WCW was sold to Vince McMahon at a reduced price in 2001. The transaction ended the Monday Night Wars. Eric Bischoff had been attempting to purchase the company in the days leading up to the sale to Vince McMahon, however.

He spoke about this recently on an episode of his 83 Weeks podcast. Bischoff mentioned that he knew he had his detractors in the company in 2001 but was excited to rebuild WCW.

“It was certainly exciting, no question about that,” Bischoff said. He’d continue to talk about the detractors he had in the company at the time.

“Many of the people that were such a big part of WCW while we were growing the brand and had so much success were still there, but there were also a number of people there that I knew were not fans of me. There were people that I wasn’t necessarily that thrilled with even while I was there. I knew going back under the circumstances it was going to be real challenging.”

Bischoff also mentioned that he would have put more emphasis on the cruiserweight division in 2001 if he had taken ownership of WCW.

“I knew that the cruiserweight division was something that was going to have to come back. In a way, that it represented some of the best cruiserweight action that we saw when we brought that division to professional wrestling on a consistent basis. Not just calling someone a cruiserweight, like the X-division.”

“It was definitely one of the things that I wanted to go back to in a big way,” he continued.

He specifically mentioned Shane Helms (aka Hurricane Helms) as someone who would play a large role in the division.

“Shane Helms, for example, was one of the early ideas that we had of really reaching out to a much younger performer, somebody that brought a different style and obviously a different demo to the party.”

Eric Bischoff also recently spoke about WWE’s NWO angle in 2002 on his podcast. He feels Vince McMahon‘s involvement in the angle made little sense.

Bischoff’s comments can be heard in the player below: