Eric Bischoff opens up about one thing he knows he did wrong in WCW.
The Hall of Famer and former WCW President spoke about doing a ton of swerves/non-finishes in the company during the latest edition of his 83 Weeks podcast. Bischoff explains that swerving the audience constantly showed a lack of storytelling, discipline, and originality despite them occasionally working.
These non-finishes and these swerve finishes at the end were more a function of lack of storytelling and lack of discipline of creative … done well? Sure you can have non-finishes. It was such a compelling story that the audience was more interested in the story than ‘who’s gonna win the match?’
He adds that doing this for so many years conditioned his audience to disconnect from the action.
When you condition the audience to the point where — like a Pavlovian response, as you’re going into the finish — everybody simultaneously looks for the run-in, you’ve done a good job of ruining the audience’s engagement.
WCW would be purchased by WWE in 2001. Elsewhere on his podcast Bischoff spoke about top superstar Hulk Hogan not wanting to feud with a specific member of the WCW roster. You can read about that here.
(H/T and transcribed by Wrestling Inc.)