SoCal Val recently sat down with Wrestle List to discuss TNA and WWE. Below are highlights from that interview

On TNA competing with WWE:

“If I’m very honest, I think their focus was way too much about being second to WWE. Competition is always good but if you’re always looking at the person next to you and just trying to compete, trying to compete, trying to compete and trying to beat them, you lose sight of your own product. So I think that TNA was guilty of that off and on. Probably the best era from a wrestling standpoint was probably a little bit pre-Hogan era. Around 2005 to 2008 was the biggest time for us with Spike TV, and the X-Division was super hot.”

On working with Hogan and Bischoff:

“A lot of fans will come up to me and say ‘Eric Bischoff and Hogan – I don’t like what they did’ and I say ‘Listen. You weren’t there. You have no idea what kind of professional guys Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff are.’ They were the easiest to work with; they were the kindest to all of us. They did a lot for us – I know that Hogan got us a lot of exposure and he was so pro-TNA and I think it was some of the best time professionally that we were there. So I loved that era and I think there’s a misconception of what Hogan and Bischoff did for us.”