During his “Bischoff on Wrestling Podcast”, former WCW President Eric Bischoff discussed The Hardy Boys’s recent departures from TNA iMPACT! Wrestling. Bischoff responded to a report from Prowrestlingsheet.com’s Ryan Satin where he said The Hardys felt disrespected by TNA officials during contract talks. Bischoff argued that the “Broken Hardy” gimmick didn’t do much to increase TNA’s ratings.
“Perception isn’t always reality, unfortunately,” Bischoff said. “Most times it is. When it comes down to a financial decision… if you look at the last fifty-two weeks of Impact ratings… I think you’d be hard pressed to assign any momentary or spurt that they’ve had in ratings. Or growth they’ve had in ratings in any given week or two week period. It would be hard to assign that to any particular talent. I know that the ‘Broken’ Hardy thing is really popular on the internet. I’ve been to events. Signings and independent events where Matt or Jeff Hardy have been. Usually Matt and I see the kind of response it gets. It’s great on the internet. It’s great in the peripheral wrestling community. If you just look at the television numbers and how those numbers equate to real revenue, not perceived revenue, I think it would be hard for anybody on the roster over the last twelve or eighteen months to say, ‘Hey! I did that!’…That’s a decision. If you are going to ask for more money or are going to ask to be treated differently financially you have to have a justification for it and there is none.”
For context, it is worth mentioning that the three “Deletion” episodes — Final Deletion on July 5th of last year, Delete or Decay on August 18th and Total Nonstop Deletion on December 15th — both saw massive increases from the previous week’s episodes in ratings and Final Deletion scored a 0.15 demo rating, the highest rating for the show since February of 2015 when the show was Destination America. It’s also true though that the gimmick didn’t permanently “move the needle” and Impact eventually fell down to normal levels after each Deletion event. You can see the breakdown below:
June 28th Episode: 0.08 demo rating (322,000 viewers)
Final Deletion (July 5th): 0.15 demo rating (410,000 viewers) — Up 88% in demo rating
August 12th Episode: 0.07 demo rating (315,000 viewers)
Final Deletion (July 5th): 0.10 demo rating (355,000 viewers) — Up 43% in demo rating
December 8th Episode: 0.07 demo rating (303,000 viewers)
Final Deletion (July 5th): 0.10 demo rating (329,000 viewers) — Up 43% in demo rating
