{"id":133922,"date":"2025-04-18T17:41:49","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T21:41:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=133922"},"modified":"2025-05-13T19:51:48","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T23:51:48","slug":"steve-maclin-is-the-first-tna-international-champion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2025\/04\/18\/steve-maclin-is-the-first-tna-international-champion\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Maclin Crowned The First TNA International Champion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On April 17, Steve Maclin became the inaugural TNA International Champion in the main event of TNA Unbreakable, defeating Eric Young and AJ Francis in a triple-threat match. Maclin pinned Francis to make history. He qualified for the final earlier the same night by defeating Eddie Edwards and Ace Austin.<\/p>\n<p>On the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2025\/04\/05\/tna-impact-after-the-bell-4-3-2025\/\" target=\"_self\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">April 3 episode<\/span><\/a> of TNA iMPACT!, TNA Director of Authority Santino Marella stripped Steph De Lander of the TNA Digital Media Championship, retiring it while replacing it with the TNA International Championship. The inaugural champion will be crowned via a tournament at TNA Unbreakable.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Once forgotten and now always remembered as the first ever <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ThisIsTNA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@ThisIsTNA<\/a> INTERNATIONAL CHAMPION. <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/MACLIN?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#MACLIN<\/a><a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ThisIsTNA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@ThisIsTNA<\/a> <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Unbreakable?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Unbreakable<\/a> <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/iQYp8qGoGH\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/iQYp8qGoGH<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Steve Maclin (@SteveMaclin) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SteveMaclin\/status\/1913116109542400307?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 18, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>After Unbreakable went <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a  style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ZZRTM2vewBI\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">off air<\/a><\/span>, Eric Young staked his claim to the title, and Maclin explained what this monumental victory meant to him. We now know that Steve Maclin will make his first TNA International Championship defense at Rebellion on April 27, as he is challenged by the man he didn\u2019t pin in the final &#8211; Eric Young.<\/p>\n<p>Steve Maclin has been harassed for weeks by Eric Young, who wants him to join The Northern Armory. Maclin refused multiple times, but Young is more than decided to bring him in.<\/p>\n<p>Maclin made his TNA debut in 2021. On April 16, 2023, at TNA Rebellion, Maclin defeated Kushida to win the vacant Impact World Championship, as Josh Alexander had to relinquish it. The TNA International Championship is only the second TNA title he has won since his debut with the company.<\/p>\n<p><strong>More From LWOS Pro Wrestling<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Header image credit \u2013 TNA Wrestling \u2013 Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/\" target=\"_self\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a> for more on Steve Maclin, TNA iMPACT!, TNA Unbreakable, and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world. As well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. Catch all TNA events and shows on <a href=\"https:\/\/tnawrestling.com\/welcome\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">TNA Plus<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On April 17, Steve Maclin became the inaugural TNA International Champion in the main event of TNA Unbreakable, defeating Eric Young and AJ Francis in a triple-threat match. Maclin pinned Francis to make history. He qualified for the final earlier the same night by defeating Eddie Edwards and Ace Austin. On the April 3 episode [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5457,"featured_media":133957,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,12,6,2192,8959],"tags":[262,8969,129,9184,9332,9261,225],"class_list":["post-133922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-impact","category-news","category-north-america","category-wrestling","category-tna-wrestling","tag-eric-young","tag-steve-maclin","tag-tna","tag-tna-impact","tag-tna-international-champion","tag-tna-unbreakable","tag-tna-wrestling"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5457"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133922"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133959,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133922\/revisions\/133959"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}