On Monday, September 14, PWTorch editor Wade Keller interviewed former WCW President Eric Bischoff an exclusive multi-hour "Torch Talk" interview covering a variety of controversial subjects from the Monday Night War period, his days on WWE TV, his 2006 autobiography, and the "Rise & Fall of WCW" DVD.

The following is the latest installment of Part 3 of our daily Q&As to be published here at PWTorch.com, which is unprecedented with our VIP-exclusive "Torch Talk" series.

To both READ and LISTEN to the entire interview, you'll want to become a VIP member, which also includes instant access to our newsmaking multi-hour in-depth hard-hitting "Torch Talks" with other top WCW players such as Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, X-Pac, Vince Russo, Ed Ferrara, Hulk Hogan, Goldberg, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, and others (ALL AVAILABLE AT THIS LINK FOR VIP MEMBERS). To subscribe right now and be the first to read the entire Bischoff "Torch Talk" and have VIP-only access to the audio, click here. The first audio segment and transcript installment is now available for VIP members.

We present today's third question and answer from Part 3. Tune in Sunday for the next series of questions from Part 3.

Wade Keller: Do you think it would have been worth the price (for WWE to buy the big names from WCW) - I've argued it wouldn't have been worth the price to go to the wrestlers who were not part of the WCW acquisition by WWE, who were still under contract and being paid by Time-Warner - that their contracts were such that their buyout plus what it would take to pay them to go on the road full time and work the WWE schedule would have thrown Vince's equilibrium with his own talent way off.

Eric Bischoff: It would have been... look. (laughs) Going back to one of the questions you asked me earlier on, is there anything I could have learned from WWE or WWF back in 1998, if I would have known then what I know now is basically what you asked me. Going back to the differences between the two companies, WWF when I took over at WCW in '93 or '94, whenever it was, WWF was a well-oiled, well-established, very mature business. Their licensing, their merchandising was already in place. They had a formula, they had a track record. When the talent came to the WWF and said, "I'm ready to sign on the dotted line," of course they could sign for very little guarantees or no guarantees because there had been a long track record of guys who did the same thing and who made a lot of money. WCW never had that advantage. WCW was such a new company, when you go back and look at it, '89, '90, '91 was just basically figuring out which shoe to put on first basically. By '92, '93, '94, WCW was still wobbling around, unsteady and not really sure what it was doing. There was no merchandise. There was no licensing. ...

Unlike Vince, I couldn't say, "If you come here, forget about this big guarantee that you're asking for, you're going to make 500 thousand dollars a year or 750 dollars a year in merchandise. Just look at Sting over here, he took over a a million in merchandise last year." We didn't have that because we didn't have that maturity in our business model. We hadn't been around long enough. And during the period that WCW was around prior to my getting here, it wasn't really something that was generating any revenue in licensing or merchandising. Because we didn't have that revenue stream to point to to prospective talent, that talent had to make at least as much money as they could make with WWF, and if you go back and look, the guys, although their contracts were guaranteed - and there were a lot of flaws with that, I had to live it, believe me - but when a guy like Kevin Nash or Scott Hall, who's been making $750 or $850 all in with WWF, why would they come to WCW without some kind of guarantee because there was no licensing and merchandising.

MORE TO COME ...

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