During a recent episode of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff spoke on why the concept of Battlebowl didn’t work. Here’s what he had to say:
In my opinion, lack of story. Go back and look – even though WWE business was down at this time, this was at a period of time when WWE was probably recognized for telling such great stories. They weren’t weekly stories, they were long-term stories. There were long-term buildups and that’s what the audience was voting for – they were voting with their remotes, in addition to all the great marketing WWE did and the tremendous vision Vince McMahon had in shaking up the wrestling business and all the things Vince did in the late 80s and early 90s. At the core of it all was some pretty fucking good storytelling. It was longer-term storytelling whereas, in WCW, we were relying probably too much on the exhibition, the big match, the gimmicks – Spin the Wheel, Make the Deal, and Battlebowl. I’m guilty of it too – World War 3.
Those are all examples of let’s just have this super big event, but how do we build a story to support the big event? What’s the foundation that people are investing in in order to see the payoff at this big, special event? Those conversations weren’t happening until later on at this point in time…….stories were a secondary thing to the big tentpole, highly-promoted event. It had to be both. You always wanted that big tentpole, highly-promotable event that captures the audience’s imagination like a Battlbowl, but if you didn’t have great story that people were invested in going into it, it was just an event. At this point, WCW’s track record of events that really didn’t mean that much was a big part of the problem.
You can listen HERE.
Credit: 83 Weeks. H/T 411Mania.