Impact Knockouts World Championship

TNA Knockout, or just Knockout for short, is the term used by TNA to refer to its onscreen female performers; this is similar to TNA's main rival World Wrestling Entertainment and their Divas pseudonym. TNA's first women's accomplishment was announced at TNA's first weekly pay-per-view event on June 19, 2002.[4] It was called the "Miss TNA" crown. The holder of the crown was determined in a lingerie battle royal on June 19, 2002, which aired on June 26, 2002. The participants in the match were Alexis Laree, Elektra, Erin Bray, Francine, Miss Joni, Sasha, Shannon, Taylor Vaughn, and Teresa Tyler.[5] Vaughn last eliminated Elektra to win the crown.[6] The TNA Knockout of the Year is another award in TNA given to the knockout who achieved the most or had the best run that year.[7] The most recent Knockout of the Year was Gail Kim in 2007;[7] no award has been given out since.

On the August 20, 2009 episode of TNA Impact!, backstage interviewer Lauren announced that TNA were planning to host an eight-team single elimination tag team tournament to crown the first TNA Knockouts Tag Team Champions.[8] The tournament began on the following Impact! and continued on for four weeks, concluding on September 20 at TNA's No Surrender PPV event. There, the team of Sarita and Taylor Wilde defeated The Beautiful People (Madison Rayne and Velvet Sky) to become the first champions.[9] Two DVDs on the topic of the TNA Knockouts have been released by TNA. The first was named "Knockouts: The Ladies of TNA Wrestling Vol.1" and was released on August 29, 2006.[10] "Knocked Out: The Women of TNA Wrestling" was the second, released on October 7, 2008.[11]

The inaugural and record seven-time Knockouts Champion Gail Kim

TNA first announced in early September 2007 through their TNA Mobile service that they planned to start an official women's division and debut a women's title soon.[12][13] Later that month, TNA began to promote a 10 knockout gauntlet match to be held on October 14, 2007 at TNA's Bound for Glory PPV event to crown the first-ever TNA Women's Champion.[14] At the event, Gail Kim defeated Ms. Brooks, Christy Hemme, Awesome Kong, Roxxi Laveaux, Talia Madison, Shelly Martinez, Jackie Moore, ODB, and Angel Williams to become the first champion.[1][15] The championship was renamed in 2008 to the TNA Women's Knockout Championship until 2010 when it became simply known as the TNA Knockouts Championship.

During the championship's history, the belt has had four designs. Its first design featured a white leather strap that is covered with two small gold plates that are encrusted with silver. In the center of each plate stands a figure resembling a globe made out of gold. On the outer edge of the plate are red gems, which circle the entire plate. The center golden plate of the belt has TNA's official logo engraved in the very center with the word "Womens" [sic] above it and the word "Champion" below it. At the very top of the center plate is a queen's crown. The word "Knockout" does not appear anywhere on the belt.

At the end of December 2014, TNA uploaded a photo on their Instagram account, in which the Knockouts Championship has a new design, replacing the white strap with a black strap, with the red color scheme changed to blue to coincide with the company's color scheme and the plates are now fully gold thus the encrusted silver is removed. As with the previous belt, the word "Knockout" does not appear on the belt, despite its current name.[16]

After Slammiversary XV, the Impact Knockouts Championship and the GFW Women's Championship were carried together, with the unified championship representing the lineage of the Impact Knockouts Championship. At Destination X 2017, a recoloured version of the former GFW Women's Championship was created to represent the championship.[N 1] This belt was later modified to cover the GFW logo with an Impact Wrestling logo. At Redemption, Impact revealed new championships. The Main plate has Impact Wrestling logo with the "Knockouts Champion" below the logo. On each side of the center plate is a group of four smaller silver plates, with each side featuring separate circular owl symbol and a "KO" Symbol. In 2020, a new belt was made, with red being the dominant color.

On November 23, 2017 it was announced after Gail Kim retired and vacated the Impact Knockouts Championship that it would be a 6-Women tournament to determine who would be the new Knockouts Champion where two triple threat matches will happen and one finals.[17][18][19][20]