By James Caldwell, Torch assistant editor

TNA creative contributor Eric Bischoff covered a number of TNA subjects, including Impact moving back to Thursday nights, his personal disappointment with moving off Monday nights, the future of TNA's product and creative team, individual stars in TNA, going up against WWE, his thoughts on Vince McMahon creatively, how long he'll stay in TNA, a balance of familiar faces and new names in TNA, Impact going on the road, and more during an interview on the Monday Night Mayhem radio show last night.

In this recap installment, we'll cover Bischoff's views on the big news item last week of Impact moving from Monday nights back to Thursdays and the circumstances surrounding the decision.

-- Bischoff said TNA's market research indicated fans of both WWE and TNA were having a problem with being forced to watch either Impact or Raw on Monday nights. Bischoff also admitted he was personally disappointed they left Monday nights, prompting some second-guessing on his part, but he supports the decision for business.

"One of the things that happened is after the move to Monday nights, we were part of some research, along with Spike TV, and in that research, it was determined that there were fans who enjoyed the competition on Monday nights, there were also a lot of fans who felt like, 'Man, I can't check out both.' It was a problem for them having to switch back and forth and they didn't enjoy making the choice," Bischoff said.

Bischoff added that TNA doesn't have other programming like WWE, so TNA fans only have one choice during the week to watch TNA programming. "There is only one TNA vehicle out there and that made it difficult for some TNA fans," he said. "After going through the research, and that was only one of the factors, there were other factors as well."

Bischoff, who said his sense of the move back to Thursday night was it was a mutual decision between TNA and Spike, was asked if going up against WWE during WrestleMania season was a bad decision in hindsight.

"I'd be lying to you guys if I suggested to you that I wasn't very disappointed (leaving Monday nights) and haven't spent time going, 'Okay, if I could do it all over again, what would I do differently?' I do think that was part of it. It was a risk. We knew that WrestleMania and the hype going into it was going to make it more difficult. The flip-side of that argument is wrestling in general has a heightened audience during that period as well," Bischoff said.

Bischoff also touched on one of the biggest factors that isn't talked about much when it comes to TNA looking to grab market share from WWE is the lack of awareness. TNA isn't nearly as well-known as WWE, and Bischoff suggested the move to Monday nights might pay off in the long-run simply giving the company some awareness in the marketplace.

"As far as WWE being too big to compete with, they're a monster and we never intended to compete with WWE. We intended to position ourselves on Monday nights and we thought it was a great way to get exposure and create awareness for the TNA brand, which is one of the biggest challenges TNA has right now just creating awareness. That's why we went to Monday nights. Not to compete," Bischoff said.

"WWE is a machine. Vince McMahon has done a phenomenal job creating an entertainment powerhouse. TNA is a mere fraction of the entity WWE is. But. I will say that from my point of view, people who actually watched both shows and were reasonably objective, find TNA to be very competitive in terms of what it offers. It's not as big or in 10,000 or 20,000-seat arenas. But, in terms of the action it delivers and the talent that we have on the roster, I think a lot of people think in some respects, we are competitive."

On whether there is a "best time" to try to compete with WWE not during WrestleMania season, Bischoff pointed out there is no true "best time" due to the built-in TV seasons where the audience is typically fragmented throughout the year.

"There is no 'best time.' There is no time of year when TV competition is not incredibly aggressive. Whether it's the NBA Playoffs we're in right now post-WrestleMania, the NFL season starting up in August, whether it's summer time when no one's watching TV. In terms of when is the best time, there's never a best time without there being a fair amount of risk associated with it," Bischoff said. "It didn't turn out the way we all hoped it would turn out, but at the end of the day, we learned, we created some noise, hopefully we created some awareness, and maybe in the long-run, maybe it was a good choice."

FYI: Bischoff's interview was part of the Monday Night Mayhem radio show's "Hot Seat with Eric Bischoff" interview series. Audio of the interview can be downloaded here.

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