WCW to WWE
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As an announcer, Eric Bischoff reported to producer Tony Schiavone and WCW's Vice President of Broadcasting, Jim Ross. After WCW head-honcho Bill Watts was ousted by TBS executive Bill Shaw in 1993, Bischoff went to Shaw and WCW Vice President Bob Dhue to ask for the job of executive producer. Jim Ross and Tony Schiavone seemed to be the two top candidates, but Shaw and Dhue decided to go with Bischoff. Schiavone remained a producer until the company's demise, but Ross was fired by Bischoff and ended up in the World Wrestling Federation. In 1994, Bischoff became a Vice President, and cleared house within the WCW front office. He famously fired event manager Don Sandefeur, junior Vice President Jim Barnett, and his old boss Bob Dhue, all on the same day. In 1996, Bill Shaw was reassigned from WCW, leaving Eric with the title of Executive Vice President/General Manager, and by 1997, Bischoff was promoted to President/CEO of WCW. Bischoff convinced Turner executives to better finance WCW in order to compete with the WWF. He used the money to sign big names such as Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and others. He also invested more money in production values and increased the number of WCW pay-per-views (first 7 a year, then 10, and then once a month). The plans paid off, and in 1995 WCW turned a profit for the first time. Monday Nitro During one WCW meeting in 1995, Ted Turner asked Bischoff how the company could possibly compete with the WWF. Bischoff told Turner to put WCW on prime time TV against the WWF's Monday Night RAW. At the time, the flagship show for WCW was WCW Saturday Night. Turner agreed, and gave Bischoff a 1 hour prime time slot every Monday on TNT. (In 1996 it would expand to 2 hours and eventually 3 hours in 1998.) Bischoff used the new show, WCW Monday Nitro, to showcase the company as a fresh alternative to the WWF. While new episodes of RAW were taped weeks in advance, Nitro was live each week, with Bischoff brashly giving away RAW results to encourage viewers to switch over to the new show. Because WCW and TNT were both part of Turner, Bischoff was able to start Nitro several minutes earlier than RAW, as well as provide a late-night rebroadcast so RAW viewers could still see the show. Bischoff also signed wrestlers from around the world, including All Japan and New Japan, to fill the undercard with superb, action-packed matches. The plan worked. Nitro beat RAW in their first head-to-head week and ran neck-and-neck with the WWF for the remainder of the year. nWo In 1996, Bischoff revealed that WWF superstar Scott Hall, better known to audiences as "Razor Ramon", was defecting from the WWF to join WCW. Hall would soon be joined in WCW by Kevin Nash, who was known best to wrestling fans as "Diesel" during his WWF tenure, in forming the New World Order (nWo). The duo were depicted as "outsiders" invading the company to start a "war" between the two companies (though Bischoff was later forced to clarify that Hall and Nash did not represent the WWF). The wheels of the nWo were set in motion when perennial fan-favorite Hulk Hogan aligned himself with the Outsiders. Led by the nWo storyline, WCW overtook the WWF as the number one wrestling promotion in America. Monday Nitro's rating defeated Monday Night RAW by a very wide margin for 84 consecutive weeks. Bischoff also enjoyed some mainstream exposure in his own right at the time. He appeared on the HBO series Arli$$ as well as The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Downfall By January 1999, however, the WWF had begun catching up to WCW in the ratings. On January 4, 1999, Nitro was scheduled to air alongside a taped edition of RAW. The night of the taping, former WCW wrestler Mick Foley won the WWF Championship. The night of January 4, Bischoff instructed Tony Schiavone to remark, "I hear that Mick Foley, who once wrestled for us as Cactus Jack, is going to win their title tonight. Huh! That should put some butts in the seats." Bischoff's intention was to spoil the main event, causing fans to lose interest in RAW and stay tuned in to Nitro. Instead, there was a significant backlash; Nielsen Ratings showed that within minutes of the announcement, nearly 300,000 Nitro viewers switched the channel to RAW so they could see the title change. However, both shows broke quarter-hour ratings records that night, and Nitro beat five of RAW's quarter hours. For months afterwards, fans showed up to WWF shows holding signs reading "Mick Foley put my butt in a seat", signs which received prolonged attention from WWF cameras during pans of the crowd. It proved to be a turning point in the Monday Night Wars. Even though Nitro ratings were still very solid in the 4.5-5.0 range, Nitro never beat RAW in the ratings again. Frustrated and burnt-out, Bischoff lost his cocky attitude. His TV presence disappeared, and he began looking for an out from WCW, often missing shows so he could pitch ideas to TV executives in Hollywood, being introduced by his friend Jason Hervey as "The golden boy who saved wrestling." While wandering elsewhere, Bischoff left Kevin Nash and Nitro producer Craig Leathers in charge of WCW, and ratings tanked. When Bischoff returned, the company was in terrible shape, and Bischoff's solution of throwing money at the problem created in itself more problems. He made several ventures to extend the WCW brand outside the scope of wrestling which failed, such as a restaurant on the Las Vegas Strip, a lackluster series of video games, and a brand of cologne named after the "Nitro" broadcast. On top of this, he seemingly could not produce a follow-up to the nWo cash-cow that had been milked dry. Storylines were confusing and guest appearances by Master P, Country music one-hit wonder Chad Brock (himself a former WCW jobber), KISS, and Megadeth failed to garner the interest of the casual fan while losing the viewership of the faithful fans. Bischoff ousted All plans were scrapped when, on September 10, 1999, Bischoff was sent home by President of TBS Sports Harvey Schiller, although the decision was made by top executives on Time Warner's board of directors. In early September, when WCW was projecting a huge loss for the month of August, a meeting was held with WCW's accountants and TBS executives in the sports and programming divisions. Presiding over this was Harvey Schiller, who shot down the prospect of firing Bischoff. Hours after this meeting ended, WCW executives Gary Juster and J.J. Dillon staged a coup, and went over their boss's boss's head and met with members of Time Warner's board of directors to try getting Bischoff demoted, and to everyone's astonishment, it worked. The parent company even went so far as to ban Bischoff from WCW offices. A month long promoted contest for one million dollars and a KISS concert-wrestling PPV scheduled for December 31, 1999 were cancelled as well as a planned Nitro animated series. Many in the company were shocked to see Bischoff go. For all of his failings, he was seen as the only manager of a successful WCW. On top of this, he had always been tight with Turner Broadcasting higher-ups and with Ted Turner himself, who considered Bischoff his wrestling visionary. When Turner's role within Time Warner was reduced to being a member of the board rather than acting chairman, Bischoff lost his favor. The management change went un-mentioned on WCW television. The WCW website claimed it would have more information on Bischoff's involvement in the coming weeks, yet the company seemed ready to quickly forget him. All images and references to Bischoff were banned from WCW programming. Less than six months went by before Bill Busch was removed, and Brad Siegel, a Time Warner programming executive, assumed control of WCW. Bischoff briefly came back into power in April 2000, although not as president; instead, he was named event and television manager, and was to be partners-in-charge with creative director Vince Russo. After six weeks, Bischoff left his post; Russo subsequently took control of all wrestling and television operations, while Johnny Ace became event manager. Attempted purchase Of WCW In late 2000, with WCW facing major financial woes, the company was put up for sale. Brad Siegel wanted little to do with the company, and his new boss in the AOL Time Warner merger was former WB Network executive Jamie Kellner, who wanted even less to do with the company. In the Turner era, WCW had always been classified as a sports division, yet under the new corporate umbrella it was overseen by television executives, many of whom hated the idea of wrestling on their station. Bischoff and a group of investors named Fusient Media Ventures signed a letter of intent to buy the company, but later backed out when Kellner cancelled Nitro's timeslot, without which, as Bischoff had said, "WCW would only be worth...20 bucks." After McMahon bought WCW for a substantially lower price (approximately US $2,000,000) than what Bischoff and Fusient Media Ventures offered in March 2001, Bischoff took some time off from wrestling to work on other TV projects. He produced several reality TV shows and signed on as president of Matrats, a youth-based wrestling company. World Wrestling Entertainment In 2002, Bischoff was hired by the WWE to be the on-air general manager of RAW, a role he played until late 2005. Bischoff resurrected his characteristic brand of smarminess with his GM position. Off-screen, many in the company were shocked that Bischoff was brought in, and some who did business with him in the past - most notably Ric Flair - were unhappy. Vince McMahon, however said "Bischoff is an excellent performer. And he was innovative, and he was unquestionably ruthless. Those are qualities that anyone can endear themselves to me." Bischoff was "fired" as GM in late 2005, when McMahon tossed him into a garbage dumpster and drove him out of the arena. Bischoff remains under contract, but remains "off TV," and wrote a book about WCW, entitled "Controversy Creates Cash", which will be released on October 17th, 2006. |
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