Eric Bischoff gave his thoughts on various topics on the latest episode of his 83 Weeks Podcast.
During it, Bischoff talked about how WCW reacted to the television ratings during the Monday Night Wars with WWE and more. Here are the highlights:
On whether WCW reacted with booking audibles due to ratings:
“No, we didn’t react to ratings on a week-to-week basis, particularly when we were winning every week, which we have been doing, as you pointed out, up until this point, really. But this was, I think, my way of regaining some ground. I didn’t like the idea of losing ground. It took me a long time to take over the wrestling television island and feel like we were in control of it and then all of a sudden have WWE end up on our shores and start to take back some of that island. I did not like that at all. So this was although typically, to answer your question more clearly, typically we did not react and we did have a plan and we did execute that plan. Not that it didn’t change along the way as often it does and still does to this day. But this was clearly a reaction. This was trying to regain ground, but it was atypical, not typical.”
On the narrative that the wrestlers were running WCW:
“It’s simple for someone that’s never worked in the industry to say that. It’s a simple observation for fans who read stupid shit in dirt sheets to say that because it’s easy to repeat, it’s like bumper sticker mentality, and bumper sticker mentality works. It works in politics, it works in wrestling, it works in a lot of situations. But egos, I mean, just step back for a moment. And by the way, I want to put this match over before I go on here. Disco looks freaking awesome here. This is a great match. Chavo [Guerrero] is unbelievable. Can’t discount his ability back then. A movie set. How many are real? Because the people involved have different egos than the people who buy tickets to go watch them. They’re driven differently than the average person. That’s why they become stars. It’s why they pursue being a star and their egos are different. Not worse, not better, just different. And managing people that are performers that are driven to perform partly because of their egos are very difficult to manage and shit is going to happen. It just does. It happens and probably still does in WWE. It certainly happened in WCW. It happens currently and guess what? It probably happens on movie sets and television sets all over the planet because performers are different and they have to be managed differently and sometimes they can’t be managed.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit 83 Weeks with an h/t to Wrestling Headlines for the transcription.