TNA is company with a pretty crazy history, and after officially rebranding as Impact Wrestling earlier this year, the company recently switched things up again when the name was changed to Global Force Wrestling.
Over the years there have been many different wrestling personalities who have served as on screen authority figuresin TNA, and at one point Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan joined the company for a few years. There are many fans who feel that Bischoff and Hogan steered the company in the wrong direction, but during a recent interview with WrestleList, former TNA star SoCal Val noted that she feels the duo did a lot for the company.
“A lot of fans will come up to me and say “Eric Bischoff and Hogan – I don’t like what they did” and I say “Listen. You weren’t there. You have no idea what kind of professional guys Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff are.” They were the easiest to work with; they were the kindest to all of us. They did a lot for us – I know that Hogan got us a lot of exposure and he was so pro-TNA and I think it was some of the best time professionally that we were there. So I loved that era and I think there’s a misconception of what Hogan and Bischoff did for us.”
SoCal Val also commented on TNA trying to compete with WWE, and she noted that she thinks they focused too much on trying to compete with the world’s biggest wrestling company.
“If I’m very honest, I think their focus was way too much about being second to WWE. Competition is always good but if you’re always looking at the person next to you and just trying to compete, trying to compete, trying to compete and trying to beat them, you lose sight of your own product. So I think that TNA was guilty of that off and on. Probably the best era from a wrestling standpoint was probably a little bit pre-Hogan era. Around 2005 to 2008 was the biggest time for us with Spike TV, and the X-Division was super hot.”
How do you feel about Hogan and Bischoff’s run with TNA? Sound off in the comments below.
