LOL no. Despite the 96-98 success , I would consider him one of the worst. He paid millions to a lot of wrestlers they didn't need. I remember WCW roster being very bloated. On the other hand though , there should have been someone at Turner to say no.
How can you have hulk hogan, macho man, sting, Goldberg, nash, ddp, Scott Steiner, Bret hart, Mr perfect, lex Luger and ric flair in your roster and go out of business?? Horrible at booking.
I remember being one of those kids who was super into wrestling, specifically playing the absolute HELL out of WCW Vs. NWO on N64. I fell out of it when I was in my mid-teens and only occasionally watch clips every now and then. Even though wrestling has basically zero presence in my current life, I always look back on memories of these times with the fondest of memories.
Same here, I remember my dad switching back and forth between WCW and WWF. It was a highlight of my childhood. It’s unwatchable now, I don’t know who any of those people are. 😂 It’s super suspicious to me that wrestlers die out of nowhere. The WWE needs to be investigated.
Same bro I never watch it and haven't since around 2000 but those memories are still great to have. I remember on Tuesday morning going to school and couldn't wait to tell your buddies what happened on WCW and WWF the night before.
Funny you mentioned WCW vs NWO on N64. I just recently fired up some WCW/nWo Revenge on N64. Made a Latino nWo takeover LOL Eddie R.I.P is WHC, LA Parka R.I.P is US Champ, Tag-Team Champs are Eddie and Chavo, Juventud Guerrera is Cruiserweight Champ, and TV Champ is Psychosis. They're all in nWo white on black t-shirts. It's basic in comparison to a Smackdown Here Comes The Pain, No Mercy, WM 2000 etc, but still pretty fun.
Do you remember how he treated Conrad in the early ones? He couldn't have a laugh at himself. He was still litigating things from 25 years ago. When he worked our there's money in this, he suddenly started to love Conrad. And his memory became perfect.
@@kazman_6899 Sounds like you're just looking for a reason to hate on the guy. People learn and change over time. And his memory never "became perfect". You clearly haven't listened to many of the podcasts.
he didn't steal talent. Mcmahon didn't want to pay them the huge salaries WCW paid them. He didn't steal them. He did way overspend for many of them and just like aew he had way too many on the payroll.
@@qweasdzxcname I mean he didn't really steal anybody, he only offered deals to the top guys in the WWF when they were free agents who either hadn't signed a new deal yet like Bret in '96 before he eventually took it the following year or those who were already preparing to leave like Scott and Kevin the same year (obviously Nash has since said that he originally wanted to stay and only decided to leave when Vince said he couldn't match Eric's offer). Savage walked away from Vince in '94 because he wouldn't let him wrestle as much anymore even though he could very much still go and his deal happened to be around the same amount as his Slim Jim sponsorship, so Bischoff was basically able to hire him for free and Hogan was almost semi-retired when he joined that year because he and Vince weren't on good terms after he left.
All I know is that when Eric Bischoff was in charge of the WCW, that was about the only time in the entire history of wrestling when you couldn't miss a Nitro. They blew the WWF out of the water so hard in their narratives, storytelling and character buildups that outside of the Undertaker who had some very unique star power, no one cared about what was going on on the WWF. If you go down and look at the plots and how patient the WCW was about setting them up, whatever *that* is, whatever you want to call it, WCW had it in spades and it has never been replicated. I remember watching Kevin Nash slam Eric Bischoff into the table and him coming out with a cast awhile afterwards thinking, wow what is this? This isn't the goofy bullshit I expect from wrestling, this is serious! I remember the outsiders coming in and interfering with matches, and I thought damn, this isn't goofy, what is going on? I remember the Hulk betrayal and I was hooked. I remember the whole plotline with Sting being set up by the NWO and Luger thinking he got betrayed by Sting cause he beat him up, when in reality it was an NWO guy dressed up as Sting. They didn't just cash out immediately with those plotlines like the WWF does every time they get their hands around something, they played them out over a long period of time. They took their time and developed it, and that's part of, in my view, why the big WCW guys had so much star power going forward. Because people remembered the intricacies of the plotlines they were involved in.
I always liked WWF better than WCW, the only time I watched WCW was the replay after the WWF shows. The production value of WWF was always so much better. Nitro looked like someone filming a kids birthday party in a garage and WWF looked like quality television. Every person on the roster had an interesting storyline, in WCW it was just this guy joined the nwo and they had no storyline for anyone else. I never understood how WCW won in the ratings for so long but even as a Texan I do know people in the south aren't as smart as other parts of the country. I've moved around a lot for work and people in rural areas of the south are the dumbest people in the world. Not just this country. The entire world.
@@Risner12300as a proud Southern woman I’ll take that as a compliment! You may say we’re the dumbest but I wouldn’t trade my accent or upbringing for anything.
Its incredible how wcw became so important. It had a 13 year life from 88 to 01. Other companies have stayed longer like TNA, but people still talk about wcw...
I always liked Bischoff. He was unpredictable there for a while and it was a refreshing time to live thru for wrestling. WCW was killing WWE there for a minute.
Unpredictable? How unpredictable is have a great main event every week, but make sure that there is outside interference to disrupt the ending. Resulting in a DQ and then a going off the air brawl
Well he adopted well enough and properly with the times where even if it didn't make sense, it was fun. Like a special treat from the past. Remember when wrestling created monsters, legends and larger than life characters? Now it's just guys who all want a fake belt and nothing of flavor.
@@toni4PF I watched the trailer, I was nervous as hell, but it looked like Bill is playing the lead different enough and well enough, with just enough tributes to Lee. I could be optimistically blind, the feel of the whole movie feels like that, diff enough, yet still decent looking with tributes to the original. Billy did a great job with Its clown from what I’m told, so hopefully is the same situation here.
I dont care what anyone says but when the NWO first appeared on WCW it was the beginning of the BEST ERA of wrestling. Eric is the reason that wrestlers like Hall,Nash,Sting,Hogan and etc reached their peak which made Vince up his game and gave WWF a run for their money back in the day. Good ol days
eric wasn't. He didn't want Hogan and he's admitted it. He wanted sting which would have been a horrible idea because now they lose their top face. Hogan and the Outsiders talked to Eric and Eric finally relented.
Ive heard Eric tell the story of how Nitro came about several times and he said he had a meeting with Turner and he asked Eric “what do we have to do to beat wwf?” And Eric said we need to go up against wwf on Mondays. But here he says nitro was decided for him and he didn’t want it.
What he has said multiple times is that he went to a meeting to convince Ted Turner to sign off on a TV deal with Rupert Murdoch. Turner asked him how to beat WWF and on the fly he said "WWF is on primetime, we are in Saturday mornings. We need to be primetime too", and Turner gave him the timeslot on Monday. Who knows the reality, but he has been consistent with that story for years.
It was Thunder that he didn't want, they made Nitro 3 hours which was taxing the writing team and added Thunder in addition to that because the dirty coin-men at Turner Broadcasting thought it would be a money printer. Many of the wrestlers rebelled against it.
@@Spardeous@kennymathews Bit that’s not what he said in this clip. He was talking about Nitro. He specifically mentioned in the clip competing with WWE, thunder was not created to compete with WWE, there was no wwe smackdown yet at that point.
They had too many chiefs and Bischoff isn't Vince. Vince would put his foot down if neccessary. Starrcade 97 would have never happened the way it did if Vince was the one in charge.
I’m sick of Bischoff getting trashed because it’s the internets way of remembering history. If you lived it, you don’t need some warped internet interpretation of what happened. I remember it well. WCW had lightning in a bottle. I was 10 years old in 97 and waiting for Nitro was the highlight of my week. I’ll always love and be so thankful for the memories that I have from my childhood. It was such a special time.
@@stevenhenry5267 regardless of what you think, he is the only person to ever compete with Vince McMahon and have a sustained competitive advantage over a long period of time.
Yeah, I'm your age give or take, and wcw was always far more predictable than wwe and it was never as entertaining. That's what happens when conmen like eric get control, steal ideas like the nwo from Japan and then have no clue on how to properly execute the idea. It might have beat RAW in the ratings for a while, but it was pure crap mostly, because it was so predictable. The only reason I watched wcw was for the cruiserweights and the mid card because the 'main event' always failed to deliver and sucked.
@@sunnylal888you don't speak for the UK fella. Goldturd and Sting had equal detractors compared to fans. They were both lazy and tedious as all hell. One was a knock off Steve Austin, only minus the talent and charisma, but he was an incompetent meat head who knocked himself out multiple times, and the other was an Undertaker wannabe who'd work for 3 months, then take 6 off. They're both trash and they were not universally loved here.
Eric sat down with a list of all the ways that he could be different from the WWE of 1996. Tony Khan is filling out a list of all the ways he can be similar to the WCW of 2000.
If it's not predictable, it wasnt planned, and if it wasn't planned... Bro late WCW fans would look at the titantron waiting for someone to come down to interfere every. single. match.
@@Lostmymind1 Wrong. Bischoff was largely in charge during the height of the NWO angle, when virtually every single Nitro main event ended in a DQ and a disorganized, nonsensical brawl. I still struggle to remember a single Nitro episode that ended with somebody actually winning a match with a pin, let alone a clean one.
@@nickowen8069I couldn’t watch wcw because of exactly what you just described. I can’t remember an episode where the main event didn’t end in a DQ finish and then deteriorate into some massive brawl that made absolutely no sense.
I know he said he wanted to appeal to adults(or young adults at least) but as a child I loved WCW for exactly the reason you’re talking about, and I never really had the time for WWF
"I don't have a good thing to say about Eric Bischoff or anything he ever did. That guy was, talk about the Midas Touch; he was the opposite. He could ki ll your career." - Bret Hart
Bret Hart killed his own career. He was yesterdays news once the nwo and attitude era hit. It's no coincidence that whatever company he was with would lose the ratings battle, he was a broken record, promos were terrible. Butt Hurt is full of himself, he has thousands of pictures of himself in gimmick all over his home, a pink hitman pool table, and made his family take a family photo in the hitman gimmick😂, he was too into himself and his time passed. He has those belts in zipper suitcases and presents them today like he legit won them😂. Bret is a whiny bitter cry baby.
Yeah ok Eric, you just went straight to 1996 when Scott Hall showed up in May. But what about 1993 to early 1996 when WCW and Nitro was pretty much a bad copy of Raw? Dungeon of doom, the Yeti, Andre the Giant's son (Paul Weight), Shark (Earthqauke), The Bootyman/Butcher, the 3 floor cage disaster matches, Renegade (Ultimate Warrior), The Boss (Big Boss man) etc. Never trust guys like Bischoff and Russo, they only want you to remember the good stuff. Other than that they simply use excuses
True, but he prefaced it with "When I was given Nitro..." Which obviously predates the NWO and he again references "it's what made Nitro work" k@@HereForAStorm
I'm pretty sure WWF had done backstage bits before Eric did. I mean, does no one remember Scott Hall as Razor Ramon in street clothes beating the shit out of Dustin Rhodes as Goldust?
*THOUGHTS ENCOURAGED* Ya know...as a small TH-camr who is relatively new....What Eric shares in this video is VERY VERY applicable to a TH-cam channel when looking at your competitors or even any business tbh. This is very actionable advice, and 💎 💎 of info here. I hope EVERYONE is looking at it like this.
In other interviews he says Ted asked him "what do we need to do to compete with wwe" and Bischoff says he answered "Prime time program on Monday nights" so he kinda says something different here. Everything else he says in this he has said in prior interviews though.
Yeah, Dusty & JCP should get some credit for creating outside/back stage scenarios. There are quite a few instances, example: Dusty/Horsemen hand injury, Dusty/Magnum/BabyDoll/Cornette/MidnightExpress w/ a truck, etc. Dusty was rather inventive.
The one thing I gotta question is Eric denying he wanted to take WWF out of business. There are several top guys from WCW, including Scott Hall, that have said Bischoff said he wanted to bankrupt the WWF when he was in power with WCW.
Bischoff thought Hart was a good wrestler but that he wasn't much of a character, that he was depressed and not really like into his job as far as WCW goes. Bischoff doesn't much like Bret.
If you know anything about any subject he talks about, it is clear that Bischoff is a fucking moron. According to pro wrestlers and career bookers who have worked with him, he doesn't know anything about pro wrestling. He also doesn't understand: How lawsuits in the US and UK work. Basic storytelling, let alone visual storytelling. Basic finance. He not only thinks diversification lowers risk but that it is the best way of lowering risk. He's wrong in both counts. That he hates Russo and Meltzer, deep down, because he recognizes that they are the same kind of overconfident moron he is without consciously realizing it.
Man Eric Should have gone to Law School. He would make one hell of a lawyer. He's so intelligent and so charmastic. He's an asshole but he's still fair.
I wish some company would buy the WHOLE WWE library and make the WHOLE thing available! Peacock has never put on full library and they never did when they had network. I don’t understand why Vince worked so hard to gather content just to sit on it.
same thing goes with all wrestling personalities. you just need to listen to multiple interviews, learn the main story and cut through the bs. eventually we can assume the closest thing to the truth. but never expect a wrestling personality to tell the actual truth, because the real story is never as good as the story they invent.
He's likely over-simplifying the story. The kernel of truth is likely that he was put in the unenviable task of competing with WWE, there was some back and forth on what that would involve, and his list resulted in him getting a Monday night show that he might not have been in a position to handle at the time. Perhaps a "careful what you wish for" scenario. I don't think you can take any interview as the unvarnished truth in these situations.
@@TyRanT_SoLDieR They were the best, some of my favorite times as a gamer Me and my friends did a draft, then changed wrestlers attire to match our selected colors, then anytime you lost a match the winner would get that wrestler for their stable, we did this for months lol
Ironically his answer on perceived leverage explains why he ran WCW into the ground. He was too precious in his own mind. On that note I’d like to see the list of wrestlers who couldn’t stand working with EB.
@@jonathancurran5366You're right about the other characters, although the KISS demon could've been interpreted as just some guy who was a wannabe rock star, as opposed to an actual supernatural character. That's how I saw him anyway
I hated Eric all those years because wwe taught me to hate him but looking back at the 2 times he’s ever had any say so in wrestling, I have to give him immense credit as a booker. He ran wcw in its peak and when he came to wwe, he gave it a new boom period following the dip after the attitude era ended. The guy just knows how to manipulate reactions out of fans
Eric is a smart guy. His ideas were sometimes farfetched. And everyone including Russo, would just go with it. Its hard to be "better" when you're surrounded by "yes" men
on his podcast he demanded live tv from ted turner and to go head to head with raw... wrestling stories change like the wind! I still love bischoff think AEW should hire him and let him book!!
I always wondered if Bischoff had decided to put Monday Nitro on Tuesday instead of Monday in competition with Raw would both companies have made even more money because both shows would have had even better ratings because of not splitting the audience once both shows were on, also I thought Nitro would have reached more viewers if it would have been on TBS instead of TNT because my parents had the cheapest cable package in the 90’s and TBS was a part of that package but TNT was on the more expensive cable package, that’s 2 mistakes that Bischoff made that most people don’t think about but looking back all these years later could have been very favorable to WCW if Bischoff would have implemented them
Who's running this channl these days? 4:30 in answering a diff question and here comes another diff question. I didn't click to give you the precious 10 minutes watch time. I did click to see who Bisch had the courage to be real about. Add this to the constant headline chasing, misleading labeling of old content as relevant to big stories like Vince and you're towing the do not reco line. Cmon you were better than this for a very long time.
I don't he's honest in some of the things he's saying. I feel that he actually payed Kevin Nash & Scott Hall more money 💰 to stay cause they thought 🤔 they were going to leave back to WWF. Even Kevin in other Interviews 🎥 confirmed 👍 this, so...
So Eric Bishoff is the sole reason that late 90’s wrestling was the best time in wrestling history. If he had not had this mindset, Vince never would have created the attitude era.
I just heard him on who killed wcw he said he needed a show on Monday night against WWF. I’ve noticed through the years you can never believe anything he ever says. Same episode he says he a sales man
Can someone explain this to me? I read somewhere that the fake diesel and ramone was part of a "Jim Ross as a heel" run? So they were brought out in a way that everyone knew it was fake, but Ross, in his heelish ways, tried to pass them off as the real deal!
It’s a good think that Vince is gone now, because everyone now has more balls and can actually speak without thinking that they can mess up a future opportunity to get a call back from him. Now it’s like we can talk smack. Dana will hire me. Lol
I remember Scott Hall saying Larry Z idea to walk down through the crowd great idea. Brett calls him a maggot but Brett was nothing like he was after the screw job and Owen. So he should take some responsibility because it was him too.
Bischoff's explanation didn't refute the Outsiders claim about getting more money because of the fake Diesel/Razor. They said that Vince was hyping up the return of the characters, and WCW panicked, and found out afterward it was a total joke. After Nash/hall got a better contract of course.
Yer man's hair looks much better brushed back as it looks much more professional for an interviewer than his previous "Static X" hairdo I've seen in other ITR videos😅
Well, damn, took 30 years but I finally agree with Bischoff. Loved Goldberg outside of wrestling, was never a fan of the streak. Few wrestlers pull off the monster, he wasn't one.
Eric can claim what he did was revolutionary because he did it on a mainstream level. Paul Heyman did a lot of this earlier. In fairness, Vince & Eric glowingly borrowed a lot from "that little promotion in Philly that no one was watching". It was interesting to see Vince's product become edgier when they realized that Vince was out of touch with the times.
He did make me go "what the hell is that" with his shows...but the most "what the hell is that" moment I think of is The Yeti intervening in a very solid match between Hogan and The Giant and turning it into absolute sh!t... I do love WCW overall but that was unforgiveable.
The McMahon's have always been like that, Vince as smart as he was a kid with a ball, when he bought everybody it was expansion,when Atlanta bought his guys it was a crime against humanity.
The Attitude Era really screwed up everything for WCW. Because once the edgier stuff started TNT had their hands tied. They had a standards and practices guy telling them they can do nothing to top the TV 14 stuff WWF was doing.
It’s amazing that there was no strict salary cap for Hulk Hogan in WCW in the 1990s & 2000s, considering how “old & stale” Hogan was at that time. Hogan’s salary absolutely should have been capped because his value was diminishing each year.
Everything revolved around the war with NWO and WCW. Without hogan as a front man who turns heel it doesn't work. Turner wanted Hogan for the publicity.
I feel like the "Dungeon of Doom" could have saved WCW in 2000! Give'em some of that Yet-tay love hug! Ask Hogan about it! Oh yeah! He remembers that move!
Its weird. He says here that had no choice but to go head to head on prime time with Raw but before hes said that Ted asked him what do you need to beat the WWE and Eric foolishly asked for prime time and he didn't think he'd get it but he did.
If there is one thing Nitro was not pre-nWo it was in any way different to the WWF in terms of what it presented. If Eric didn't want to appeal to kids, then what the hell was The Dungeon of Doom. it was hokey and cartoonish as hell in terms of the angles. When he lucked into the nWo, yes, he and the show were revelatory, but whatever he put down on that yellow legal pad was not what made air for the first 9 months of Nitro's existence.
I don’t always agree with him, but Eric Bischoff seems like a fun guy to shoot the sh*t with. He talks about everything with an almost devious enthusiasm.
If they could only have had continutiy in storylines and no hogan dictatorship they would have easily taken over at the top. Once Sting didnt get a top run after Starrcade 97 it was over and Vince went on attack.
Very first of all, I always tell people that what they like to refer to that era as the "attitude era" was started by Eric Bischoff & WCW. I call it the Nitro/Attitude era, because thats what it is. It is simply disrespectful to refer to it as anything else. If it wasn't for Eric's initial ideas, the wwe/f would not have changed their format to what Nitro was doing. Now it became a competition to see who could be edgier, & degrade the other product. Vince McMahon will probably never give credit to Eric Bischoff for that if which he ran with and used to change wrestling/sports entertainment forever. Back then I I thought I hated Eric Bischoff, but I learned to use my commo sense & love that guy for beating wwf/e's britches off 😂. If Eric Bischoff would have had a bigger stroke & better opportunity to do what was needed to run & possibly own WCW, there would have been another conversation that we would be having. I believe that either some fool at time warner/aol wanted to shortstop Eric along with whatever investors he had like Fusient & maybe Jerry Jarrett from buying the WCW entity, or & Vince McMahon played himself with some insider at time warner/aol right into being able to acquire WCW. Big Props to Bischoff!
Is Eric Bischoff the most underrated booker of all time? Let us know in the comments below!
No. He failed to book Bret Hart properly when he entered WCW.
LOL no. Despite the 96-98 success , I would consider him one of the worst. He paid millions to a lot of wrestlers they didn't need. I remember WCW roster being very bloated. On the other hand though , there should have been someone at Turner to say no.
Absolutely not
He wasn’t ever the booker
Always had a booker or a booking committee
How can you have hulk hogan, macho man, sting, Goldberg, nash, ddp, Scott Steiner, Bret hart, Mr perfect, lex Luger and ric flair in your roster and go out of business?? Horrible at booking.
I remember being one of those kids who was super into wrestling, specifically playing the absolute HELL out of WCW Vs. NWO on N64. I fell out of it when I was in my mid-teens and only occasionally watch clips every now and then. Even though wrestling has basically zero presence in my current life, I always look back on memories of these times with the fondest of memories.
Same here, I remember my dad switching back and forth between WCW and WWF. It was a highlight of my childhood. It’s unwatchable now, I don’t know who any of those people are. 😂 It’s super suspicious to me that wrestlers die out of nowhere. The WWE needs to be investigated.
@@ntimmons8770Drug use is prevelant in pro wrestling. Not just steroids. Everything
Same bro I never watch it and haven't since around 2000 but those memories are still great to have. I remember on Tuesday morning going to school and couldn't wait to tell your buddies what happened on WCW and WWF the night before.
Same! Absolutely the same!
Funny you mentioned WCW vs NWO on N64. I just recently fired up some WCW/nWo Revenge on N64. Made a Latino nWo takeover LOL
Eddie R.I.P is WHC, LA Parka R.I.P is US Champ, Tag-Team Champs are Eddie and Chavo, Juventud Guerrera is Cruiserweight Champ, and TV Champ is Psychosis. They're all in nWo white on black t-shirts.
It's basic in comparison to a Smackdown Here Comes The Pain, No Mercy, WM 2000 etc, but still pretty fun.
Eric is the best ever. He tells us on every podcast.
😂
Do you remember how he treated Conrad in the early ones? He couldn't have a laugh at himself. He was still litigating things from 25 years ago. When he worked our there's money in this, he suddenly started to love Conrad. And his memory became perfect.
He's not wrong though...
He's his own biggest fan
@@kazman_6899 Sounds like you're just looking for a reason to hate on the guy. People learn and change over time. And his memory never "became perfect". You clearly haven't listened to many of the podcasts.
Eric is right. He always gets accused of stealing talent when McMahon did the same thing in the 80's. Business is business.
yes he did. and also vince did.
but well... too bad. as you said, business is business.
he didn't steal talent. Mcmahon didn't want to pay them the huge salaries WCW paid them. He didn't steal them. He did way overspend for many of them and just like aew he had way too many on the payroll.
@qweasdzxcname it's not stealing. They're free agents. Nobody deserves to have a monopoly on anything.
True. Literally all the biggest talent from 82-96 was all territorial talents
@@qweasdzxcname I mean he didn't really steal anybody, he only offered deals to the top guys in the WWF when they were free agents who either hadn't signed a new deal yet like Bret in '96 before he eventually took it the following year or those who were already preparing to leave like Scott and Kevin the same year (obviously Nash has since said that he originally wanted to stay and only decided to leave when Vince said he couldn't match Eric's offer). Savage walked away from Vince in '94 because he wouldn't let him wrestle as much anymore even though he could very much still go and his deal happened to be around the same amount as his Slim Jim sponsorship, so Bischoff was basically able to hire him for free and Hogan was almost semi-retired when he joined that year because he and Vince weren't on good terms after he left.
All I know is that when Eric Bischoff was in charge of the WCW, that was about the only time in the entire history of wrestling when you couldn't miss a Nitro. They blew the WWF out of the water so hard in their narratives, storytelling and character buildups that outside of the Undertaker who had some very unique star power, no one cared about what was going on on the WWF. If you go down and look at the plots and how patient the WCW was about setting them up, whatever *that* is, whatever you want to call it, WCW had it in spades and it has never been replicated.
I remember watching Kevin Nash slam Eric Bischoff into the table and him coming out with a cast awhile afterwards thinking, wow what is this? This isn't the goofy bullshit I expect from wrestling, this is serious! I remember the outsiders coming in and interfering with matches, and I thought damn, this isn't goofy, what is going on? I remember the Hulk betrayal and I was hooked. I remember the whole plotline with Sting being set up by the NWO and Luger thinking he got betrayed by Sting cause he beat him up, when in reality it was an NWO guy dressed up as Sting. They didn't just cash out immediately with those plotlines like the WWF does every time they get their hands around something, they played them out over a long period of time. They took their time and developed it, and that's part of, in my view, why the big WCW guys had so much star power going forward. Because people remembered the intricacies of the plotlines they were involved in.
100%
I always liked WWF better than WCW, the only time I watched WCW was the replay after the WWF shows. The production value of WWF was always so much better. Nitro looked like someone filming a kids birthday party in a garage and WWF looked like quality television. Every person on the roster had an interesting storyline, in WCW it was just this guy joined the nwo and they had no storyline for anyone else. I never understood how WCW won in the ratings for so long but even as a Texan I do know people in the south aren't as smart as other parts of the country. I've moved around a lot for work and people in rural areas of the south are the dumbest people in the world. Not just this country. The entire world.
@@Risner12300as a proud Southern woman I’ll take that as a compliment! You may say we’re the dumbest but I wouldn’t trade my accent or upbringing for anything.
@@samanthagibbs7852
Yeah, there's nothing wrong with being stupid. Stupid people are usually the most sociable and happy.
Nah, it wasn't just Undertaker. 1997 is considered the best year in WWE for a reason. Everyone's storyline was top notch.
Its incredible how wcw became so important. It had a 13 year life from 88 to 01. Other companies have stayed longer like TNA, but people still talk about wcw...
Mostly to make fun of it.
@@stevenhenry5267 I don't think so. WCW has been the only company going toe to toe with WWE. Even surpassing them at one time.
Only company to legit beat wwe for a brief period
Because they were one of the few companies to be the number 1 wrestling show
of course WCW was WWE best rival thanks to Bischoff
I always liked Bischoff. He was unpredictable there for a while and it was a refreshing time to live thru for wrestling. WCW was killing WWE there for a minute.
Unpredictable? How unpredictable is have a great main event every week, but make sure that there is outside interference to disrupt the ending. Resulting in a DQ and then a going off the air brawl
Every? 🤣🤦
NWO and Eric changed the image of wrestling forever, whether you like it or not.
The Undertaker being the only cartoonish wrestling persona to survive the WWE's worst era in the 90s is cool.
Dark and mysterious characters always tend to be most interesting and long lasting…they’re planning to remake the Crow after all
Well he adopted well enough and properly with the times where even if it didn't make sense, it was fun. Like a special treat from the past. Remember when wrestling created monsters, legends and larger than life characters? Now it's just guys who all want a fake belt and nothing of flavor.
Uhhh 2 words, Hulk Hogan.
@bryanmack4054 which will be ass compared to Lee's role.
@@toni4PF I watched the trailer, I was nervous as hell, but it looked like Bill is playing the lead different enough and well enough, with just enough tributes to Lee. I could be optimistically blind, the feel of the whole movie feels like that, diff enough, yet still decent looking with tributes to the original. Billy did a great job with Its clown from what I’m told, so hopefully is the same situation here.
Nice to hear him speak and not hear Conrad.
He's equally as annoying as Conrad - he's a liar and a bitter old man. He gave away the results of Raw, and it bit him in the arse.
same, I couldn't sit through a single episode of 83 Weeks.
You don't miss hearing the heavy mouth breathing in the background while Eric talks?
You mean, Save with Con-man
Over a 13 minute video and only the last two minutes were about anyone that he may or may not have gotten along with. 🙄
Wish I would've seen this.... could've fast forwarded....
Typical ITR unfortunately.
@@HombreGermany right recently I've been noticing they're pretty clickbaity, might be time for me to unsub lol
It's Easy E, man. Whatever he's talking about, it's gonna be interesting.
Had the same thought. I was driving so had to listen to whole thing but kept thinking, ok, when do we actually get to the title question?
Hall coming through the crowd was Zbyszko's idea. As Hall said; "if I came down the ramp, wouldn't "the boys" & fans know it's a "work."
I dont care what anyone says but when the NWO first appeared on WCW it was the beginning of the BEST ERA of wrestling. Eric is the reason that wrestlers like Hall,Nash,Sting,Hogan and etc reached their peak which made Vince up his game and gave WWF a run for their money back in the day. Good ol days
At the same time Eric played out that Idea 💡 & the audience wanted something New but didn't meet those needs. So Everyone moved back to WWE
@awee5816 that's true I agree
eric wasn't. He didn't want Hogan and he's admitted it. He wanted sting which would have been a horrible idea because now they lose their top face. Hogan and the Outsiders talked to Eric and Eric finally relented.
Ive heard Eric tell the story of how Nitro came about several times and he said he had a meeting with Turner and he asked Eric “what do we have to do to beat wwf?” And Eric said we need to go up against wwf on Mondays. But here he says nitro was decided for him and he didn’t want it.
Exactly. He's full of shit.
What he has said multiple times is that he went to a meeting to convince Ted Turner to sign off on a TV deal with Rupert Murdoch. Turner asked him how to beat WWF and on the fly he said "WWF is on primetime, we are in Saturday mornings. We need to be primetime too", and Turner gave him the timeslot on Monday. Who knows the reality, but he has been consistent with that story for years.
It was Thursday night Thunder that he didn't want.
It was Thunder that he didn't want, they made Nitro 3 hours which was taxing the writing team and added Thunder in addition to that because the dirty coin-men at Turner Broadcasting thought it would be a money printer. Many of the wrestlers rebelled against it.
@@Spardeous@kennymathews Bit that’s not what he said in this clip. He was talking about Nitro. He specifically mentioned in the clip competing with WWE, thunder was not created to compete with WWE, there was no wwe smackdown yet at that point.
Being in the driver seat at that time would’ve been crazy. Gotta respect the effort🤷🏻♂️
It was an awesome run for that year and a half. Give the man credit for putting a juggernaut like WWE/F on the ropes for a moment.
@@projectjab156I give him no credit
i wish wcw had a plan for after the nwo, the lack of forsight is what ruined them
They had too many chiefs and Bischoff isn't Vince. Vince would put his foot down if neccessary. Starrcade 97 would have never happened the way it did if Vince was the one in charge.
I’m sick of Bischoff getting trashed because it’s the internets way of remembering history. If you lived it, you don’t need some warped internet interpretation of what happened. I remember it well. WCW had lightning in a bottle. I was 10 years old in 97 and waiting for Nitro was the highlight of my week. I’ll always love and be so thankful for the memories that I have from my childhood. It was such a special time.
For sure I agree being from the uk I only seen wcw or wwf Sunday night heat didn’t have sky sports so that’s why in the uk we love sting Goldberg etc
He stole a gimmick from Japan and had a big checkbook and then fucked up every advantage he was given.
@@stevenhenry5267 regardless of what you think, he is the only person to ever compete with Vince McMahon and have a sustained competitive advantage over a long period of time.
Yeah, I'm your age give or take, and wcw was always far more predictable than wwe and it was never as entertaining. That's what happens when conmen like eric get control, steal ideas like the nwo from Japan and then have no clue on how to properly execute the idea. It might have beat RAW in the ratings for a while, but it was pure crap mostly, because it was so predictable. The only reason I watched wcw was for the cruiserweights and the mid card because the 'main event' always failed to deliver and sucked.
@@sunnylal888you don't speak for the UK fella. Goldturd and Sting had equal detractors compared to fans. They were both lazy and tedious as all hell. One was a knock off Steve Austin, only minus the talent and charisma, but he was an incompetent meat head who knocked himself out multiple times, and the other was an Undertaker wannabe who'd work for 3 months, then take 6 off. They're both trash and they were not universally loved here.
Eric sat down with a list of all the ways that he could be different from the WWE of 1996. Tony Khan is filling out a list of all the ways he can be similar to the WCW of 2000.
If it's not predictable, it wasnt planned, and if it wasn't planned...
Bro late WCW fans would look at the titantron waiting for someone to come down to interfere every. single. match.
You mean the years he wasn't with the company?
@@Lostmymind1 Wrong. Bischoff was largely in charge during the height of the NWO angle, when virtually every single Nitro main event ended in a DQ and a disorganized, nonsensical brawl. I still struggle to remember a single Nitro episode that ended with somebody actually winning a match with a pin, let alone a clean one.
@@nickowen8069I couldn’t watch wcw because of exactly what you just described. I can’t remember an episode where the main event didn’t end in a DQ finish and then deteriorate into some massive brawl that made absolutely no sense.
Late wcw? Try 3 weeks after the nwo formed. The nwo is what started wcw being predictable. It was always more predictable than wwe.
I know he said he wanted to appeal to adults(or young adults at least) but as a child I loved WCW for exactly the reason you’re talking about, and I never really had the time for WWF
This video is misleading. Eric only lightly touches the title subject after 11 minutes into the video. And even then he doesn't really say much.
Came for the clickbait, stayed for the philosophy
"I don't have a good thing to say about Eric Bischoff or anything he ever did. That guy was, talk about the Midas Touch; he was the opposite. He could ki ll your career." - Bret Hart
Exactly
Bret Hart killed his own career. He was yesterdays news once the nwo and attitude era hit. It's no coincidence that whatever company he was with would lose the ratings battle, he was a broken record, promos were terrible. Butt Hurt is full of himself, he has thousands of pictures of himself in gimmick all over his home, a pink hitman pool table, and made his family take a family photo in the hitman gimmick😂, he was too into himself and his time passed. He has those belts in zipper suitcases and presents them today like he legit won them😂. Bret is a whiny bitter cry baby.
Bret is a crybaby. Nobody cry and whine more than Bret Fart - Excellence of Excuses.
@nick56677 he did have pretty awesome theme music though
Bret Hart killed Bret Hart's career. Him whining and complaining about how the whole world has wronged him IS his career.
I always love just listening to conversations Eric or Paul have, such great listening!
You could caption this thumbnail with “Goldberg gets a prostate exam from a doctor with cold hands”
Yeah ok Eric, you just went straight to 1996 when Scott Hall showed up in May. But what about 1993 to early 1996 when WCW and Nitro was pretty much a bad copy of Raw? Dungeon of doom, the Yeti, Andre the Giant's son (Paul Weight), Shark (Earthqauke), The Bootyman/Butcher, the 3 floor cage disaster matches, Renegade (Ultimate Warrior), The Boss (Big Boss man) etc. Never trust guys like Bischoff and Russo, they only want you to remember the good stuff. Other than that they simply use excuses
Can't argue with your correctness! You are not only a fan you are a student of the game👍
Truth!
He was specifically asked about the time when the nWo came about...
True, but he prefaced it with "When I was given Nitro..." Which obviously predates the NWO and he again references "it's what made Nitro work"
k@@HereForAStorm
Didnt he come into his main role in 1995/1996?
I'm pretty sure WWF had done backstage bits before Eric did. I mean, does no one remember Scott Hall as Razor Ramon in street clothes beating the shit out of Dustin Rhodes as Goldust?
*THOUGHTS ENCOURAGED*
Ya know...as a small TH-camr who is relatively new....What Eric shares in this video is VERY VERY applicable to a TH-cam channel when looking at your competitors or even any business tbh.
This is very actionable advice, and 💎 💎 of info here. I hope EVERYONE is looking at it like this.
In other interviews he says Ted asked him "what do we need to do to compete with wwe" and Bischoff says he answered "Prime time program on Monday nights" so he kinda says something different here. Everything else he says in this he has said in prior interviews though.
"It never happened before!"
Apparently Eric doesn't remember the Midnight Express doing it just a few years earlier.
Yeah, Dusty & JCP should get some credit for creating outside/back stage scenarios. There are quite a few instances, example: Dusty/Horsemen hand injury, Dusty/Magnum/BabyDoll/Cornette/MidnightExpress w/ a truck, etc. Dusty was rather inventive.
Nice catch. Not many people seem to be aware of that.
@@booboo7502 I'm fairly certain he was already exec producer at that time lol
But correct me if I'm wrong.
The one thing I gotta question is Eric denying he wanted to take WWF out of business. There are several top guys from WCW, including Scott Hall, that have said Bischoff said he wanted to bankrupt the WWF when he was in power with WCW.
I don't know why Bret Hart thinks this guy is stupid he not
Stupid in the way he booked bret hart
Bischoff thought Hart was a good wrestler but that he wasn't much of a character, that he was depressed and not really like into his job as far as WCW goes. Bischoff doesn't much like Bret.
Because he was 😂
If you know anything about any subject he talks about, it is clear that Bischoff is a fucking moron.
According to pro wrestlers and career bookers who have worked with him, he doesn't know anything about pro wrestling.
He also doesn't understand:
How lawsuits in the US and UK work.
Basic storytelling, let alone visual storytelling.
Basic finance. He not only thinks diversification lowers risk but that it is the best way of lowering risk. He's wrong in both counts.
That he hates Russo and Meltzer, deep down, because he recognizes that they are the same kind of overconfident moron he is without consciously realizing it.
@@mikedeck8381yup that's true. He lost passion for wrestling after the screwjob, and Owens's death was the final nail in the coffin.
Man Eric Should have gone to Law School. He would make one hell of a lawyer. He's so intelligent and so charmastic. He's an asshole but he's still fair.
guy looks like Jim Cornette front row 00:30
Just needs glasses...what a forehead
I wish some company would buy the WHOLE WWE library and make the WHOLE thing available! Peacock has never put on full library and they never did when they had network. I don’t understand why Vince worked so hard to gather content just to sit on it.
How many people have heard Eric say it was his idea to go head to head with raw on Monday. And he wasn’t forced lmao
same thing goes with all wrestling personalities. you just need to listen to multiple interviews, learn the main story and cut through the bs. eventually we can assume the closest thing to the truth. but never expect a wrestling personality to tell the actual truth, because the real story is never as good as the story they invent.
He's likely over-simplifying the story. The kernel of truth is likely that he was put in the unenviable task of competing with WWE, there was some back and forth on what that would involve, and his list resulted in him getting a Monday night show that he might not have been in a position to handle at the time. Perhaps a "careful what you wish for" scenario. I don't think you can take any interview as the unvarnished truth in these situations.
I think WCW vs NWO Revenge was the biggest reason WCW got more popular than WWE during that time.
The N64 Era of wrestling games was so good lol
That game came out in 98. WCW had been beating WWF in the ratings for a while then.
@@michaelmfwayne
Yeah I think I meant WCW world tour. But I think both those games added to WCW popularity at the time. Just my opinion.
@@MCJustJ420
Right. Those games at sleep overs were so much fun back then.
@@TyRanT_SoLDieR They were the best, some of my favorite times as a gamer
Me and my friends did a draft, then changed wrestlers attire to match our selected colors, then anytime you lost a match the winner would get that wrestler for their stable, we did this for months lol
Eric is the man. Hated him when he was on RAW.
His Vince McMahon impersonation was hilarious and spot on!! 😂
Ironically his answer on perceived leverage explains why he ran WCW into the ground. He was too precious in his own mind.
On that note I’d like to see the list of wrestlers who couldn’t stand working with EB.
He acts like he always did “reality based” programming at WCW. What the hell was dungeon of doom though?
Yes, thats what always comes to my mind when eric is describing his "realitiy based" approach.
The Yeti🤣
Also the Mortal Kombat themed characters and the Kiss demon.
@@jonathancurran5366You're right about the other characters, although the KISS demon could've been interpreted as just some guy who was a wannabe rock star, as opposed to an actual supernatural character. That's how I saw him anyway
I hated Eric all those years because wwe taught me to hate him but looking back at the 2 times he’s ever had any say so in wrestling, I have to give him immense credit as a booker. He ran wcw in its peak and when he came to wwe, he gave it a new boom period following the dip after the attitude era ended. The guy just knows how to manipulate reactions out of fans
The fact this guy had his own theme song and would play it routinely during the invasion storyline is all you have to know.
I'm sorry. Was the Dungeon of Doom not during Bischoff's time?
Goldberg & Raven he had trouble getting along with but I love Raven.
He has literally said in other videos that he asked to go live against Monday night Raw....
Eric is a smart guy. His ideas were sometimes farfetched. And everyone including Russo, would just go with it.
Its hard to be "better" when you're surrounded by "yes" men
on his podcast he demanded live tv from ted turner and to go head to head with raw... wrestling stories change like the wind! I still love bischoff think AEW should hire him and let him book!!
Eric gets a ton of shit for beating 83 weeks to death, but I love hearing him talk about the wars. WCW was a huge part of my childhood.
I always wondered if Bischoff had decided to put Monday Nitro on Tuesday instead of Monday in competition with Raw would both companies have made even more money because both shows would have had even better ratings because of not splitting the audience once both shows were on, also I thought Nitro would have reached more viewers if it would have been on TBS instead of TNT because my parents had the cheapest cable package in the 90’s and TBS was a part of that package but TNT was on the more expensive cable package, that’s 2 mistakes that Bischoff made that most people don’t think about but looking back all these years later could have been very favorable to WCW if Bischoff would have implemented them
Only a 14 minute video? Must be quick fire!
Good watch, Eric brings up some interesting points!
The backstage area was shown a lot on tv prior to Bischoff
Who's running this channl these days? 4:30 in answering a diff question and here comes another diff question. I didn't click to give you the precious 10 minutes watch time. I did click to see who Bisch had the courage to be real about. Add this to the constant headline chasing, misleading labeling of old content as relevant to big stories like Vince and you're towing the do not reco line. Cmon you were better than this for a very long time.
I miss wcw
I don't he's honest in some of the things he's saying. I feel that he actually payed Kevin Nash & Scott Hall more money 💰 to stay cause they thought 🤔 they were going to leave back to WWF. Even Kevin in other Interviews 🎥 confirmed 👍 this, so...
So Eric Bishoff is the sole reason that late 90’s wrestling was the best time in wrestling history. If he had not had this mindset, Vince never would have created the attitude era.
I just heard him on who killed wcw he said he needed a show on Monday night against WWF. I’ve noticed through the years you can never believe anything he ever says. Same episode he says he a sales man
Can someone explain this to me? I read somewhere that the fake diesel and ramone was part of a "Jim Ross as a heel" run? So they were brought out in a way that everyone knew it was fake, but Ross, in his heelish ways, tried to pass them off as the real deal!
@eric in AEW you moderated a debate. You asked questions. That's basically a Quizmaster.
So you can cross "job beginning with Q" off your list 😊
It’s a good think that Vince is gone now, because everyone now has more balls and can actually speak without thinking that they can mess up a future opportunity to get a call back from him. Now it’s like we can talk smack. Dana will hire me. Lol
I remember Scott Hall saying Larry Z idea to walk down through the crowd great idea. Brett calls him a maggot but Brett was nothing like he was after the screw job and Owen. So he should take some responsibility because it was him too.
Bischoff's explanation didn't refute the Outsiders claim about getting more money because of the fake Diesel/Razor. They said that Vince was hyping up the return of the characters, and WCW panicked, and found out afterward it was a total joke. After Nash/hall got a better contract of course.
👍
Yer man's hair looks much better brushed back as it looks much more professional for an interviewer than his previous "Static X" hairdo I've seen in other ITR videos😅
There were backstage fights in WCW before Nitro
Wow Eric is pretty damn smart - but it sounds like it just came down to the superstars. Eric strategizing his target market was a fun segment.
Well, damn, took 30 years but I finally agree with Bischoff. Loved Goldberg outside of wrestling, was never a fan of the streak. Few wrestlers pull off the monster, he wasn't one.
Great video ..
Eric can claim what he did was revolutionary because he did it on a mainstream level. Paul Heyman did a lot of this earlier. In fairness, Vince & Eric glowingly borrowed a lot from "that little promotion in Philly that no one was watching". It was interesting to see Vince's product become edgier when they realized that Vince was out of touch with the times.
This was without a doubt Eric’s best haircut
He did make me go "what the hell is that" with his shows...but the most "what the hell is that" moment I think of is The Yeti intervening in a very solid match between Hogan and The Giant and turning it into absolute sh!t...
I do love WCW overall but that was unforgiveable.
Why do I like Eric biscoff more than most people.
Well thank you because you force the best out of the WWF
Those boots on Eric though 😂😂
He lives in Wyoming, that’s probably the standard footwear out in those parts
@jasonnapier2942 IKR!!😂😂😂
@@417Graphix I'm from the country and there isn't any way that state approved 😂🤣
Shit flickers
Moe syslak vibes
The McMahon's have always been like that, Vince as smart as he was a kid with a ball, when he bought everybody it was expansion,when Atlanta bought his guys it was a crime against humanity.
As you can tell my spelling and grammar leave a lot to be desired so who am I.
Note to self, make Ming my personal assistant when negotiating contracts with wrestlers.
The Attitude Era really screwed up everything for WCW. Because once the edgier stuff started TNT had their hands tied. They had a standards and practices guy telling them they can do nothing to top the TV 14 stuff WWF was doing.
It’s amazing that there was no strict salary cap for Hulk Hogan in WCW in the 1990s & 2000s, considering how “old & stale” Hogan was at that time. Hogan’s salary absolutely should have been capped because his value was diminishing each year.
Everything revolved around the war with NWO and WCW. Without hogan as a front man who turns heel it doesn't work. Turner wanted Hogan for the publicity.
I feel like the "Dungeon of Doom" could have saved WCW in 2000! Give'em some of that Yet-tay love hug! Ask Hogan about it! Oh yeah! He remembers that move!
When you have Goldberg and Bret Hart agreeing on something, you know it can`t be far from the truth...
Its weird. He says here that had no choice but to go head to head on prime time with Raw but before hes said that Ted asked him what do you need to beat the WWE and Eric foolishly asked for prime time and he didn't think he'd get it but he did.
If there is one thing Nitro was not pre-nWo it was in any way different to the WWF in terms of what it presented. If Eric didn't want to appeal to kids, then what the hell was The Dungeon of Doom. it was hokey and cartoonish as hell in terms of the angles. When he lucked into the nWo, yes, he and the show were revelatory, but whatever he put down on that yellow legal pad was not what made air for the first 9 months of Nitro's existence.
I see why they went out of business now🤦Eric is a real cornball💯
Eric made WCW vs WWE legit . Russo made WCW vs WWE a Slaughter.
The origins of the Dark Winter ❄️ on Spotify free!”
I don’t always agree with him, but Eric Bischoff seems like a fun guy to shoot the sh*t with. He talks about everything with an almost devious enthusiasm.
Eric the goat, his run was crazy
So many lies. He tried being exactly like WWF, he had Hogan fighting Kevin Sullivans Legion of Bad Guys and the damn Yeti. Stop it Eric
not true. mean gene did wrestling spotlight from the back production room.
Hogan was sitting on the side of the road looking for someone to do 😂
I loved Eric’s Wwe theme song
Job that starts with Q....quality control. Finish that list Mr. Bischoff!! :)
If they could only have had continutiy in storylines and no hogan dictatorship they would have easily taken over at the top. Once Sting didnt get a top run after Starrcade 97 it was over and Vince went on attack.
When the WWF pivoted to a more adult-oriented program, WCW, should have gone kid-friendly.
I like Bischoff better than Vince. I also liked that they made for some real WWE competition and alternatives
Im sorry but Hall & Nash was in everyone's ear about money that way they would get more. Kinda smart kinda shady..
He was greatest, people don’t realize WCW failed because of the higher ups and merging companies.
The laugh about Bruce is that anyone who is at this show is obviously knows who Bruce is.
I don't know if he can say WCW wasn't cartoony. Just watch the Dungeon of Doom Arc with Hogan.
Very first of all, I always tell people that what they like to refer to that era as the "attitude era" was started by Eric Bischoff & WCW. I call it the Nitro/Attitude era, because thats what it is. It is simply disrespectful to refer to it as anything else. If it wasn't for Eric's initial ideas, the wwe/f would not have changed their format to what Nitro was doing. Now it became a competition to see who could be edgier, & degrade the other product. Vince McMahon will probably never give credit to Eric Bischoff for that if which he ran with and used to change wrestling/sports entertainment forever. Back then I I thought I hated Eric Bischoff, but I learned to use my commo sense & love that guy for beating wwf/e's britches off 😂. If Eric Bischoff would have had a bigger stroke & better opportunity to do what was needed to run & possibly own WCW, there would have been another conversation that we would be having. I believe that either some fool at time warner/aol wanted to shortstop Eric along with whatever investors he had like Fusient & maybe Jerry Jarrett from buying the WCW entity, or & Vince McMahon played himself with some insider at time warner/aol right into being able to acquire WCW. Big Props to Bischoff!
I thought he recommended going head to head with raw. I’ve heard him say this multiple times
Same here. He said it on the Monday Night Wars DVD.
It was billionaire Ted's idea.