Backstage Update on Mike Santana Being Absent Backstage Ahead of TNA’s Turning Point 2025 Event & If Situation is Legit or a Work [Update: Santana Arrived Backstage For Show]

Update:

PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources provided another update stating that Mike Santana arrived backstage for tonight’s TNA Turning Point 2025 event as of 4:30PM EST.

As noted before, Mike Santana did not show up for call time this afternoon nor has he returned calls from TNA about his status for tonight’s TNA Turning Point 2025 event at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida. This quickly lead to online speculation of Santana being upset over the booking of his TNA World Championship matches and title loss to Frankie Kazarian at Thursday’s live TNA Impact! show. This was quickly revealed to be just TNA officials trying to work an angle around Santana and the unhappiness from fans over the ending to last night’s live Impact! show.

Fightful Select’s Sean Ross Sapp reported that Santana not answering calls is just a work from TNA. Sapp reported that the same TNA official tried to feed them this news and provided it to other outlets elsewhere. Sapp also reported that this was the first time someone in an official capacity reached out and provided them with a worked angle in an effort to specifically work their audience or readers.

PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources provided additional details regarding the situation with Santana.

Johnson reported that Santana’s contract with TNA is set to expire soon and there had been an assumption from some that last night’s angle with Santana losing the TNA World title was meant to facilitate him leave for WWE’s NXT brand. Johnson reported that none of those spoken to within WWE has confirmed that this was the case.

Johnson also reported that Santana continues to remain unseen backstage for tonight’s Turning Point event at the time of his report but the longer the situation has played out, the more and more people are assuming it is some sort of angle playing off Santana losing at last night’s Impact! show.