Kemo
04-25-2017, 08:50 PM
Eric Bischoff was the latest guest on Lilian Garcia’s Making Their Way to the Ring podcast, powered by AfterbuzzTV. In this candid interview, the former WCW President opens up about his father who was paralyzed, his history with Vince McMahon and WWE, why he didn’t want his son to wrestle, his last interaction with Matt Anoa’i and more. You can listen to the full episode here:
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AfterbuzzTV sent in the following highlights of what Eric Bischoff said about:
His Last Interaction with Matt Anoa’i
“The last time I saw Matt was about I think about a year and a half ago he and I were on a, we made a personal appearance together, small little signing somewhere on the east coast, and we rode together in a car and it had been the first time I had seen him in a long time probably five to seven years, and we didn’t talk about wrestling, we didn’t talk about our experiences in the WWE—although they were all good ones and positive ones, we just talked about family and food because we both loved to eat, and we talked about our families and I think that that’s to me what I’ll remember, yes he was in the WWE, he was a superstar, he comes from a long, you know lineage of phenomenal talent in our industry but the guy was a family guy that just loved his spare time spend time with his family and cooking and enjoying life.”
His Biggest Contributions to Wrestling:
“The overall contribution I like to think I made was changing the way the business worked, we wouldn’t be watching three hours of Monday Night Raw live if it wouldn’t have been for the stuff I did when I was at WCW, we wouldn’t have had the attitude if it weren’t for some of those things I did in WCW that kind of created the need for that kind of content, there’s so many, we wouldn’t be watching Cruiserweights right now on 205 Live if it wasn’t for some of the things that I brought to the table back in the 90s so I think there were a lot of contributions that I made not directly to WWE but indirectly that we still enjoy very much to this day and has led to some of their success.”
Why He Turned Down WWE’s First Attempt at Bringing Him In:
“They had called about a year before and people don’t know this ya they called me about a year before you know Vince called me in whatever it was 2002. In 2001 I was in Wyoming in the summer and I got a call from JR, and JR wasn’t exactly excited to call me at the time you know he still had a chip on his shoulder a little bit and he called me and said, “hey you wanna come in and work a program?” and I said, “well, whats the program?” and he said, “well we’re working on it” and I said, “well sure, when would you want me to start?” “you gotta be here Monday” well this is like Friday and I had a house full of people, it was over the 4th of July, I had like twenty five or thirty people, friends and relatives that had driven in from all over the country for a family reunion and I’m thinking ya I’m not just gonna pick up go up there for a Monday Night Raw to participate in something what they’re not really sure what it is quite yet, it wasn’t right you know, so I politely passed and when I did I thought well that will be the last time they call me.”
How Vince McMahon Convinced Him To Join WWE:
“We got on the phone and the first thing he said to me, and I’m paraphrasing this okay so it’s not exact words, but he basically said right out of the shoot he goes you know Eric I would like to think that if the situation would have turned out differently and you would’ve come out on top, that you would reach out to me for an opportunity to step back in…what a gracious, elegant, classy, humble thing to say.”
The One Question Vince Asked Him Before Joining WWE:
“The one thing he did ask me, he said, well is there anything you won’t do? I said, ya I won’t move to Connecticut, other than that I’m your guy and I guess that’s all he wanted to hear is that I didn’t, I wasn’t bringing any stipulations, I wasn’t coming in with a list of things I would and wouldn’t do.”
Not Wanting His Son To Wrestle:
“I didn’t want him to get into professional wrestling…I tried hard to talk him out of it…because I knew the hand writing on the wall, I knew that the business was becoming more and more difficult, there were less and less opportunities than there were you know, there’s really only one company to work for and it was the WWE and unfortunately for my son you know his last name is Bischoff and that comes with a certain amount of baggage, it comes with a certain amount of opportunity too don’t get me wrong, but you know when you’re the second generation of a wrestling personality even though I’m not a wrestler, the name is kind of there.”
Mistakes He Has Made:
“Certain people have, especially in the industry have a perception of me and they think they know how I think and how I’m going to react and I’ve gone into meetings before with other wrestling organizations I’ll leave unnamed and groups of people that I won’t name and they’re expecting me to tell them what I think they should do based on my success because I’ve had some success, and the first thing I tell them is look I am worth way more to you as consultant or as an executive producer not because of the successes I’ve had, but because of the mistakes I’ve made. I’ve learned I’m way way way more valuable because of the depth and breath of failures and mistakes than I am from my successes.”
1SAnJSwe6pg
AfterbuzzTV sent in the following highlights of what Eric Bischoff said about:
His Last Interaction with Matt Anoa’i
“The last time I saw Matt was about I think about a year and a half ago he and I were on a, we made a personal appearance together, small little signing somewhere on the east coast, and we rode together in a car and it had been the first time I had seen him in a long time probably five to seven years, and we didn’t talk about wrestling, we didn’t talk about our experiences in the WWE—although they were all good ones and positive ones, we just talked about family and food because we both loved to eat, and we talked about our families and I think that that’s to me what I’ll remember, yes he was in the WWE, he was a superstar, he comes from a long, you know lineage of phenomenal talent in our industry but the guy was a family guy that just loved his spare time spend time with his family and cooking and enjoying life.”
His Biggest Contributions to Wrestling:
“The overall contribution I like to think I made was changing the way the business worked, we wouldn’t be watching three hours of Monday Night Raw live if it wouldn’t have been for the stuff I did when I was at WCW, we wouldn’t have had the attitude if it weren’t for some of those things I did in WCW that kind of created the need for that kind of content, there’s so many, we wouldn’t be watching Cruiserweights right now on 205 Live if it wasn’t for some of the things that I brought to the table back in the 90s so I think there were a lot of contributions that I made not directly to WWE but indirectly that we still enjoy very much to this day and has led to some of their success.”
Why He Turned Down WWE’s First Attempt at Bringing Him In:
“They had called about a year before and people don’t know this ya they called me about a year before you know Vince called me in whatever it was 2002. In 2001 I was in Wyoming in the summer and I got a call from JR, and JR wasn’t exactly excited to call me at the time you know he still had a chip on his shoulder a little bit and he called me and said, “hey you wanna come in and work a program?” and I said, “well, whats the program?” and he said, “well we’re working on it” and I said, “well sure, when would you want me to start?” “you gotta be here Monday” well this is like Friday and I had a house full of people, it was over the 4th of July, I had like twenty five or thirty people, friends and relatives that had driven in from all over the country for a family reunion and I’m thinking ya I’m not just gonna pick up go up there for a Monday Night Raw to participate in something what they’re not really sure what it is quite yet, it wasn’t right you know, so I politely passed and when I did I thought well that will be the last time they call me.”
How Vince McMahon Convinced Him To Join WWE:
“We got on the phone and the first thing he said to me, and I’m paraphrasing this okay so it’s not exact words, but he basically said right out of the shoot he goes you know Eric I would like to think that if the situation would have turned out differently and you would’ve come out on top, that you would reach out to me for an opportunity to step back in…what a gracious, elegant, classy, humble thing to say.”
The One Question Vince Asked Him Before Joining WWE:
“The one thing he did ask me, he said, well is there anything you won’t do? I said, ya I won’t move to Connecticut, other than that I’m your guy and I guess that’s all he wanted to hear is that I didn’t, I wasn’t bringing any stipulations, I wasn’t coming in with a list of things I would and wouldn’t do.”
Not Wanting His Son To Wrestle:
“I didn’t want him to get into professional wrestling…I tried hard to talk him out of it…because I knew the hand writing on the wall, I knew that the business was becoming more and more difficult, there were less and less opportunities than there were you know, there’s really only one company to work for and it was the WWE and unfortunately for my son you know his last name is Bischoff and that comes with a certain amount of baggage, it comes with a certain amount of opportunity too don’t get me wrong, but you know when you’re the second generation of a wrestling personality even though I’m not a wrestler, the name is kind of there.”
Mistakes He Has Made:
“Certain people have, especially in the industry have a perception of me and they think they know how I think and how I’m going to react and I’ve gone into meetings before with other wrestling organizations I’ll leave unnamed and groups of people that I won’t name and they’re expecting me to tell them what I think they should do based on my success because I’ve had some success, and the first thing I tell them is look I am worth way more to you as consultant or as an executive producer not because of the successes I’ve had, but because of the mistakes I’ve made. I’ve learned I’m way way way more valuable because of the depth and breath of failures and mistakes than I am from my successes.”