Jeff Jarrett Recalls Pitching Midway Games on Turning Suicide Into a Real TNA Wrestler

Jeff Jarrett has been looking back at one of the more unusual creative decisions in TNA history — the moment he told the developers at Midway Games that the masked video-game character they had created for the TNA iMPACT! title was going to step off the screen and into an actual wrestling ring.

In late 2008, Midway Games released TNA iMPACT!, the promotion’s official video game. Beyond featuring the roster of TNA stars that fans already knew, the game introduced its own original character in Suicide — a mysterious, acrobatic masked figure designed specifically for the title. Jarrett, reflecting on the development process, recalled the unmistakable reaction he got from the Midway team when he floated the idea of bringing Suicide to life as a real performer on TNA television.

The concept wasn’t as far-fetched as it might have sounded in that meeting room. Suicide did indeed debut as an in-ring character on TNA programming, with the masked persona going on to become a fixture of the X Division. The character was portrayed by multiple wrestlers over the years and earned genuine crowd reactions, making it one of the more successful crossover experiments between gaming and professional wrestling.

Jarrett’s comments offer an interesting behind-the-scenes window into the creative thinking at TNA during that era — a period when the company was actively looking for ways to build stars and differentiate itself. The fact that a throwaway video-game character ended up with a legitimate run on national television says plenty about how that particular gamble paid off.