The TNA World Title Series was a professional wrestling round-robin tournament produced by Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA). It was taped between July 22 and July 25, 2015 (except the semifinals and finals, which ran live on January 5, 2016), and aired from October 7, 2015 to January 5, 2016, on Impact Wrestling to determine the new TNA World Heavyweight Champion. The tournament was won by Ethan Carter III (EC3).
Group Play[]
The first half of the TNA World Title Series took the form of 8 smaller round-robin tournaments. Each Group featured 4 participants who met a certain criteria. All of the participants were chosen by an internal committee. While some specific reasons for nominations were revealed on air (e.g. all current title holders, apart from Bobby Roode, had automatically qualified), most reasons were not explained.
* Group X-Division went to a three-way tie between Manik, DJ Z and Tigre Uno. A triple threat match was scheduled to determine which two would advance to the Round of 16. In this match whoever gained the first pinfall or submission would advance to the Round of 16 and would exit the match. The remaining two participants would then go one-on-one for the right to advance. DJ Z would get the first Qualifying Slot by pinning Manik and Tigre Uno would then also pin Manik to earn the other spot in the Round, thus eliminating Manik.
TNA World Heavyweight Championship Tournament[]
The second half the TNA World Title Series took on the format of a single-elimination tournament. The first round matches were intentionally set up so that two members of the same original bracket would not face-off unless both of them managed to advance to the Semifinals Round, which happened for Group Champions' Lashley and Ethan Carter III. The first 14 matches took place on episodes of Impact. The final episode of this tournament, including the Semi-Finals and finals, took place on January 5, 2016 on the first episode of Impact Wrestling on Pop TV network. The Round of 16 was divided into 4 groups (Group A, Group B, Group C, and Group D, etc.), although this only affected the order in which matches were held in each round.
