When Coconut Water Beats Championship Gold: The Weird, Wonderful Lesson Behind One of TNA Wrestling’s Most-Viewed Reels.
Can you guess the top three most-viewed TNA Pro Wrestling Instagram Reels of the past year?
Two of them are exactly what you’d expect:
#1 — Trick Williams from WWE NXT wins the TNA World Title (2.7M views - groundbreaking creative, interpromotional warfare!)
#2 — TNA Star Joe Hendry signs his title-match contract on WWE’s NXT programming… and gets ambushed (2.4M)
Massive crossover moments. Big talent. Big platforms. Easy wins.
But #3 is where the algorithm reminds you it has a sense of humor.
It wasn’t:
Lightning rod Tessa Blanchard’s return (1.7M).
NXT’s Oba Femi vs. TNA’s Moose (1.2M).
TNA history; MVP’s debut (1.8M).
ESPN level acrobatics - Leon Slater’s Swanton 450 that hit SportsCenter.
Not even TNA’s move to AMC — the company’s biggest business news of the year.
It was this:
“Why are pro wrestlers putting coconut water in their hair?”
A simple collab with VitaCoco. 2.1M views.
Yes, really. Go check — the views are public.
And here’s the punchline: the first two hits were collab posts with WWE, NXT, TKO talent accounts, and an entire ecosystem pushing them.
VitaCoco? Just TNA + coconuts. No major boost outside of wrestlers sharing it, if they wanted. Just a smart idea fans instantly “got.”
The Insight: Start With Real Behavior
The whole concept came from a one-slide pitch:
“Before their music hits, wrestlers pour water on their heads…”
“…what if it was VitaCoco?”
That’s it. No overthinking. No brand deck. Just a truth of the business — wrestlers walk out with wet hair, paired with a product that actually made sense.
The production was even scrappier:
Shot on an iPhone
At WrestleCade and Final Resolution
Stocked via a grocery-store VitaCoco run
With very real promises that talent would not fill the cartons with… alternative liquids before pouring on their head.
And still: 2.1M views.
Authentic beats polished. And fans reward things that feel authentic, not ads trying to cosplay as wrestling.
Why It Worked
Three reasons:
It felt real. Wrestlers already do the “wet hair” ritual. The brand just stepped into something organic.
It let talent be talent. No forced talking points. No ad-agency tone. Do what you already do, just use this.
It was fun. The audience instantly understood the joke and played along.
This is the part most paid content misses: you’re not interrupting the story, you’re adding to it.
The Bigger Lesson for Brands
Paid content doesn’t have to be dull.
If your creative mirrors actual behavior inside a sport, even something as small as “why is their hair always wet?” — the audience invites you in.
And the algorithm follows the audience.
The Untold Chapter
There was an even bigger VitaCoco idea on deck for Slammiversary — let’s just say it involved a summer calendar, some truly committed talent, and a coconut-water calendar. “Thirst traps” you say?
Maybe next time.
