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Eric Bischoff: Just How Good Was He


Bob Morris

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Reading through some of the old threads about WCW and reading several posts debating just what type of impact Eric Bischoff really had, as well at least one post regarding how all the guys in charge of WCW would rank, has inspired me to bring up this subject... and maybe it will help to revive this particular section of the forum. :)

 

So what I'm going to do is throw out some of the arguments or pluses that have been thrown out regarding the positives Bischoff contributed to WCW and take a look at where things really stand with them.

 

1. He was the only executive vice president of WCW to see the company turn a profit: It is true that WCW had been losing money ever since Ted Turner purchased it, up until around 1995 or so, but there's the question as to just how profitable it really was. It is true that PPV buyrates were going up, but they weren't "huge" numbers, with the exceptions of PPVs such as 1997 Bash at the Beach and 1997 Starrcade. It also seemed WCW was spending money just as fast as they earned it, thanks to Eric Bischoff just dispensing money like it was candy on Halloween night. It's probably better stated that, under Bischoff, WCW ultimately saw its most successful period, but how profitable it truly was is another matter entirely.

 

2. His signing of Hulk Hogan attracted plenty of interest: Truth be told, once the Hogan/Flair feud ran its course, business immediately declined as nobody was interested in seeing Hogan go up against Ed Leslie in whatever gimmick he used, or John Tenta as Avalanche, or a heel-turned Big Bubba Rogers. They did have a potentially good feud with Vader, but it was killed the instant Hogan no-sold Vader's powerbomb. Had WCW booked that differently, they might have gone more business out of the feud. It wasn't until Hogan turned heel and made himself a fresh character that he really started to draw interest in WCW over a longer period of time.

 

3. He came up with the nWo angle that did big business: There are those who have actually credited Terry Taylor and Paul Orndorff with the actual ideas of an "invasion" angle and how to present it. Hogan, of course, is the guy who coined the term "New World Order." Hall and Nash are said to have come up with the catch phrases and such. As far as Bischoff goes, one could argue that his willingness to play a role in the setup of the angle, such as the powerbomb spot with Nash, is an example of how Bischoff contributed to it.

 

4. He came up with the idea of Nitro and launched the Monday Night Wars: Bischoff has said himself that it was Ted Turner who came up with the idea of a Monday night show opposite Raw. That being said, Bischoff's tactics he used on Nitro, such as booking on the fly and giving away Raw results, are debated constantly as to just how effective they are (or in the case of giving away Raw results, whether or not it was dirty pool). Nitro's debut certainly left an impression on many people, particularly the surprise appearance of Lex Luger, and the fact that Nitro had plenty of memorable moments in its early runs could be attributed to Bischoff understanding how to get Nitro to have an immediate impact on viewers.

 

5. He came up with the cruiserweight division: The cruiserweight division certainly added a new dimension to WCW shows, and helped to appeal to those who still preferred straightforward wrestling, even with the aspects that emphasized entertainment being thrown onto the shows (as much of the nWo stuff was). The problem with the CW division was that it tended to pigeonhole some wrestlers, particularly wrestlers like Eddie Guerrero and Chris Jericho, who were showing they could do more than just be a competent cruiserweight.

 

6. He got Vince McMahon to be more focused on his own product and revamp it: In a way, that is true, but Vince's initial response was the wrong response. Things like the Billionaire Ted skits and the "Attention: Scott Hall" note on the WWF's AOL site did nothing to help Vince and his company, and it did take Vince more than a year to revamp his product so it came off as "edgier."

 

When I look back at Bischoff's run in WCW, there were definitely plenty of ups and downs. The nWo angle definitely revolutionized the business, but the question remains as to just how much of it was Bischoff's responsibility. And Bischoff was certainly aggressive, but one could say he was "aggressive to a fault" given that he was often signing talent when not having any clue what to do with said talent.

 

Out of those who held the "executive vice president of WCW" position, I would say he was the best of the lot in terms of overall success, but his faults really did stand out. In particular, his desire to be "one of the boys" rather than their boss was a big problem.

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I think a large part of his success is based on the fact that he was able to pitch his ideas successfully to the Turner people. The Monday night wrestling idea was actually suggested by Jim Herd once years before and shot down, and the whole idea of signing international talent to fill out a light heavyweight division while running with a strong heel stable led by an ex-WWFer is something Kip Frey did in his very brief term.

 

He deserves credit for taking ideas others had and getting the most out of them, and he's a great self-promoter, but he wasn't a visionary or anything, and I don't think he ever really understood pro wrestling all that well.

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Guest Autoclave

3. He came up with the nWo angle that did big business: There are those who have actually credited Terry Taylor and Paul Orndorff with the actual ideas of an "invasion" angle and how to present it.

 

Could someone elaborate on this? It's a theory I've never heard before. Orndorff was an agent/writer/booker of some kind at this time? Taylor in particular is a guy whose work as an agent I've been wondering about after seeing his heel turn on the Watts set.

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Kip Frye era is my favorite WCW era and I'd point to him as the best of lot.

 

Still wrote this here in early January:

 

I don’t want to get too much into theories of management here, but:

 

Years ago I was living across the street from the Howard University campus when Ted Turner came to speak to the business school. He gave an almost by the numbers entrepreneur speaks at minority business school speech with lots of “picking up own bootstraps” “grabbing your own oars” type metaphors (those may be just entrepreneur at all business school cliché’s and not just HBCU ones) but in among his clichés and homilies he built a long section around “never set goals in life, because then when you accomplish them you stop and stagnate”. This is kind of ridiculous bit of advice for those of us who don’t have a Midas touch but really was the guiding philosophy of modern era entrepreneur. Don’t set goals, surround yourself with competent people with strong work ethics and monetize one success to move onto the other. I think about that speech a lot when thinking about what I liked about Bischoff era WCW. Bischoff era WCW was all about almost indifferent Laissez faire leadership, surrounded by lots of guys with strong work ethics and lots of hours of wrestling. Nobody in management really cared about LWO v Rey feud, nobody in management really cared that much about the cruiserweights, about keeping track of wins/losses in Armstrong brothers/Villanos/Disorderly Conduct/Texas Hangmen series, etc And that was really the joy of late nineties WCW. “Hey awesome El Dandy is going 15 against Villano V in the main event of the Pro”, “ What the fuck? Konnan wants to embarrass Antonio Pena by having Villano IV work unmasked as Tony Pena against Regal, but Regal realizes that IV can go and so has a mat clinic with him instead of squashing him”, “ I thought Eaton was completely washed up but he’s having this fun match with some kid named Dinsmore on the Main Event”, “women’s cruiserweight tourney?”. Laissez faire management, large roster with guys with strong work ethics and lots of time to fill.

 

 

Vince Jr is not known for laissez faire management. He’s not a guy who operates like a modern entrepreneur (more like turn of the century entrepreneur) . He’s known as an absolute control freak. The WWF under him (and Patterson) in the 80s and nineties was a tightly controlled ship. The whole “WhiFF” complaint about the WWF style being built around guys controlling their own bumps and move execution not mattering is a style that allows for management control (almost perfect information model where you can tell exactly what work labor is performing). The complaints about guys having their movesets limited, the real standardized formulas, the nature of the finishes, the way the promotion would get mad and change the crowd noise when the wrong guy was getting over, the way at one point I could tell you based on card positioning exactly how many exchanges would take place in any match (as a novelty party skill, this was not a skill I’m particularly proud of)…all that is very controlled style. I don’t want to sound critical of that style as sometimes you get great things out of it. Normally I point to Canadian Stampede as the peak of WWF style wrestling. The way that it’s worked is a very WWF way to of organizing labor. Style that is very different from early 90s All Japan 6 Man, or a Wargames match or New Japan v UWF elimination match. But I think it holds up well next to those. (And really if you wanted to explain to someone the “philosophical” differences between the different feds those would probably be the matches I’d show).

. He came up with the nWo angle that did big business: There are those who have actually credited Terry Taylor and Paul Orndorff with the actual ideas of an "invasion" angle and how to present it. Hogan, of course, is the guy who coined the term "New World Order." Hall and Nash are said to have come up with the catch phrases and such. As far as Bischoff goes, one could argue that his willingness to play a role in the setup of the angle, such as the powerbomb spot with Nash, is an example of how Bischoff contributed to it.

 

4. He came up with the idea of Nitro and launched the Monday Night Wars: Bischoff has said himself that it was Ted Turner who came up with the idea of a Monday night show opposite Raw.

...

The nWo angle definitely revolutionized the business, but the question remains as to just how much of it was Bischoff's responsibility.

The manager that lets people under him contribute is a smart manager. And while puppets need a puppeteer and Bischoff often let the strings too loose, the manager who is willing to let the people under him contribute creatively...still is and should be given credit.

 

Watching a bunch of WCW I think it's also clear that for better or worse Bischoff is a guy who really really liked his martial arts. Anyplace else and under anyone else,Stevie Ray would have likely been the guy with the big singles push. Bischoff likes kickers the way Vince likes WASPS with Irish last names. And yeah it gave us the Cat, but it meant that Ultimo, Booker T, Jerry Flynn and a ton of other guys were presented as having credible offense.

 

He gets credit for the influence that the cruiser division has had, he gets credit for the influence that Benoit heavyweight style has had, etc. These were things that the "talent" developed on their own. Juve figured out how to work for a US audience. Benoit figured out what the WCW audience would get into. But Bischoff is the guy who put it out there and didnt second guess the talent and tell them to do anything else.

 

Being in charge means you take the credit and blame for everything that happens under you. It's why when Russo says "Giving David Arquette the world title wasn't my idea" it is meaningless. It happens under your watch it's yours.

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3. He came up with the nWo angle that did big business: There are those who have actually credited Terry Taylor and Paul Orndorff with the actual ideas of an "invasion" angle and how to present it.

 

Could someone elaborate on this? It's a theory I've never heard before. Orndorff was an agent/writer/booker of some kind at this time? Taylor in particular is a guy whose work as an agent I've been wondering about after seeing his heel turn on the Watts set.

 

I heard the Orndorff claim a million years ago in the RSPW FAQ, and believed it until I wised up to a lot of Scott Keith's bullshit. Now, who can be sure? Never heard the Taylor claim before. Never thought of him as a major player until later in the decade.

 

Of course, the correct answer to the question is "Riki Choshu". Who in WCW decided to steal it is another matter entirely.

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I did recall the Taylor and Orndroff stuff from the RSPW FAQ, but of course, the information in it varied from accurate to not accurate. Mostly, though, I threw that out because there are those who like to know who in particular had the idea, regardless of who was in charge.

 

Briefly touching upon Russo, one could easily say that what happened was as much the fault of Bill Busch (who brought Russo on board and allowed him full control of booking for three months before changing his mind) and Brad Siegel (who more or less took on Busch's duties after Busch resigned), if we are using the argument of "who is in charge." Not to absolve Russo of any blame, but he wasn't the "executive vice president of WCW" at any time, he was the head booker.

 

That's mostly where I'm trying to look at Bischoff's reign, as in what can he be credited or not from the standpoint of his position. Under Bischoff, several different people held the book for various periods (Rhodes, Flair, Sullivan, Nash) and those are the people that get the credit or blame for what got booked.

 

I do see what tomk is saying though with regards to Bischoff.

 

I'll address one other point he made: When it came to Russo, I don't think he's passed credit on to Tony Schiavone for the David Arquette deal because he wants to be absolved of blame. Russo maintains to this day he liked the idea and the photo in USA Today is proof that it was a good idea. His real problem is he keeps maintaining it was a good idea, regardless of who thought of it first, even with the numbers clearly indicating it did not work.

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I'll address one other point he made: When it came to Russo, I don't think he's passed credit on to Tony Schiavone for the David Arquette deal because he wants to be absolved of blame. Russo maintains to this day he liked the idea and the photo in USA Today is proof that it was a good idea. His real problem is he keeps maintaining it was a good idea, regardless of who thought of it first, even with the numbers clearly indicating it did not work.

Personally, I see it as Russo's way of having his cake and eating it, too. The Arquette Title run was a smash hit....but just in case you think it wasn't, it was totally this other guy's fault.

 

Russo's whole "Forgiven" thing was that he would go around claiming that he was going to make an honest appraisal of his life and career, and that he wasn't going to go easy on himself, but then proceeded to blame everything that went wrong under him on everyone but himself, often playing down it's significance at the same time. His treatment of the Arquette thing is consistent with that.

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Guest DaDirtiest

I'm fairly new here, but I'm glad I've found a place to discuss 90's era stuff. There are many valid points made about Bischoff's reign, but honestly, did any other booker/Exec. VP turn a profit? The promotion seemed to be a tax write off from the time Turner picked it up until the NWO thing took off, and then when shit died down again late 99 it was looking quite similar. I will agree that his willingness for the powerbomb spot off the stage with Nash really cemented their status as major league heels, but his signing of Hogan was nothing of interest, Hogan was insignificant until his heel turn. I don't like the idea of thinking of Bischoff as the 'brainchild' of the cruiserweight division, because I really don't think that was his idea.

On the other hand I will definitely give you kudos as a good reviewer and a competent wrestling fan, as you are spot on with saying that Bischoff's competitive nature forced McMahon to revamp his product. Can you say Survivor Series 97?

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A lot of Bischoff being the first to make a profit is overblown. In '95, it took moving Hogan's salary to Turner Home Entertainment, and also doing some other cost restructuring to make it happen. Under those guidelines, WCW would have turned a profit every year of its existence until 1999-2000, when Bischoff was steering the ship more than half the time.

 

Russo deservedly gets bashed for the New Blood/Millionaires Club 2000-era stuff, but Bischoff was part of that as well.

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Eric deserves a lot of the credits, and a lot of the blame. The problem with WCW is that a lot of people fall into those categories and it's just about impossible to give a realistic "percentage" of credit and blame to each person.

 

We can say positive and negative things about the signing of Hogan. He did twice run his course, after the Flair feud and after the Vader feud (which actually did very good PPV business despite the bad booking). But the reality is that they never would have "beaten" the WWF for that long run without him on top going heel with the nWo. No one else in that role would have done the same business. So Eric has to get some credit for that.

 

We can say positive and negative things about the signing of Hall & Nash. On their own, they *didn't* launch WCW through the moon. On the other hand, without them there wouldn't have been the Hogan turn and the nWo storyline that anchored the company through most of their success. The signing did start a ball rolling that took off huge. Eric made that deal.

 

We can give Ted some credit for greenlighting Nitro. But honestly we have to give Eric credit for throwing _everything_ into Nitro right from the start in attacking Raw. I don't think many hardcores, nor many people in either company, expected Nitro to challenge Raw. "Suicide" was the more common thought. Eric made it work.

 

They had a concept of "Big Matches" that no doubt pissed away a lot of money on things like Rodman and Jay Leno. But they also had quite a few strong PPV buys (along with strong TV ratings) on things like Hogan-Savage renewed, Hogan-Piper renewed, Hogan-Sting, etc. Even the Leno match did a strong buy. Eric greenlit this stuff, and has to get some credit for it.

 

Of course there's the other direction. Some of the things that Tom points to as laissez faire management eventually helped kill the company.

 

The company would have shut down earlier without Eric. I doubt it would have lasted long in the Time Warner era continuing to lose money, and without the cash cow that was Nitro and Thunder programing. The old business model of 1992-93 and even 1994 and early 1995 wouldn't have lasted. A unit can "lose money" in a Time Warner corporation if someone else in the corp is making money off you. The "books" of the Braves might have shown a loss, but other elements of Time Warner (such as TBS) were raking in the cash because their contract for Braves programing vastly undervalued its true worth. So the big profits were over on someone else's books.

 

Pro wrestling wasn't a big cash cow in programing in 1992 through early 1995. Nitro and then Thunder helped change that. Then the PPV's took off.

 

I tend to think we vastly underrate the true "profit" to Time Warner-Turner in the 1996-2000 time frame, simply because all that's floated to Meltzer are the "books" of WCW. We can talk about contracts being moved over to Turner Entertainmaint. It's a drop in the bucket compared to the impact of Nitro and Thunder on those channels revenue streams... even if one wants to roll out the "wrestling's ad rates are lower than other stuff". I know that. But they are lower than the 5th re-run of America's Funniest Home Videos doing test patern ratings.

 

John

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Guest DaDirtiest

Talking about Eric starting the Cruiserweight Division, isn't it possible Konnan just got in his ear? I read he was influential in getting in Bischoff's ear to hire La Parka, Rey Mysterio Jr, Psychosis, Juventud Guerrera and Damien 666.

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  • 1 month later...
Guest Iron Chad

I was skimming through a WON from a couple of years ago, I think around the time when Bischoff's biography came out and Meltzer mentioned that Bischoff got TNT and TBS to actually pay WCW rights fees for WCW programming, which no other head had done. I think Dave mentioned that WCW would've turned a profit for several pre-Bischoff regimes if WCW had just been paid rights fees by Turner for its programming.

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Guest Iron Chad

What's the deal with this Kip Frey guy? I know he was around in '92 but what exactly did he do that was similar to what they were doing later on?

Kip (K. Allen Frey how WCW referred to him on the air) was a helluva guy, he actually seemed to care about the fans and wrestlers and the product, etc. He would actually hang with the fans at the CenterStage tapings and ask them stuff about what the wanted to see, who they liked, etc. You never got that from Jim Herd, but with folks like Ole Anderson booking for much of Herd's tenure wrestling fans were just stupid marks to be detested which is why we got bullshit like the Fake Sting V1 and the Black Scorpion. Like most of the Turner folks tabbed to run the company, I don't think he had a wrestling background. IIRC, he was a Turner Entertainment corporate lawyer.

 

He instituted bonuses for best match on each show like UFC does today (not the best example, but that's one of the only other instances I can recall where there was a regular bonus policy for each big show in place for best performance) and probably stuff like that and resigning some of his faves like Brian Pillman and Paul Heyman to big contracts, led to his dismissal after less than a year, I think, in charge with Bill Watts brought in to "turn WCW around".

 

It doesn't hurt that Kip Frey's tenure had tons of great matches and was the Dangerous Alliance v. Sting and a bunch of other cool babyfaces and Rick Steamboat (Steamboat was a great baby, but never "cool" in any respect whatsoever, unless 2% milk and monogamous marriage gets you riled up), plus Cactus Jack bouncing around on the undercard. I am very wistful for the late 1991-late 1992 WCW days for a bunch of reasons, I'm not sure how many of them are directly related to Kip Frey, but I remember his tenure fondly. (Insert quote from Foley via Kevin Nash about Kip's inherent sexiness here)

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The similarities to what was being done later is that he was the first one to try a Japanese-influenced light heavyweight division in the U.S. in a major promotion. There were always junior titles, but Kip's light heavyweight division had Liger and wasn't wrestled in the same style as the heavyweight matches. There were some problems in how they presented it at times, but Bischoff ended up going further with the idea years later.

 

The other similarities are between the Dangerous Alliance and the NWO. Both were strong renegade heel factions created with the idea of "taking over" WCW. Again, Bischoff took the idea further.

 

I'm not implying Bischoff directly aped anything from him, but there were sparks of ideas that showed up that were a huge part of Bischoff's WCW a few years later, and were key ingredients in WCW being successful. Frey couldn't execute them quite as well, but his head was in the right place.

 

His six months was so much better than the six months they gave Bill Watts. I wish they would have stuck with him longer.

 

The DA wasn't drawing, but might have eventually had they not blown it off in six months. Watts obviously hated Heyman enough to kill the group, and I don't think anyone in the group was pushed as hard or had as much impact (maybe Rude, but even then, he wasn't the centerpiece anymore) under Watts.

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What's the deal with this Kip Frey guy? I know he was around in '92 but what exactly did he do that was similar to what they were doing later on?

 

http://fds.duke.edu/db/aas/PublicPolicy/kfrey

 

Things that he did similar that Loss pointed to were midcard light heavyweight division with international talent (Lyger), running with a "strong heel stable led by an ex-WWFer" ( Ric Rude and the Dangerous Alliance), and the actual spending of money.

 

I think Loss is way overstating the similarities.There are lots of differences between the way the light heavyweight division was used under Frye and the cruisers under Bischoff. Lots of differences between the DA and the NWO. Lots of differences between the way Frye sppent money and Bischoff spent money (Frye spent money smarter, Iron chad mentions the incentives for best matches which meant quality of matches during that period are in my opinion better than quality of televised wrestling before or after anywhere in US and resulted in shows where Curtis Hughes v Nikita would deliver ***+ match).

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There are definitely lots of differences between the juniors divisions, or the NWO vs DA, but stripping it down to nothing but a strong heel faction led by a company outsider with a juniors division featuring international talent on the undercard, there is that similarity.

 

It was more to point out that Frey getting full backing from Turner and more time to see things through might have resulted in him being successful in the same way Bischoff was. But yes, the DA was more of a workhorse group that created tons of good matches on free TV, while the NWO were more gaga. And yes, there was no lucha influence on Frey's juniors division, and far less talent was used in that spot.

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  • 9 months later...

Eric Bischoff didn't know how to tell a story or "build" anything. Look at spring/summer 1998 WWF; they solidly built their key feuds until SummerSlam that year and weren't trying to hot-shot anything to pop a rating. Then "Crash TV" came about and I still think that was just a Vince McMahon social experiment ("Damn it! I'm going to change the standards of acceptable TV in America!")

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I don't think Bischoff not being able to tell a story or "build" anything is true (WCW did build Hogan vs. Sting for about a year during his period in power) or would be a good criticism if true (that's why promoters have bookers). It's also completely untrue that the WWF weren't hotshotting in the spring/summer of 1998 to pop rating, as they teased giving away their biggest matches away on free TV on several occasions though rarely delivering, changed the World title on free TV and gave away big gimmick matches away on free TV such as Hell In A Cell. There's probably tons of other stuff they did that I'm forgetting too. The WWF were just much better at using their hotshotting to build their key feuds and storylines, but even they fell into the trap of focussing too much on week to week ratings.

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Talking about Eric starting the Cruiserweight Division, isn't it possible Konnan just got in his ear? I read he was influential in getting in Bischoff's ear to hire La Parka, Rey Mysterio Jr, Psychosis, Juventud Guerrera and Damien 666.

I had always heard that it was Kevin Sullivan that pushed the idea of a cruiserweight division. It definitely did set WCW apart.

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Sullivan's also taken credit for everything from Hogan's heel turn to Goldberg's streak, so I don't know how much we can credit him with anything. In fact, that's the problem of any outsider trying to analyze most large wrestling companies with multiple writer/bookers, especially one as chaotic as WCW was. It's hard to really know for sure exactly who came up with what parts of the product.

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Guest secondcoming

The similarities to what was being done later is that he was the first one to try a Japanese-influenced light heavyweight division in the U.S. in a major promotion. There were always junior titles, but Kip's light heavyweight division had Liger and wasn't wrestled in the same style as the heavyweight matches. There were some problems in how they presented it at times, but Bischoff ended up going further with the idea years later.

 

The other similarities are between the Dangerous Alliance and the NWO. Both were strong renegade heel factions created with the idea of "taking over" WCW. Again, Bischoff took the idea further.

 

I'm not implying Bischoff directly aped anything from him, but there were sparks of ideas that showed up that were a huge part of Bischoff's WCW a few years later, and were key ingredients in WCW being successful. Frey couldn't execute them quite as well, but his head was in the right place.

 

His six months was so much better than the six months they gave Bill Watts. I wish they would have stuck with him longer.

 

The DA wasn't drawing, but might have eventually had they not blown it off in six months. Watts obviously hated Heyman enough to kill the group, and I don't think anyone in the group was pushed as hard or had as much impact (maybe Rude, but even then, he wasn't the centerpiece anymore) under Watts.

Copy and Improve...it's the business...

 

it's really EVERY business, isn't it?

 

movies, music, television, books, wrestling, to websites and even business ventures...everything has been done.

I don't think Bisch can be looked down on for taking the remnants of an idea and making it better, as everything comes from somewhere...couldn't you say the renegade stables started with the Heenan Family, Monry Inc...or even Jimmy Hart's First family?

And then later duplicated again by the WCW/ECW Alliance and TNA/Russo's SEX

 

 

Eric Bischoff didn't know how to tell a story or "build" anything. Look at spring/summer 1998 WWF; they solidly built their key feuds until SummerSlam that year and weren't trying to hot-shot anything to pop a rating. Then "Crash TV" came about and I still think that was just a Vince McMahon social experiment ("Damn it! I'm going to change the standards of acceptable TV in America!")

Eric pretty much single-handedly "built" the story of the war with WWF, didn't he?...that was one helluva chance that paid off for a while...

 

 

Also, it may be going over my head as it is late and I am a little foggy, but how can we say that EB is not responsible for the nWo because he may not have come up with the idea, but then tear him for his part in the New Blood debacle?

 

and, I am sure I am in the minority here...but, i think the New Blood concept was a pretty good idea...taken from a real situation...the young, talented held-backers fighting to come up in the company holding them down...THAT'S a story...

 

the execution, however, left much to be desired...and as much as everyone would like to lay all of the blame on Russo...let's be honest...how can you make an underdog storyline work if *behind the curtain* the established old farts really refused to make any room...

I think Russo's booking is stale and predictable, but I don't think it was any worse than Nash's turn...at least Russo was willing to take chances (albeit Arquette-esque on some occasion)...

 

I don't know, I am fading and will probably find more than a few fallacies in my logic re-reading this tomorrow.

 

-night.

 

James

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