{ { DISPLAYTITLE:TNA Impact!'''s move to Monday nights}}
In March 2010, professional wrestling promotion Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) moved their weekly television program, Impact!, from airing on Thursdays to airing Monday nights. In doing so, TNA placed Impact! in direct competition with World Wrestling Entertainment's (WWE) flagship program Monday Night Raw. It drew comparisons to the Monday Night Wars, in which defunct wrestling promotion World Championship Wrestling (WCW) program Nitro went head-to-head with Raw in a battle for higher Nielsen ratings each week from 1995 to 2001; this led Impact!s move to sometimes be called "The New Monday Night Wars". The move was spurred by the signing of Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff, two central figures of the original Monday Night War. Unlike the ratings battle with WCW, TNA never gained traction against WWE, despite initially setting record high ratings for Impact!. Impact! returned to its Thursday night timeslot after declining ratings in May, less than two months after the move.
Background and first Monday Impact! On October 27, 2009, Hulk Hogan announced that he and Eric Bischoff had signed with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) in a press conference held at The Theater at Madison Square Garden. TNA President Dixie Carter stated "Our goal is to become the world's biggest professional wrestling company. Hulk defines professional wrestling and we look forward to partnering with him in a variety of ways as we continue to grow TNA globally."
During an appearance on Spike's presentation of The Ultimate Fighter: Heavyweights Finale on December 5, Hogan announced that Impact!, which normally aired on Thursdays, would go head to head with World Wrestling Entertainment's (WWE) Raw on Monday January 4 in a three-hour live broadcast on Spike. Hogan was a top talent in World Championship Wrestling (WCW), which Bischoff was an executive of, when the company debuted a program in 1995, Nitro, to compete with Raw in a ratings battle called the Monday Night Wars.
WWE countered by announcing the return of Bret Hart, who had not appeared in WWE since the Montreal Screwjob in 1997. Leading up to the show, TNA President Dixie Carter stated that while Spike was not expecting Impact! to beat Raw in the ratings, it would be considered a success if they managed to at least maintain their usual Thursday night Impact! rating. Spike president Kevin Kay also announced there were plans to air Impact! on Mondays quarterly through 2010 and added that if the ratings proved successful on January 4, it could be moved to Monday nights permanently.
By signing with TNA, Bischoff and Hogan were paired with writer Vince Russo, whom they had conflicted with in WCW and had not worked with since they departed the company after Bash at the Beach 2000. According to Russo, the three met together and worked out their differences before the January 4 show.
The Monday night Impact! featured the returns of Scott Hall, Sean Waltman, Sting, Jeff Jarrett, Jeff Hardy, and the debuts of Ric Flair, Sean Morley, The Nasty Boys, Orlando Jordan and Bubba the Love Sponge in addition to Hogan and Bischoff. On Raw, Bret Hart confronted Vince McMahon and Shawn Michaels for the first time in thirteen years.
The ratings showed that Raw came out on top, averaging 5.6 million viewers while Impact! averaged 2.2 million viewers. The show peaked with three million viewers for the Hulk Hogan segment but then the viewership declined towards the end of the show to near 2.2 million viewers, the replay on January 7, 2010, garnered a 0.9 rating thus giving TNA a combined viewership range of 3.5–4.5 million viewers. However, despite not beating Raw in the ratings, TNA managed to set a new record for Impact!, beating the previous one of 1.97 million viewers, and thus gaining the confidence of Spike representatives.
Move to Mondays
On March 8, 2010, Impact! moved to Monday nights at 9 pm EST to compete head-to-head with Raw. Eric Bischoff was once again competing on the opposite side of Vince McMahon's WWE and in an interview with Bubba the Love Sponge, he said that he believed "history is repeating itself". This new "war" began in much the same way as the original did; with TNA relying on established wrestlers, including former WWE talent, and with the company being led by Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff. WWE spokesman Robert Zimmerman responded to TNA's move by saying "We're not too concerned. We're in good shape." Bischoff and Russo each stated that TNA were not focused on beating WWE in the ratings straight away, but rather gaining a significant share of their audience and growing TNA's own audience.