Eric Bischoff gave his thoughts on various topics on the latest episode of his 83 Weeks Podcast.
During it, Bischoff covered Marc Mero’s time in WCW, where he portrayed the Johnny B. Badd persona. While he was a TV Champion a few times, he never became a top star.
“Entertaining as hell? Yes,” Bischoff said of the Johnny B. Badd character. “It definitely has a place, on any show, particularly at that time. But, not the type of character you would expect to compete for the world title, because then you have to go from being entertaining, generally speaking, to a good performer — but people have to take you very seriously. You have to be a serious threat, or they [the fans] have to have serious empathy for you.”
Bischoff argued that in order to give the fans a different side of Mero then, he would have had “to break character.” Bischoff noted that Dusty Rhodes, who was part of WCW’s creative team then, thought the character was valuable.
“Dusty leaned heavily into the entertainment aspect of it, and I think Dusty viewed Johnny B. Badd as so valuable, he just didn’t contemplate or think about shifting into another gear.”
Bischoff praised him for portraying a “flamboyant, effeminate character” despite being a former golden gloves boxer.
“That takes balls,” Bischoff added. “Not a lot of people are willing to shed their skin, in who they really are, and put out this costume — go out and perform it, and do it as well as Marc Mero did.”
Quotes via Wrestling Inc
