At Sacrifice, a match between Sting, Kurt Angle and NWA World Champion Christian Cage was booked. The day of the PPV, the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), the owners of the NWA World Heavyweight and the NWA World Tag Team Championships, stripped Cage of the title and Team 3D of the tag team title. NWA Executive Director Robert K. Trobich stated the reason was that Cage refused to defend the NWA Title at NWA live events. At the event, Cage, still holding the physical NWA Championship belt, defended what was billed as the "World Heavyweight Championship" against Sting and Angle. Angle was the victor of said contest by making Sting submit, and was announced as the new "TNA World Heavyweight Champion". The "Impact!" following the event, the title was labelled as the "TNA World Heavyweight Championship", but the title was vacated. A tournament was then held for the title which culminated in a King of the Mountain match at Slammiversary. Sting lost his qualifying match with Samoa Joe after Christopher Daniels interfered. Sting instead faced Daniels on June 17 at Slammiversary, which he ultimately won.