Over the weekend, Hulk Hogan did a short interview with Live Audio Wrestling's John Pollock, which started around the 1:20:00 mark of their show and can be heard here. Hulk Hogan confirmed that he is indeed considering doing another match for TNA despite all his back surgeries calling it a "calculated risk". The match would likely be against Sting at TNA's biggest PPV of the year Bound For Glory in October, hoping to recreate the magic that caused Starrcade 1997 to be the most financially successful PPV in the history of WCW. Hogan returning to the ring would likely draw a good pay per view number by TNA's current dismal standards, but not one large enough to make it worth the unnecessary risk to his health.
However, the more newsworthy comments by Hogan were when he was politely probed by Pollock about TNA's loyal television audience failing to buy their PPV events. His response paraphrased here was both laughable and foolish:
A lot of it has to do with awareness and the fact that we can get to the people. If I go into my hotel room in Chicago there are certain cable networks that are on like USA Network - there is no Spike TV. I mean a lot of it depends on who you can get to and who you can reach. There is a lot more than 'the fans aren't buying it; there is more to the equation and that's a very shallow statement and that's not a fact. The people that see it are buying it, there just aren't enough people seeing it. That's what it is - it's creating awareness, a marketing plan we have to work with Spike TV and boost them up the ladder. I don't know how many cable networks there are in the States if it's 25 or 35, but in the paper it shows you who the top ten are, so if we can get Spike up to that number one position the whole equation would change on how many people are buying it and change the perception and someone wouldn't say 'no one is buying it'. Well the people that are seeing it are buying it, so it's creating that awareness to make people more aware that the product is there and that they can get it and when they walk into a hotel in Brantford that Spike is available.
Laughable because UFC are on Spike TV, less people watch their Countdown specials and even their flagship reality TV show The Ultimate Fighter nowadays than watch TNA's Impact, yet the average TNA PPV draws about 8,000 buys, less than 5% of the business UFC does for their weakest shows. Moreover, TNA managed to draw much better than that derisory figure for their monthly PPVs in the November 2004 - September 2005 period when they were paying through their nose for a poor time slot on the much weaker Fox Sports Net channel before going without television for a few months. So awareness isn't the problem here, it's the product. The comments were foolish because you should never bite the television company that feeds your wrestling promotion, especially with the future direction of that company being up in the air with rumours that UFC will jump ship to NBCUniversal's Versus when their Spike TV contract expires soon.
Finally, Hogan confirmed that he's a proponent of the company's rebranding campaign and would like them to go through with the teased name change that still hasn't officially happened yet, because "it takes him ten minutes out of a business meeting to explain what TNA means and that its not a strip club". Well he's at least right on that point.