Eric Bischoff Had No Expectations For TNA’s Move To Mondays In 2010, Recalls Firing Bobby Lashley

On a recent episode of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff discussed Impact moving to Monday Nights to compete against WWE Raw in 2010. Some highlights are below:

On the expectations going into the Monday night move: “I didn’t have one. I had hope. My hope was that by letting the world outside of our Thursday night little choir because that was what TNA really was at that point compared to WWE. Compared to Monday Night RAW or Smackdown. It had a very, very small audience. It wasn’t marketed outside of Spike certainly TNA wasn’t spending any money or time marketing the show not in a meaningful way on a national level. So my hope was that by launching and going head to head there is some inherit controversy in that move, right? It’s a move. It’s stepping onto the field and saying “Okay, I can play this game too and by the way we’ve got Hulk Hogan and we’re here to play.” I was hoping that the statement of going head to head would at least get people to checkout TNA. Who hadn’t previously… They preached to their little choir every Thursday night, but they didn’t preach to anybody outside of the choir. This was our chance to broadcast in a bigger way outside of that choir.”

On his mindset about the move to Mondays: “I wasn’t concerned about the rating. I wanted it to be as big as it could be. I wanted the number to impress some people. More than anything I just wanted more people to go ‘oh, I didn’t know this thing existed!’ And then come back and follow us on Thursday or whatever. So, the fact that I wasn’t really concerned about the rating… it wasn’t like we were downplaying and hiding it like we’re afraid that we’re not going to do well. Hey, lets let people know that Hulk Hogan is in TNA and let the world know that TNA exists. Lets do it by going head to head because we’re going to get more publicity than we can afford to buy. People that don’t know we exist will know when this is over. So that hour to hour worrying about Bret Hart didn’t factor into my thought process.”

On Jeff Hardy not having a contract at the time: “I didn’t know that.”

On firing Bobby Lashley: “Bobby was easy. Bobby was like working with butter. It was so easy. I’m talking about backstage, right. Just classy, easy and professional. Krystal was not. She was a little hard to deal with. She kinda ran that show. So that created a little bit of tension as time went on. She got in the way of Bobby’s career not that it hurt Bobby at all. Obviously TNA was not where Bobby was going to end up. I actually fired Bobby Lashley in TNA. It wasn’t my decision to fire him. I was voted the guy to go tell him. Can you believe that? It was really because of her. Not because of Bobby. It had to have been Dixie. Somebody made the decision it was time for him to go, but nobody wanted to tell him. So, I got nominated.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit 83 Weeks with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.