Eric Bischoff Speaks Out - WWE Vs. TNA, ReAction, More
Eric Bischoff was on Monday Night Mayhem, here are the highlights?
The changes he believes that himself & Hulk Hogan, both individually & collectively, implemented effectively in TNA since coming into the company one year ago: "If you look at TNA as a brand & as a media property, I think that Hulk Hogan in particular, and to a lesser extent myself, probably brought more media awareness & industry awareness to the brand than anything they had done up to that point. I think the residual effect of that brand awareness is still playing itself out and is something that TNA is taking advantage of, and it will probably continue to do so."
Why Spike TV decided to cancel TNA Reaction, his reaction to the news, & when he found out about the decision: "No it won't unfortunately. We found out toward the second-to-last day of the TV tapings we had, and Spike had decided to make a different programming decision and go in a different direction. The Reaction you see on the 30th will be the last Reaction."
His reaction to Jim Ross' recent comments (on his BBQ Sauce Blog) regarding TNA being able to compete with the WWE in 2011 & that TNA will "never" overtake the WWE in the marketplace: "I agree 100%. WWE has been around for a long, long time. They've been well-entrenched & well-established in cable television for the last 20 years. It's a television juggernaut. TNA comparatively is a Kool-Aid stand compared to Coca-Cola in terms of its resources & infrastructure. The idea of TNA ever being able to compete with the WWE, although I've been out there, and I've been promoting it as such: I believe in a lot of ways we do compete. There are a lot of things about TNA that are better than the WWE on an individual basis. But you can't compare TNA as a company to WWE as a company. In that regard, Jim Ross is absolutely 100% right on the money. Doesn't mean we don't want to try. Doesn't mean we don't wanna swing for the fences whenever we're given the opportunity. Doesn't mean that we don't want to do things that put ourselves out in front of the WWE audience, just like we did with the Monday night effort. That was something that got people to sample us. It created awareness, and that's important for us. I don't think anybody within TNA realistically felt we were going to compete on a business level with the WWE."