In a recent episode of 83 weeks, Eric Bischoff spoke on his time in TNA, specifically when TNA moved to Monday Nights in 2010, which many people thought of as another ratings war.
TNA hit a high to start off with but eventually hit an all time low shortly after. TNA only went on Mondays until May of 2010 but still were going against Monday Night Raw for 5 months.
Bischoff had this to say about TNA moving from Thursday Nights to Monday Nights:
“That was a conversation that took place fairly early on. And another thing that I really want to spend some time, a little bit of time at least since you asked it. The idea of moving to Monday night wasn’t so much because we thought we could be competitive to the WWE. I hope someone from AEW is listening to this. It wasn’t because we thought we were going to be able to be competitive. But we knew if we went head-to-head with Monday Night Raw, much like making a big announcement at Madison Square Garden, we knew that going head-to-head whether it was for a short period — it was an experiment. We knew that it was an experiment. It was never intended to be or committed to be any kind of a long-term decision. But we knew that we would create a buzz. We would get people talking about TNA that up until that point had never talked about TNA. And that was the goal.”
Bischoff also spoke about the audience and recognition it didn’t get from many wrestling fans:
You know, TNA had a small audience, there was a small percentage of the overall sports entertainment audience that knew who or what TNA was. But for the most part, it was off mainstream radar. And we knew that by creating the controversy and going head-to-head, that we would get a lot more attention than we otherwise would and we would be able to leverage and maximum the Hulk Hogan brand in a more efficient way than just being that quiet little company over there on Thursday nights that nobody had ever heard of before.”
Credit goes to 83 Weeks and a H/T to 411Mania.com for the transcription
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