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 four of the exclusive five-hour "Torch Talk" with former WCW President Eric Bischoff. This fourth part of the series picks up in the midst of a discussion about Bischoff's oft-criticized decision to put the first-ever Hulk Hogan vs. Goldberg match on free Nitro with just four day's notice. Part 4(a) of our daily Q&As will 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 latest question and answer from Part 4(a). Tune in tomorrow for the next series of Q&A's from part 4.

Wade Keller: Looking back, do you feel, not that you're the personality to play the victim card other than high-corporate put pressure on you and you've made it really clear and I think there's a real good case that a lot of people don't give enough credit for in terms of how disruptive that environment was - but do you feel on a more micro level a victim of wrestlers you paid so well that you were dubbed behind your back and in front of your face "ATM Eric?" Do you feel you were betrayed to a degree with mediocre efforts and outright sabotage and selfishness at the expense of WCW by some of those people who were paid so well and that you put your trust in?

Eric Bischoff: Umm, to a degree, of course. To a degree. But again, I put everything into the perspective on a personal level. The ol' "ATM Eric" kind of came up after I left Turner or Time-Warner in '99. People were looking for that one thing to hang the failure, if you will, of WCW on and meatheads like Jerry Jarrett and people who had nothing to do with the company and some of the talent, they'd say, "Oh, it's those guaranteed contracts. He was paying these guys millions of dollars." Well, that's exactly what I mean when I say people on the periphery who didn't understand what was really going on were saying those things out there in the media because (a) it was convenient, it made them look smart, made them feel better about themselves. When it came to talent, what did you think these guys were going to say? When they have nowhere else to go to work, do you think they're all going to line up and say, "Eric Bischoff is the greatest guy I've ever worked for and he's really smart; he's smarter than Vince McMahon. The reason that company didn't work is because of some of the internal bullsh-- that was going on in WCW." Do you think any of that talent from Chris Jericho to Kevin Nash to any of them would have stood up and defended me? Even if they believed it? I'm not saying they do, but if they did, of course they would because they all had to go look Vince McMahon in the eye because he was the only place for the to go. So the natural [instinct] - I guess it's human nature - would be self-preservation. So if you're a talent and you've got to feed your family and in some cases you've got to go back to the guy you walked out on, what are you going to say?

MORE TO COME TOMORROW...

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