The 10 Youngest TNA World Heavyweight Champions In History

Because TNA (now known as Impact Wrestling) showed a preference for showcasing big name wrestlers made famous by tenures in WWE, WCW, and ECW rather than homegrown talent, a lot of the stars who have held their World Heavyweight Championship have been relatively old, with many of them pushing 40 if not being firmly in that decade.

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Even though TNA frankly has the infamy of hiring literally anyone who had a cup of coffee in WWE, you might be pleasantly surprised to see that if you look at the company’s youngest champions, you get a decent mix of talent instead of just McMahon castoffs. So let’s take a look at Impact’s youngest World Champs.

10 Ethan Carter III (32)

Formerly known as the criminally underrated Derrick Bateman over in WWE, he was unceremoniously released in 2013 and ending up in TNA, where he adopted a new gimmick as Ethan Carter III, the privileged nephew of TNA owner Dixie Carter who tried to bloat his win-loss record by obliterating one of two repeating jobbers every week. Less than two years after his debut he’d beat Kurt Angle for the TNA World Heavyweight Title and enjoy a grand total of two title reigns with the top belt before eventually making his way back to WWE, where he’s once again criminally underrated.

9 Sami Callihan (32)

A veteran of the indie scene who made waves in CZW, Dragon Gate USA, and PWG, Sami Callihan had stints in NXT (as “Solomon Crowe”) and Lucha Underground (as “Jeremiah Crane/Snake”) before signing with Impact Wrestling in 2017. He spent a lot of time as part of the stable oVe (Ohio vs. Everything) alongside Dave and Jake Crist and having some crazy matches with LAX before beating Brian Cage to become Impact World Champion. This title run is especially notable for bringing Tessa Blanchard into the World Title picture, resulting in some groundbreaking intergender matches.

8 Chris Sabin (31)

Chris Sabin having a TNA World Heavyweight Championship seems a legit surprise, considering he’s not only a tag team wrestler thanks to his great run with Alex Shelley as The Motor City Machine Gun -- would you believe they only held the Tag straps once? -- but he’s also one of those wrestlers who seems like he’d be strictly relegated to the X Division (where he’s held the title a record eight times).

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While Sabin joined TNA in 2003, Sabin’s World Title win happened a decade later, in a match with Bully Ray. While that sounds monumental, his run would last only a month and he’d drop the title back to Bully Ray on his first defense.

7 Drew Galloway (30)

Drew McIntyre was released from WWE in 2014 after being relegated to comedy jobber status, after which he spent time on the indies reinventing himself as the dominant sensation fans thought he should have been in WWE with runs in EVOLVE and ICW before signing with Impact in 2015. There, he was only 30 years old when he won the TNA World Heavyweight Championship from Matt Hardy, giving him the distinction of being the only TNA wrestler to successfully cash in their Feast or Fired contract to win the World Title.

6 Ron Killings (30)

It’s wild to think that Ron Killings -- a.k.a. 35-time WWE 24/7 Champion R-Truth -- was ever a World Champion in TNA, but it not only happened, but it also happened very early in the company’s existence. Would you also believe that Killings was the second ever NWA World Heavyweight Champion of the TNA era, beating inaugural champ Ken Shamrock for the title at the age of 30? Would you also believe that he won the title a second time by beating AJ Styles? Because that totally happened.

5 Rhino (30)

Rhino, a.k.a. Rhyno, is one of those mainstays of ECW and WWE who maybe isn’t employed to win titles. It seems like he’s there to be one of those dominant monsters who can obliterate jobbers just so they can lose to more important characters. However, he managed to become NWA World Heavyweight Champion by beating Jeff Jarrett at the very first Bound For Glory PPV in 2005. Of course, it turns out he would lose the championship on the following Impact two days later, making him a mere transitional champion between Jeff Jarrett and, uh, Jeff Jarrett.

4 Samoa Joe (29)

Along with AJ Styles, Samoa Joe is one of those TNA guys who was with the company forever despite being treated as second banana to whatever “WWE Superstar” was fired that week.

Related: Top 10 Former WWE Stars In Impact Wrestling, Ranked

You might think that Joe never won a World Title -- just those 5 X Division Title runs -- but The Samoan Submission Machine managed to attain the TNA World Heavyweight Championship in 2008, a few years into his TNA run while he was still in his twenties (but just barely). He’d never win it again, but he did stick around in TNA until 2015 before showing up in NXT, where they at least let him hold their top title twice.

3 Magnus (27)

Before he was the condescending but well-dressed NWA World Heavyweight Champion Nick Aldis, he was Magnus in TNA in the early 2010s. With a big “passing of the torch” style victory over Sting at Bound for Glory 2013, it seemed like Magnus was being groomed to be a top guy. It didn’t quite happen, but he did have one World Title run (as a heel), winning a tournament in late 2013 after the Championship was deemed vacant because AJ Styles ran off with the belt to have his own personal Summer of Punk (Autumn of AJ?). He’d later lose the title to Eric Young, who was having his own personal Yes! Movement.

2 AJ Styles (26)

TNA always seemed so weird about making AJ Styles a truly big deal, much like the aforementioned Samoa Joe. It’s especially weird for Styles since he’d been with the company since day one and has “Southern Wrestling Babyface” written all over him. Maybe TNA was truly drinking the WWE Kool-Aid and thought Southern accents were for comedy hillbillies. Either way, given how AJ was largely overlooked in the company, he actually managed to win the NWA Heavyweight Championship back when that was TNA’s top title, at the surprisingly young age of 26.

1 Tessa Blanchard (24)

Before arriving in Impact, groundbreaking third-generation talent Tessa Blanchard was certainly a rising star, given a solid showing in WWE’s Mae Young Classic tournament and a handful of tours with Japanese women’s promotion World Wonder Ring Stardom. At the young age of 24, Tessa Blanchard has been a record maker in multiple ways -- her first main event match with Sami Callihan has the distinction of being the first intergender match to headline a pay per view, while her second led to her becoming the first woman to hold a top title in a major promotion. In addition to all that, she’s also the youngest Impact World Champion in history

Next: TNA: 5 Wrestlers Who Were Better In A Stable (& 5 Who Were Better Solo)