Former TNA head of creative and talent relations Bruce Prichard did an interview with RF video for a shoot DVD. Check out the highlights down below:
Did he watch TNA before joining the company?
“I
really didn’t. After I left WWE in 2008 I didn’t watch wrestling
anymore. I didn’t watch anything for over a year. Then John Layfield
called me and was like there’s this guy with this radio show / podcast
who’d like you to review the shows and give your thoughts on them. So,
it was a way to publicize our product and get my name back out there so I
started watching the shows again so that was really my first exposure
to TNA, with Hulk (Hogan) coming in. But I’d also been talking to Jeff
Jarrett casually throughout that time as I had a non-compete so even if I
wanted to I couldn’t go there. It was kind of casual and then it became
okay, let’s check out what they are doing to review on the radio”.
His
thoughts on Vince Russo leaving TNA: “I think Vince was tired. I think
he was burned out. And I think in his mind it was just time to go. I
don’t think he wanted to deal with it anymore and just burned out. They
brought me in and it was like okay Bruce, you can referee this and make
the decisions, make everybody play nice. It wasn’t that cut and dry or
that simple.You really needed to look at business and figure out what’s
right and who’s willing to put the time in to get it done. I think Vince
was just burnt.
What was his first impressions of Dixie Carter?
“Dixie is a nice lady, you know? Nice lady”.
How much compliance did Dixie Carter give him?
“In
the beginning it was kind of like tell us what you need. I was like a
shiny new car for six months. Whatever I said it was like Bruce said it
so it must be right. Don’t know if that’s necessarily true or not.
Everybody talked about the silver bullet. There is no silver bullet.
There’s no single thing that can turn that company around and make it
profitable. There are a lot of things that need to be fixed along the
way. There’s a lot of things that need to happen to even get it to a
point that it has a foundation to build off of. Right now one leg is in
the water, the other is in the sand and it’s shaky. They haven’t decided
on what direction to go. I was given a lot of lead way but when push
came to shove and it came time to go they would be pull back.”
What was the first changes he made in TNA?
“Slow
down! Everything was going 90 miles an hour and you’re just bouncing
off walls. You go this way and then that way and get turned upside
down…fall through the cracks. There was direction but it wasn’t
necessarily always followed. So it was to slow down and tell a story”.
His thoughts on TNA’s spending habits?
“Not
enough consistency. You had one extreme in one direction and at the
other without anything in the middle when it should be balanced. You
should really have a balance of where you are. When you’re way up in one
area that’s where you should be getting your revenue, most of your
return. It was the complete opposite there (in TNA). It was just
difficult to wrap your head around.”
His thoughts on TNA bringing in Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff , did he like it?
Well
I don’t know if Dixie has the money to be a money mark. I think that
Dixie is swayed easily and is gullible at times. I know Dixie would
completely disagree with me but as an outsider looking in I feel she’s
very gullible. It becomes silly when you hear okay I’m going to go over
here and milk this person for all their worth because if you do that
then what happens afterwards? You’re trying to turn something around and
make something work that everyone says couldn’t work and to me that
boosts your value. Eric (Bischoff) is a smart guy, Hulk (Hogan) is a
smart guy, I don’t think they are just going to go in and go well f-uk
let’s go milk this one and then we’ll go find another cash cow and milk
that one. There aren’t that many cash cows out there but there are
people out there who are willing to make the gamble if you can prove
your worth and you can actually turn something around. I do disagree
with the sentiment that Hulk and Eric are just milking her for
everything she’s got. They both have reputations. Eric’s got a
production company and doesn’t want the stink of well he failed over
here. To the contrary as he wants to be able to say he we took sinking
ship of a company and turned it around and say we did it. Have they done
that yet? Remains to be seen…
