Eric Bischoff On His Conflicts With John Gaburick In TNA, Eventually Leaving Company

On a recent episode of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff discussed the end of his tenure in TNA. Bischoff talked about John Gabriuck coming to TNA and his refusal to report to him leading to his departure from TNA. Below are some highlights.

On realizing when john “Big” Gaburick came to TNA to take over: “It was a matter of weeks or maybe a month or two. I had work with John Gaburick in WWE. I had met him when I was a talent there. I really, really liked John. I respected John. John had a really big role on the WWE reality series Tough Enough. John was involved with that. When I heard that Dixie was talking with Big it was presented to me that Big was going to oversee all of television production which made sense because John is very involved working under Kevin Dunn, still is. It made perfectly good sense to me. Kevin Sullivan, not the wrestler the producer, was there. The product could have been better. John was a guy who could take it to the next level…I was all for it and I was one of his biggest fans. John called me and told me ‘I’m just coming in to help and really see what I can do on the television side of things.’ I was like I couldn’t wait for him to get there, brother. For the first few weeks it was that kind of vibe. But, it became obvious pretty quickly that John was interested in more. I didn’t hold that against him. My deal was my deal. I didn’t give a s*** if they brought in Paul Heyman, John Gaburick, Stephanie McMahon none of it matter to me because it wouldn’t have affected my life. I was just working with some other people. In many cases I wanted that because I wanted to work with people who had skillsets that were better than mine.”

On Dixie wanting him to go to Dallas with John for a meeting: “I didn’t interact with Panda at all. Intentionally tried to avoid it. I made it clear in my contract that I was not an employee. I was basically a consultant and executive producer for a television show and would occasionally show up as talent. I didn’t want to be involved with any of the business issues. I didn’t want to discuss business issues. I’ll come up with ideas creatively in ways that can help and you do what you wanna do. That was my relationship contractually and otherwise. But, I remember at one point somebody and it must have been Dixie said ‘Hey, I want you and Big to go to Dallas. We want you and Big to go down and meet my mother in Dallas.’ I’m thinking, what? I had refused to do it before. Dixie had tried to get me on a conference call with her mother probably a year or two before that and I said ‘Dixie, I’m not doing that. Now your sucking me into a role, or a part of a conversation that I don’t even really want to have.’ But now I’m being asked to go to this meeting with Big and I did because I wanted to be a team player. We’ll see how this goes. It was actually kind of a fun meeting. I actually kind of dug Janice. She was a very confident outwardly going. She wasn’t shy and I appreciated that about her…”

On not wanting to report to John Gaburick: “I find out at the very end of the meeting that the reason I was called to be there was because there was a desire to restructure TNA and they wanted me to report to Gaburick. Which, number one, would of been a change to my contract because that wasn’t the way my contract was setup. Number two, I went ‘umm, No!’ Not that I didn’t like John, but no. We got out of that meeting and I remember we got out and we were getting ready to get in the car for the airport and John goes to me ‘Eric this is going to be great! Right?!’ He knew that Janice wanted me to report to him. I told him that it wasn’t goin to happen. I’m not doing it… I’m just not doing that. I’m changing my relationship with the company because the company wants to restructure and I don’t want to report to you. It’s just not my thing. That’s pretty much the end of it and shortly thereafter I was on my way out.”

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