He was on the front line of the now fabled Monday night TV wars that dominated professional wrestling in the 1990s, and lived to tell the tale.
As Eric Bischoff's podcast – and his upcoming Australian speaking tour – proudly boast, for 83 weeks in a row under his stewardship, World Championship Wrestling’s (WCW) Monday Nitro beat the Vince McMahon-owned World Wrestling Federation’s (WWF,now WWE) Monday Night Raw in the TV ratings. It was one of the most competitive and tumultuous periods in wrestling history.
Indeed, the former executive producer and president of the now-defunct WCW, Bischoff has a fascinating story to tell and a big part of that story was one of the biggest bombshells to ever rock wrestling’s foundations, which he helped engineer – the transformation of Hulk Hogan from one of sport entertainment’s greatest heroes into a notorious villain as he joined the nefarious, and now legendary, New World Order (NWO) stable.
Former executive producer and president of the now-defunct WCW Eric Bischoff
The iconic moment that Hogan turned "heel" occurred in July 1996 at WCW pay-per-view "Bash At The Beach" and was greeted with fierce hostility from fans in attendance. Those fans pelted the "Hulkster" and fellow NWO founders Kevin Nash and Scott Hall with rubbish, turning the ring into something resembling more of a garbage tip. It’s a moment in time that Bischoff remembers as if it happened "this morning".
"It stands out in my mind for a lot of reasons," Bischoff tells The Age.
"I had never seen a crowd react like that in my entire life as a wrestling fan or someone who is in the wrestling business.
"It was a shocking moment to me, it was a shocking moment to Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Hulk Hogan – none of them had ever experienced that kind of such an animated crowd response.
"It was a magical feeling and we knew then as it was happening that we were literally printing money."
Bischoff admitted that Hogan, one of the biggest stars in the history of wrestling who until then had only ever known being a massive fan favourite, feared the dramatic character change backfiring.
"Hulk was afraid of that," Bischoff says. "Getting him to actually commit to turning heel was no easy task because he realised that he had spent 30 years building up a fan base and a relationship with the audience and building up a licensing and merchandising business and all of the great things that generated tens of millions of dollars for him personally. He knew he was putting that to risk by turning heel."
However, Bischoff didn’t feel anywhere near as apprehensive as Hogan and felt strongly that Hogan needed the makeover because his fan-friendly persona had started losing its appeal in the mid-90s.
The Hogan-led NWO storyline ultimately proved to be wildly successful and a driving force behind the Ted Turner-backed WCW’s rise.
A huge recruiting spree of WWF superstars such as Hogan, "Macho Man" Randy Savage, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, Hall and Nash also helped propel WCW to the top of the mountain, but Bischoff insisted there was more to the organisation’s success than just big names.
"If you look at the way WWF presented wrestling at that time, it was very much targeted towards children," Bischoff recalls.
"We presented a more mature type of character and storyline, we allowed wrestlers to use their own names, our storylines had a much more reality-based feel to them … we were more chartered towards 18-to-54-year-old men – that was the shift, that’s why we were able to grow the audience the way we did."
One infamous Monday night in January 1999 has been widely credited as sparking the downfall of WCW.
Not only did it feature the so-called "Fingerpoke of Doom", which saw Nash theatrically overplay being poked in the chest by Hogan before being pinned by him, it also saw WCW announcer Tony Schiavone, reportedly under Bischoff’s orders, give away the result of that night’s WWF championship match (because at that time WWF pre-recorded some shows) in a bid to deter viewers from watching their rivals.
The move backfired, though, as 600,000 viewers reportedly switched from Nitro and tuned into Raw to see Mankind claim the title against The Rock as the WWF regained the ascendancy in the Monday night ratings war.
However, Bischoff is adamant that that combination of events had "absolutely nothing to do" with his company’s demise.
"There were so many things that were going on politically inside of Turner Broadcasting and AOL Time Warner that had a far more dramatic impact on WCW than one moment on one television show," he said.
In a twist of fate, after McMahon purchased WCW, Bischoff joined the WWF in 2002 and served as the on-screen general manager of Monday Right Raw.
While admitting it was a surreal and unusual situation in some respects, Bischoff says joining his one-time fierce rival felt very "natural and organic".
"Enough time had gone by where I think the sting, if you will, or the after-effect of all of the competition and everything else had kind of worn off."
Eric Bischoff "83 Weeks" Australian tour dates
Friday, June 21 – Sydney (Factory Theatre)
Saturday, June 22 – Brisbane (The Foundry)
Sunday, June 23 – Melbourne (The Thornbury Theatre)
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