemeth to get the match started.

The match was one of the matches in the history of matches, a rather tame street fight that saw a black bag introduced, promising… Thumbtacks? Glass? Maybe even Lego bricks? None of those, actually. Lollipops. That was the prop devised for this match, and Nemeth proceeded to sell a back suplex onto them like he had been impaled by acid-covered spikes.

Now, I will concede that landing on lollipops hardly sounds like appealing, but to sell it harder than he sold anything else for the rest of the match really put into perspective how ridiculous everything was in the worst way.

Sade won eventually and that was the right decision, but I’ve still yet to truly grasp what it is that was trying to be accomplished here and over the past few weeks. It has certainly done no favors for Nemeth. Sade is hardly going to challenge for the Knockouts title on the basis that she beat him. And everything was awful-to-mid from start-to-seriously I hope this is the finish. It’s a lose-lose-lose, and another chapter for the ‘LOLTNA’ chronicles.

It’s a shame, because intergender wrestling has its place as an opportunity to exhibit the talent of each division. Charlotte Flair vs. AJ Styles or Mercedes Mone vs. Kenny Omega would be ultimate personal intergender dream matches, for example. But Sade is in the process of establishing herself and Nemeth is the less-famous brother effectively boxed in to the enhancement talent role. No one asked for this and it has done nothing to justify its existence. And it runs the risk of killing the perception of intergender wrestling altogether.

Written by Max Everett

I’m a longtime Mustafa Ali fan, and he has been one of the shining stars of TNA’s AMC run so far. That’s why I’m glad to see Ali announced for a match at tomorrow’s No Surrender, even if it means he’ll have to pull double duty by wrestling twice. Whether he remains a heel or becomes someone fans can get behind, I fully believe Ali should be used as a cornerstone of TNA, and booking this match against Elijah is a sign the company understands his value.

I will say, though, it isn’t great that Ali wasn’t featured on tonight’s episode. The match was announced by Elijah through a video package, following up on their mixed tag team bout from last week, but Ali was nowhere to be seen.

Ali has an uphill battle ahead of him, as a “Guitar Case Coffin Match” sounds like it would favor Elijah. However, the prospect of seeing the former Elias laid out in an oversized guitar case to close out the match would be a sight to see, so I’m hoping for an Ali victory.

Written by Nick Miller

Whether it’s an in-ring veteran like Eric Young or an up and coming talent like BDE, it’s always nice to see a variety of members of the TNA Wrestling roster be given television time. However, I have to admit that I wasn’t particularly a fan of the segment that the pair shared with one another tonight.

For one, the yes chants that went on throughout the first half of this promo with Young were incredibly distracting. I totally understand that neither Young or BDE had any control over this, but it still made it really hard to concentrate and hear what Young was saying throughout his entire solo portion of this segment especially when you consider that this was indeed a pre-taped show and TNA probably could’ve done something to fix it.

My main issue with this segment overall, though, was that it was far too predictable. There was no way that BDE would ever agree to side with Young, as it wouldn’t be in line with his current character and positive energy. It would’ve made no sense for that to happen in the storyline, thus making the whole concept of this segment feel pretty senseless and easy to see what would come next. I also think that there wasn’t much point of including the referees and security in this segment at all, as they did literally nothing but stand there and watch Young piledrive several people rather than attempting to intervene or stop him from leaving BDE laid out.

I understand that TNA had to set up the No Surrender match between Young and BDE somehow, but I think that there was a far better way that it could’ve been done if just a little more time had been dedicated to building up this storyline. BDE could’ve just continuously turned down Young in the first place only for Young to continue attacking him and making his life miserable, which would’ve made for a far more compelling storyline with an opportunity for more than one match between them. Overall, it felt like it was a let down of a segment, and just another thing that TNA did to eat up some time on their weekly Thursday show.

By Olivia Quinlan

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that in the world of professional wrestling, you cannot kill what you did not create. When Moose created The System, it should be his choice on when the group rises, and when it demises.

In his in-ring promo after being so rudely kicked out of his own creation weeks ago, “The Face of the Franchise” is prepared to go to war and tear his former home down, including its new landlord in Eddie Edwards. What his former stable fails to recognize is that Moose is great at playing both sides of the coin as a bad guy and good. The fans are behind him, which will definitely help him find his newfound path. The first step was in tonight’s show teaming up with the TNA World Champion Mike Santana, who went through hell, yet stood tall after dismantling all of The System’s key players last year.

Sadly, they and the TNA World Tag Team Champions Matt and Jeff Hardy couldn’t pull off the big win in the main event tonight. But one loss doesn’t define a man as powerful as Moose, right? We’ll see in the weeks to come how Moose will devise his new operation: “All Systems Go Bye-Bye.”

By Brie Coder

It’s beginning to feel like getting through “TNA Impact” each week is a little bit of a chore for the Wrestling Inc. crew. We found some things to love, sure, but morale is starting to wane on Thursday nights, and TNA, I really need you to do something about it, if not for our sake then for the audience at large.

There are just not really any compelling stories being told in TNA right now. The System does not appeal to me in the slightest, and I don’t feel particularly engaged by Mike Santana as TNA World Champion. I already wrote about being glad to see Mustafa Ali get a bigger spotlight, but I’d be lying if I said I was at all excited by the story aspect of his feud with Elijah.

If TNA is going to do anything more than tread water on AMC, the company needs to step up its game when it comes to storytelling. Identify the wrestlers the audience cares about, and those who have the ability to spin a yarn, and throw them together.

Take the Steve Maclin segments, for example. Though they haven’t been a super prevalent part over the last two weeks, there’s at least something interesting going on there, so keep going in that direction. However it happens, TNA needs to find some spark, because things are starting to feel a little bleak.

By Nick Miller