Andrew Lutzke
Presented by RF Video
Part One here: Bischoff Part One
Eric Bischoff loved going to ECW hot spots because their fans HATED his guts.
Scott Hall contacted WCW through DDP to jump ship, Bischoff then used DDP to contact Nash to see if he would make the jump too.
New Japan was getting mainstream attention in Japan for their realistic angles. Bischoff wanted the N.W.O. to be real feeling to get a similar vibe in America.
Hall and Nash’s motives were suppose to be two guys who WCW misused who then became stars elsewhere only to return to WCW to wreck shit in retaliation.
The WWF lawsuits over copyrights didn’t bother Bischoff as he was ignorant to the fact that WCW was breaking the law by portraying aspects of Razor and Diesel in their WCW gimmicks.
Hogan turning heel took a lot of convincing by Bischoff. Hogan was worried about turning heel because of his babyface gimmick being so virtuous and that he was looked up to.
Eric doesn’t think Hogan was motivated by money when doing the heel turn. He only wanted to turn heel if the storyline was worth such a drastic change.
Bischoff was nervous that Hogan would change his mind on doing the turn, which would send the storyline off course.
Sting wasn’t too hot on turning heel either had he been asked to do the turn in place of Hogan.
Hogan was unsettled emotionally at the time and outside influences could have ruined the heel turn plans.
The N.W.O. was expanded so wide because the brand = money and they needed to spread the potential as far as they could.
Bischoff, the real man is nothing like the sleazy bastard that he played on TV.
The heels getting cheered made things difficult for the babyfaces who tried to work a traditional match formula.
The Mr. McMahon character was heavily influenced by Bischoff’s heel gimmick in Eric’s opinion. He feels Vince started to dress like him instead of his goofy suits for one thing.
WCW’s goal was to have 75% of the US marketshare of the wrestling business.
If anyone thinks Bischoff was different once WCW started having success that was due to the heavy amount of stress he was under running the expanding ship.
Flair and Bischoff’s legal woes came to a head due to both parties playing contractual hardball, which Flair lost because WCW had the power. Bischoff didn’t want no shows to become a problem, so he suspended Flair for missing a TV taping.
The talent started getting more and more power and that made things even harder for Bischoff to try and meld a smooth business plan for WCW.
DDP wasn’t an important cog to WCW, but Bischoff wanted to make him a star because they were buddies.
With so many guys being over, the fans were the winners.
The Luchadores were there to be wild sideshow attractions and were all well paid. Once they got over they started to resent their roles despite making a ton of money.
The masks they wore didn’t resonate with the US audience, so Bischoff started to have them lose the masks. It wasn’t meant to disrespect their culture.
The Ultimate Warrior was signed by WCW at Hogan’s behest. The star power was necessary to aid WCW as well.
The Warrior’s first promo went way long and was a rambling mess. The Warrior was injured early in his run and that helped make it a short relationship.
Bischoff regrets telling Nitro fans that Mick Foley would be winning the title on RAW since WCW ended up losing a massive amount of viewers.
Goldberg was designed to be a star fairly early in his run. Hogan made the call to lose the title to Goldberg on a live Atlanta Nitro.
Goldberg was a novice about wrestling and various people got in his ear and made him paranoid. He became harder to deal with as his run went on.
Bret Hart jumping ship didn’t make Bischoff feel that the WWF was about to sink for good.
Hart coming in was a big enough of a story, having the WWF title wasn’t necessary to make a big splash in WCW.
Rick Rude called Bischoff right after the Montreal Screwjob and told Bischoff he was coming back to WCW.
Bret Hart was mentally wrecked from the screwjob and it affected his WCW work.
Once Hart started to get his groove in WCW, Owen died and that flushed Hart’s will to wrestle downward.
Hart would be really ho hum at TV tapings, then later would be mad at how he was used.
Macho Man was hard to book because he wasn’t up front about his paranoid views on how he was booked.
Sting had personal issues going on around Starrcade 97 and his head really wasn’t into the game despite the fact that he was being built to be the biggest star in WCW.
Bischoff was disappointed by Sting’s lack of intensity, tan and roid muscles during that time.
Bischoff plays dumb on who told Nick Patrick to slow count Hogan’s pin on Sting, which ruined the planned match finish.
Scott Hall got chance after chance and just couldn’t stay clean.
When Hall was clear headed, he had a great mind for the business.
Dennis Rodman was a huge mainsteam sports star and surrounded by a ton of controversy, which made him a perfect fit to come into WCW.
Karl Malone and Rodman were in talks to work a match with one another before their teams were matched up in the NBA Finals. WCW had great luck with that deal.
Jay Leno created a bunch of free publicity when he worked, so no regrets there.
Vince Russo booking David Arquette as World champ was a bad idea, but Eric credits Russo for trying something to gain mainstream attention.
Eric wanted to run a stadium show at the end of 1999 with KISS playing on stage in one endzone and WCW ring holding matches nearby. Turner execs canceled the plans due to Y2K.
Kevin Nash got the booker’s job because Bischoff was totally burnt out.
Kevin Sullivan had a dark mind and his angle ideas usually weren’t going to fit in WCW’s PG world. Sullivan had great ideas for finishes and knew how to build guys up to gain heat.
Bischoff regrets letting TBS put “Thunder” on the air. The company was stretched thin and Thunder would require a ton of fresh faces to prevent burn out.
Nitro went to 3 hours simply due to its success. More talent was signed to help ease the burden of keeping things fresh.
Ted Turner wanted his execs to take risks and he was okay with some failures.
Bischoff thought the AOL/Time Warner merger was going to be great for business. He was warned by a lawyer months in advance that the business culture would drastically change.
The Turner execs were all trying to save their ass as the merger went down. Bischoff made millions from stock options he had as WCW’s head executive.
WCW got screwed by Turner accountants by having profits taken in by WCW put under different divisions. Then in 1999 they wanted WCW to produce as much TV as the year before but they slashed their budget.
AOL wanted Nitro scripts weeks in advance in order to scan for content they wouldn’t approve of.
Bischoff had an NBC deal lined up in late 1998 but they lost it with the AOL merger.
Carmen Elektra and Dennis Rodman were going to have a divorce proceeding on the NBC special.
Eric wishes he had let the tank DX drove to the WCW arena in as he felt it would have deflated the whole segment.
Hogan and Macho Man told Bischoff that challenging Vince McMahon to a fight was a mistake because Vince would show up and kick Eric’s ass.
By August of 1998 Bischoff was ready to quit. He’d be fired a year later.
Within two hours of being fired, Bischoff was in his private plane heading on a fishing trip.
WCW letting Dean Malenko, Benoit, Saturn and Eddy Guerrerro leave the company shocked Eric as he realized they were the mid-card foundation.
Vince Russo is charming and he can persuade people. He doesn’t understand wrestling though.
Ultimately Bischoff learned he couldn’t trust Russo. Russo tried to force his vision onto Bischoff and Hogan’s plans. Hogan and Eric planned an angle for Hogan to quit WCW so they left the arena halfway through a PPV, then Russo went out and bashed Hogan in front of the fans. Lawsuits followed and Hogan’s WCW run came to an end with a whimper.
Bischoff had a financial deal put together to buy WCW in 2001, but WCW TV was taken off the Turner stations and that killed the deal dead.
The ECW commentary team of Joey Styles and Don Callis were in talks to take over the WCW broadcasting duties if Bischoff bought the company.
The WWE’s catering to the ECW audience is the only reason they are still considered relevant outside of a few cities where they were based.
Dennis Rodman was a natural wrestler given his athleticism and attitude.
Celebrity Championship Wrestling cost a lot of money to produce due to Hogan’s and the other celeb salaries. This led to it being only on for one year.
Eric created his own brand of beer as a vanity project.
The WWE never offered Eric a role in the Invasion.
McMahon called Bischoff personally when he was finally offered an on screen role.
Bischoff figured he’d be in for a short run.
The talent was kept in the dark about his debut to help keep it a surprise.
The former WCW guys didn’t hate on Eric too badly, and the experience was fun overall.
Some of the WWF guys certainly had some left over butt hurt from the Monday Night Wars but Eric was accepted.
Bischoff had been drinking with Arn Anderson and Ric Flair a week before Flair went nuts at Bischoff in the backstage area of a WWE event. Flair came at him swearing and punching. Eric still doesn’t know what set him off. The rumor is that Flair was being interviewed for a WCW DVD and going over all the past history fired him up to the point that he came after Bischoff.
Eric loved doing the skits where Austin abused him because he knew the home audience would eat it up.
Shawn Michaels never had any talks with Bischoff to jump to WCW.
The GM role was hard to keep fresh since Eric didn’t do in-ring blow offs.
Final thoughts: This bad boy goes FOUR and 1/2 hours and that didn’t even include any TNA talk! Bischoff is an engaging speaker, and although he’s probably as trustworthy as a used car salesman, I really enjoyed this shoot.
