In the early 1990s, WWF/E's top competitor, WCW, changed directions by hiring Eric Bischoff as company president, which set in motion changes to modern TV wrestling that are still on-display today. In this WCW Wednesday Flashback, Torch editor Wade Keller talks to Bischoff about how he became WCW president, his initial challenges trying to implement new ideas for the promotion, and more...

WCW Wednesday Flashback
Eric Bischoff Torch Talk
April 1994
With Wade Keller, PWTorch editor

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Keller: What was the path to your current position in WCW?

Bischoff: I don't really know how to answer that other than it became apparent in December of 1992 when I think everybody here realized that the product was suffering in a lot of different ways. This company has always been struggling. That's pretty obvious. But we were struggling even more toward the end of the Bill Watts era. I personally, because I've always been involved in television, saw a lot of things that I felt were just fundamentally wrong with the way we produced television. I had been kind of formulating a plan in my own mind as to what I thought had to be done to bring the television at least up to an acceptable standard. I was prepared to bring that to whomever I had to bring it to, whether it was Jim Ross at the time or Bill Watts had I had that opportunity to say, "Hey guys, you need to fix these things." I didn't know at the time that there was a lot of turmoil with upper management. I didn't really know what the status of their positions were.

In any event, I had kind of prepared more or less an outline of what I thought I would fix if given the opportunity. At about that same time, it was announced that Bill Shaw was going to be looking for an executive producer. Timing was everything. Basically I took the outline I prepared, not knowing if I was ever going to be able to use it and I threw my hat in the ring and became a candidate along with four or five other people.

Keller: What was it do you think that got you that position? Your familiarity with the product and that you had some experience in that area?

Bischoff: I guess you would have to ask Bill Shaw why he chose me. He never really told me. I think, a lot of people don't realize that my experience in wrestling is somewhat limited, but I've done just about everything but put up a wrestling ring and wrestle. Those are the only two things I haven't done. I've done syndication for approximately two years on a limited basis. I don't want to overstate what I did. But I've done syndication. Also with Verne (Gagne in the AWA) I've done corporate sponsorship development. In fact, at the time, I put together the largest event sponsorship package with a brewery that had ever been done. I put one together with the G. Hieleman Brewing Company from scratch. I got Verne $100,000 for five events. I put together that. I got involved in production. I put together a home video project with Paramount Motion Pictures with their home video distribution in Canada called Famous Players. I created a best of the '80s type of home video product that essentially took a lot of scratch footage and repackaged it and I sold that to Famous Players for a pretty huge chunk of money. I've done event promotions. I've promoted throughout Iowa and Minnesota.

So, I haven't done any one thing for a long period of time, but I have had the unique opportunity to do a lot of different things that are a part of the wrestling business. And that combined with my interest and, I guess, experience in the television end of things, perhaps that's one of the things that made me a candidate.

Keller: Did you meet any resistance initially going from an announcer to being executive producer? Did you sense anybody was saying you didn't deserve the spot or were politics not much of an issue at that early stage?

Bischoff: I think politics were an issue, but probably in my mind more than anybody else's. When I went from being a non-player to being one of the players, I had a certain amount of, not just self-doubt, but I was aware of (potential tension). That's a pretty major change. I was concerned because a lot of the people I was now asked to supervise were people who were my friends and peers. When that relationship changes, literally overnight or within the course of two or three weeks, you always worry about what kind of effect it's going to have on people who were your friends and peers previous to that.

But really, there were some minor problems and minor adjustments on everybody's side. I think the biggest problem probably existed in my own mind. I quickly realized there were a whole lot of people in this company who really want to make this work and are very supportive and given the right opportunities will rise to the occasion. That's basically how I approached this thing. I tried to give the people I knew had the talent and the abilities free reign to do the things they felt needed to be done to improve the product.

[Torch art credit Travis Beaven (c) PWTorch.com]

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