Eric Bischoff WCW Interview (5/26/2020)

off we go how you doing buddy I'm doing great how are you doing tonight Eric were you calling from I'm calling from the Shelbyville Indiana which is about 20 minutes southeast of Indianapolis I think I've been yeah it's been a pretty strange around here lately with all the lockdowns and everything but things are starting to come back to normal it looks like yeah it's starting we'll see what happens you know it's gonna be interesting to see what happens over the next two or three weeks with all the things opening up and whether or not there's a spike or another resurgence or what not and if there is it's gonna be ugly and if there's not hopefully things will open up a little quicker and you know more safe fashion well here's hope but I've I've been going to work every day so life has been pretty normal for me but my wife and my son are getting a little surf a little stir-crazy now I think man you get a lot of wrestling memorabilia in the background there brother you must be hardcore I am I've been watching it and collected for probably about 30 years or so and probably the bulk of it's behind the camera that you can't see I've got several belts and some memorabilia and things like that so and a big wrestling fan for a long time well before we go any further I just want to say on behalf of Conrad Thompson and certainly myself and Arn Anderson Tony Shivani Jim Ross Bruce Prichard we really appreciate your support of that free shows calm and glad you could do this with us well I appreciate it I always enjoy all the shows and especially your shadow and just kind of getting into the you always talk about getting into the weeds of everything and that's the part I really enjoy I learn a lot of kind of the business aspects of it it really interests me and finding out the details of everything you know ratings and financials and really kind of hits home and really interests me great well I get a bunch of calls I make it here tonight so why don't we get right into it you have any questions for everybody oh you know I just I know you've probably probably covered this a hundred times on other calls but you know the I still think one of the best angles is that sting Hogan angle from 96 97 that still stands out to me as you the build-up to that was so long that you know the it's not something we see a lot there's the relatively short build ups today and but that was so long and you know that was a when that came to that match it was a one of those deals where it kind of got chills and I was in college I wasn't a little kid but I was I can't believe this is happening and that was set up so well I just kind of any kind of had their information and you kind of covered that on the show but any other kind of insights into that or could you maybe talk a little bit about that I'd appreciate it sure you know and I've had a chance to over the last couple of years since doing this podcast you know look at things that were successful look at things that were unsuccessful and rather than just talking about them on a surface you know and a surface kind of a way and being positive or critical of you know whatever thought went into it you know what I really like to do is to break things down you know if something really really worked well I'd like to know why if something didn't work I like to know why because the easiest way to replicate success is to understand why something succeeded or why something failed and with everything in the entertainment in my opinion there's a formula and I think it's storytelling and I'll be honest you know I I don't want to say we stumbled into it because we consciously went into that story and planned this story but we did it almost instinctively or intuitively it wasn't like we sat down and said okay here's what's gonna happen month one here's month two here's a month three here's month for and and say okay each week here's what's gonna happen at any given month it wasn't that we were operating more off of feel than a really defined strategy and I think over the years as I've read more and learn more and you know had an opportunity to talk to people who are you know writers of feature films or authors of great books you know New York Times bestsellers and things like that I've come to know that there's a formula and I think with storytelling in particular for television you know I now watch television like Ozark is one of my favorite shows now I think it's on Netflix and what I've learned is that by watching shows like that and learning what makes stories working characters work for example when those are gonna know if you're familiar with that show or not but you're watching the journey of you know a family who borderline shady and they they became shadier and shadier and they got themselves into a situation but as you're watching that drama unfold you're also watching whether you recognize it or not or consciously or subconsciously you're also watching how the story begins to reshape the characters and the characters slowly begin to evolve and and I think it's watching that that is so compelling for people and now I look back at the sting story and I say okay knowing what I know now why did that story work and I think the same thing there were a lot of parallels with that story you know sting was if you go back to the very beginning you know before he turned into that crow character sting was the face of WCW he was the Hulk Hogan of WCW you know he was the John Cena of WCW in his time and when the NWO came an and kind of turned everything upside down and and as a result of that the entire roster was kind of battling each other and nobody trusted each other and that's when staying you know the catalyst for stings character to evolve was the fact that people that he thought we're his friends began to doubt his loyalty that's what changed his character and then as he emerged as the he went from being be you know flat top glitter you know Michael Jackson so to speak character all of a sudden he morphed into this dark kind of brooding character and I think the audience was very interested in the evolution of that character now of course the story itself only made the evolution of that character more interest but I wish that much thought had gone into it you know when we created it didn't we might have done an even better job and certainly we would have liked to have paid it off differently you know in hindsight but that was that was a really interesting story to tell and I don't think we'll ever see I mean maybe we will but and I hope we do but I don't think it's been a long time since we've seen a story build over four months six months eight months or in this case almost over a year yeah I think that was that was the key to it that just had such a slow great build to it and and the finish and everything but I really enjoyed that and that was kind of the time I got into WCW I had a I had a college roommate that got me I mean I've been started watching WWF in the late 80s and had got out of just for a couple of years and then got back into WCW especially with Hulk Hogan being a bad guy I mean that was as one of my friends said that had to be one of the signs of the Apocalypse if if Hulk was a bad guy so I really I really enjoyed here in that episode about that and you know I I don't want to take up a ton of your time today I just I the other question I had is I didn't realize from listening the podcast how much over the years I didn't realize how much the Turner merger had played into you know the problems with a lot of the problems with WCW with not having Ted Turner in full control of everything and the sounded like a lot of the executives didn't want anything to do with wrestling you kind of talked a little bit about that I was there just not just kind of a stigma with wrestling at that time or was Ted made the main driving force behind wrestling or were there others in the company that were behind it or no in fact there was nobody else at the senior executive level you know people who are on the executive committee at Turner Broadcasting for example Tim was the only one on that committee that really wanted WCW to remain a part of Turner Broadcasting and that was the case from day one you know nobody really wanted wrestling at Turner Broadcasting except for Ted and then you know in the years following the launch of WCW not only was WCW losing millions and millions of dollars every year but there was a tremendous amount of bad publicity that came with it because of the way certain people conducted business and certain people ran the business there was a ton of litigation lawsuits that was very high-profile and not very didn't reflect very well on Turner Broadcasting and that just made it even worse than it already was but I think the core issues for most of the executives were business issues because rustling number one it wasn't making them when he was losing a lot of money and it's difficult to make money with wrestling and television it certainly was at that time because the wrestling had a stigma associated advertisers really didn't want to be him in wrestling WWF had the same problem early on you know back in that day you know wrestlers were excuse me appetizers were very selective about where they're wanted what they wanted the products associated with and wrestling was considered kind of a lowbrow form of entertainment it was violent it was base in many respects compared to dramas and sitcoms and movies of the week those are easy to sell wrestling is a little was a little tougher and it still is not as tough as it used to be thanks to the WWE but in a smaller part WCW but it was really really tough so I think executives had two reasons for not really supporting you know WCW one was it was losing millions of dollars there was a ton of litigation associated with it there was a lot of bad press because of it and they couldn't sell advertising in it so from for me a person who didn't really like the product or understand it there were good solid reasons why you know a lot of executives just felt like let's not devote any television real estate to wrestling because we can use that same real estate and sell movies or sell kits sitcoms or do reruns of shows that are much easier to sell from an advertising point of view so there was legitimate reasons why but to answer your question was the only one and when Ted Turner started you know eight first becoming distracted with the whole Time Warner merger and then the AOL merger and simultaneously losing control over his own company then those executives who kind of coveted that prime time real estate that wrestling had all of a sudden now had the ability to override decisions that were made by Ted that they previously couldn't override and that was really the ultimate demise of WCW that's interesting like I said I didn't didn't realize that was the case I mean you kind of hear the narrative over the years of WCW and some of the some of the reasons but I enjoyed hearing that on the podcast and I don't want to take like so to take a ton of your time I know you've got a lot of calls to make but I really this has been a fairly successful promotion you know when I Conrad called me I think Friday afternoon or Friday evening or actually he texted me and say I have this idea you know and maybe you'll call people that sign up but I said I don't want to call people I want to zoom with them so they can record it or clip it and put it on our social media and you know let everybody know and that kind of thing so he had a great idea and of course I had to make it a little more complicated and I didn't think that it would be as successful as it was and neither do Conrad but I got well over 72 calls to make over the next two days so like ow yeah well I appreciate the promotion I love that I love the show love like I said keep getting in the weeds I love to hear that kind of stuff and that period of WCW there in the late 90s here in the mid 90s late 90s that was a one of my favorite times and wrestling have a lot of great memories of it's kind of a walk down memory lane and look forward to the Conrad does a great job as well and you know just looking forward to more shows and again really appreciate the call and doing this for the fans and I know the show is not something you have to do but we all appreciate it thank you very much and thanks so much again for being a part of a free shows icon we really love doing it we love creating new content for it and there's a whole lot of things that we're gonna do over the next year or so to make it even more interesting and more fun bunny so thank you very much for your support I appreciate it thanks Eric have a great you have a good night stay safe you too all right

Channel: Chad Clark

Views: 2,350

Rating: 4.8888888 out of 5

Keywords: WCW, Eric Bischoff

Id: NQqQrAIQAvQ

Length: 13min 28sec (808 seconds)

Published: Wed May 27 2020