Eric Bischoff is attempting to hijack the real story of TNA the last week (and, really, the last year) with these embarrassing and unbecoming digs at various pro wrestling reporters who are critical of his work.

PWTorch reported two stories about TNA last week: Impact was going on the road (which TNA confirmed the next day) and there had been consideration given to phasing out the X Division.

Other sites misreported that we reported that TNA had decided to drop the X Division.

Dixie Carter, Eric Bischoff, and other reporters have since said TNA is not dropping the X Division.

Bischoff today continued his apparent campaign to turn our reporting into nothing more than some personal grudge against him. It's not, and it won't become that, even with the games he's playing now.

PWTorch stands by our reporting that there was talk internally of phasing out the X Division early this year. We have more details which we weren't (and aren't) able to report in order to protect our sources.

Bischoff is calling us liars because we reported one thing, other media entities re-reported it inaccurately, and then they called us out for being wrong about something we never said. Even if we had reported a decision had been made to drop the X Division, it'd be a mistake, not a lie. Words matter. We have made mistakes in our 23 history. We haven't lied. With all due respect to Bischoff, an item about the X Division isn't a make or break story for our readers or our livelihood. If we were going to make up news, we'd go for something a little more titillating.

Ten years ago this month we were right in our reporting that the Fusient Media Venture deal to purchase WCW was unravelling and not going to go through, even while Bischoff and other major full time pro wrestling reporters were contending it was a done deal and there was "nothing to our story." We knew before him that his deal to buy WCW was falling apart. I know he's not still sore about that because after reporting on the highs and lows of his career for over 20 years, he granted me a five hour one-on-one "Torch Talk" at the end of 2009. It was only when TNA suffered a humbling and humiliating 2010, with Bischoff among the major players making big moves that flopped, that he began to discredit our reporting.

Bischoff, from multiple accounts, isn't in great standing in TNA at the moment. There are obviously doubters above him and below him in the hierarchy that he has contributed positively to TNA. This latest p.r. stunt is just an embarrassment to TNA and Spike TV. I can't imagine a cable executive spouting off like Bischoff has and ranting against commentators without ramifications. (He can just tell anyone who tells him to calm down that he's "just in character" and "they're all marks," not realizing we're not characters on his TV show and he's out of character when he talks about us.)

Bischoff said James Caldwell should "apologize" to his readers for "spreading false information" or "admit that their 'news' is nothing more than marks speculating." We won't, because it's not true.

What is true is that in 2010, TNA ratings were lower than in 2009 despite the added star power of Hulk Hogan, Jeff Hardy, Rob Van Dam, Eric Bischoff himself, and other additions.

What is true is that last week, TNA popped a big rating at the start of Impact with a 1.41. Then, as was the case after their live Monday show last January, their foray into Mondays starting in March, and right after they popped a rating following Bound for Glory, the ratings tanked. They drove off viewers by the tens of thousands - make that hundreds of thousands.

1.41
1.31
1.28
1.23
1.29
1.25
1.07
1.16

That type of quarter hour ratings trend is just not seen in the television industry often - at least not with shows that avoid cancelation without heads rolling. It's a repudiation of what TNA offered viewers that they lost that many over the course of the show rather than building toward the first teaming of Matt & Jeff Hardy in years as their main event.

What's also true is if I were TNA or Spike TV, I would be embarrassed by having an executive writing this on Twitter regarding established members of the media in the industry he resides. Bischoff on Jan. 13 on Twitter: "Wade Keller can be the mayor of the Village of Idiots, and when Dave Sherer finds his penis under 50 pounds of fat he can be Barney Fife!"

Not that Scherer needs me to defend him, but Bischoff's problem with his report is that he said Impact would be live in Fayetteville, N.C. on Feb. 24. Scherer, it seems to me given what I've heard about this, at worst made a totally logical honest assumption that was wrong. TNA is running an Impact on a Thursday night in a new town. They never tape on Thursdays. If he assumed it was live, but in fact they're actually taping the follow week's Impact head-to-head with a pre-taped Impact airing on Spike, that's an honest mistake. It's hard to blame anyone for thinking TNA wouldn't do that and if an Impact is taking place on a Thursday, it'd be live.

As much as Bischoff wants this to be personal - and he'll apparently go to almost any length to make our commentary on TNA's shortcomings into some sort of personal grudge - it's not personal. Well, maybe to Eric it is. But to us, Eric is one of hundreds of people we cover every week, one of dozens of executives over the years who have a mix of success and failures that we've written about. And we've always attempted to cover them fairly and accurately. TNA in the last 13 months has repeated so many of the mistakes that WCW made in its final years it makes me want to scream sometimes - and that frustration is reflected in my commentary. But let's not confuse "personal grudge" with "dumbfounded frustration."

I'm sad for the public display Eric has put on in an attempt to distract from the facts of what's gone wrong with TNA the last 13 months. I'm not mad, though. I learned that getting mad at executives who lash out at you for commenting on their failures is a waste of energy dating back to WCW's first V.P., Jim Herd, back around 1990.

(And based on the reader feedback on Bischoff's own Facebook page where he posted about our reporting, there's a lot more frustration with TNA's product than our reporting at this point.)

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