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Interviews
TORCH TALK DAILY with Eric Bischoff: Bischoff defends famous Goldberg vs. Hogan title match on Nitro (part two) Oct 30, 2009 - 12:11:57 PM
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(b) 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 last question and answer from Part 3(b). Tune in next week for the next series of Q&A's from part 4.
Wade Keller Let's look at an isolated decision that didn't necessarily lead to the demise of WCW, but a lot of people point to it as leaving a lot of money on the table, which is the decision to put Hulk Hogan vs. Goldberg on Nitro on three days or four days notice in the Georgia Dome and book the match after most of the tickets had been sold before that match was announced. I'm removing it from saying it would have changed the outcome of the Monday Night Wars. What I'm saying is isolated as a decision at that moment, how do you justify either then or now or both a one week ratings jump because the ratings went right down the following week. You did get a jump from Goldberg-Hogan, but they went right back down the following week where they had been on average the previous five, ten weeks.
Eric Bischoff: I would say the justification is - and I don't remember exactly what my thinking was at the time, I'm kind of looking back and subjectively or objectively guessing now - a lot of the things I did that many people, including you were initially very critical of, giving away main events on free TV, pay-per-view quality matches on free TV, hot-shotting just for the sake of ratings - all of those things are the things that changed the industry to this day.
Keller: And a lot of them I actually complimented. A lot of them, like you say, sometimes your memory's not just there. I loved it. I thought calling out results ahead of time showed balls and an energy level and a determination that didn't violate any rules in my head. I thought it was fantastic. I was at the bar after Nitro at the Marriott watching you watch the replay and told you I thought it was a fantastic show. I think everybody was in agreement that that first Nitro was better than anyone anticipated. Your brashness as an announcer was heralded as giving Vince McMahon the kick in the ass that he needed to get his stale product going. I mean, there's no doubt, Eric, I criticized you for a lot of things. I doubted that Nitro would work and I certainly wasn't alone on that. You blew us all out of the water with that first Nitro. And you got a lot more credit, in fairness to you, from people you think are your top critics than you remember. I think you'd be surprised at how much credit you got at the time for a lot of the things that worked that were against the grain and against tradition.
Bischoff: All right. Correction is accepted and thank you. Really, thank you. But that's the same formula. The idea that we would pull a card like Hogan and Goldberg out of our back pocket spontaneously, throw it on free TV, when we knew we'd have the 40 or 50 thousand people, we knew that would give us the type of energy that people came to expect out of Nitro. It was a happening show. You didn't know what you were going to get.
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AND NEW FOR 2009! Monthly "Vintage Audio Torch Talks." We are releasing for the first time ever audio versions of our text Torch Talk updates, the historical first series of insider interviews ever. Wade Keller's newsmaking in-depth interviews with wrestling's biggest names are now being made available exclusively to VIP members. But you must be a member each month, as these are not archived, so they are replaced with a new one each month! This debuted in January 2009 with a 68 minute interview with the late "British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith. Who's next? Hulk Hogan? Eric Bischoff? The Rock? Goldberg? Jeff Hardy?
