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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. Part 4(b) 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(b). Tune in tomorrow for the next series of Q&A's from part 4.
Wade Keller: I'm actually really curious to ask this, because this might be related, too. WWE went public. After they went public, how do you think that changed the way Vince McMahon approached the creative side of his company. Do you think he became more or less daring? Or do you think he's just exactly the same and it's just a different financial structure?
Eric Bischoff: I don't think it has anything to do with being public. He went public and then went into Attitude. Some of the most controversial things that he's ever done, he did shortly after he went public. So I don't think his sensitivity or any outside pressure of being a public company has ever had any effect on his creative or business decisions. I do think that the advertising environment and the network environment has forced him or motivated him to change the tone and the direction of his company into this PG family-friendly environment. Because wrestling is a tough sale in the ad sales market. I've said this before and I think most people who follow the business side of the wrestling business closely understand that in even the best of ad sales environments when the economy is moving along great and ad sales are strong and networks are strong, even in the best of environments, wrestling is a tough sell because it's not fish and it's not fowl. It's not really a sport, it's not really drama, it's not really reality. It doesn't call into a neat little box that advertisers can get behind that advertisers can get behind and feel comfortable selling to their clients. Meaning if I'm Omnicom or an Omnicom company and my job is to manage my clients who may be General Motors or whoever, pick a Fortune 500 advertiser, my job as an advertising executive is to bring great opportunities to my client. I am judged on a day-to-day basis based on my ability or my expertise in maximizing my client's advertising dollars. So when I go to my client and I'm an advertising executive and say, "Hey, I think you should dump a bunch of money into professional wrestling," more often than not that's met with a lot of resistance or quizzical looks. That's in a good environment.
Now you go into a very difficult ad sales environment like we've really been in now for two years, and all of a sudden you can't have any controversial elements to your recommendations to your clients if you're an ad sales exec. You can't go in and say, "Hey, I think we should dump ten million dollars a year into professional wrestling" and these guys are giving birth to hands and flipping people off and girls are making out and stripping in the middle of the ring. You will no longer have a client. Because of market conditions and the change in the television industry and network's reactions to it, I think Vince has been forced to really go into that PG kind of an area. I don't think he went as willingly as it probably appears. Maybe he did. I could be dead wrong. I have no idea from the inside, obviously. Just knowing what I know and knowing how challenging this PG environment is and how challenging it is creatively because you lose so many tools. Once you make that commitment to be family-friendly, PG, your creative toolbox goes from the size of a pick-up truck to the size of a shoe-box. You lose so many different elements and tools and things to do. I don't think anybody would willingly go there, personally.
MORE TO COME TOMORROW WITH THE NEXT PART OF THE SERIES...
