During the latest episode of his 83 Weeks podcast, Eric Bischoff reflected on reports that Rob Van Dam has some head backstage in TNA Wrestling and also commented on hesitating to have Dixie Carter on-air. 

On Rob Van Dam heat in TNA:

“Nothing that I could see, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. You gotta remember, you just got to realize first of all, Hulk and I were both new on the scene. It’s not like we had any long-standing relationships with some of the TNA veterans, if you want to call them that. People that have been there for a long time. I’m sure they had a lot of feelings or concerns, whatever, that I never heard about. Just the way it was. But it’s also kind of human nature, right? You’ve got all this talent, it’s been there since day one and are not getting the opportunities that perhaps they think they should be getting, or maybe they would just hope to get. And then all of a sudden you bring in a wave of established talent that came in from WWE or WCW or wherever and were big stars, were high paid stars. Well, guess what? They’re going to take up TV time. They’re going to take away any hope you may have had of getting your break and it’s going to naturally breed some resentment and discomfort and once that starts it’s a little bit like a virus. Once it starts it’s easy to catch. It starts to spread it becomes more intense. I’m sure that existed, but it wasn’t obvious to me.”

On being hesitant about Dixie Carter on TV:

 “Yes. I mean, I hesitated because I had a lot of concerns about it. In terms of her ability to perform, she didn’t have a lot of experience. She was very self conscious. Self conscious isn’t the right word; she was overly concerned about certain things and the way she would be perceived. And anytime you go on camera and you have these kind of, “Oh my gosh, what are people going to think’ or you’re inhibited in any way, you’re going to come off somewhat contrived. So, I was concerned from that perspective that she could actually deliver as a performer, and the truth is she actually did a pretty good job in many respects. She got thrust into some situations where she wasn’t good. She really didn’t have the ability to , not that everything should be an improv, but there’s a point where if you have to spend three and a half or four hours to go over a three-minute promo you probably shouldn’t be doing it. I did support it for the most part.”

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