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On September 14 and October 1, 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 eight of the exclusive five-hour "Torch Talk" with former WCW President Eric Bischoff from October 1 - before Bischoff joined TNA and was just starting negotiations with TNA at the time. Part 8 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 8. Tune in tomorrow for the next series of Q&A's from the Eric Bischoff Torch Talk.
Wade Keller: What was that experience like (working with Russo in WCW as the "Dream Team")? I mean, you're taken out of the day–to–day rotation and a matter of weeks or months later Vince Russo is brought in with Ed Ferrara. That explodes after a couple of months. And then a few months later you're both kind of brought back together. Is there anything about that experience, that you looking back you think might have worked had X, Y, or Z worked differently.
Eric Bischoff: No. No. No. I mean, I don't worry about being fair to Vince Russo under the circumstances, but I do try to be honest and as objective as humanly possible even though I know I'm not all the time. It would have never worked under the best of circumstances. You can't have two strong creative personalities who see things as differently as we did and put them together in a room and have it work. It's just not. It's gotta be one or the other. It was funny. My wife and I were just talking about this the other day because it was September 10, 1999 actually that I was informed by Harvey Schiller that I was supposed to go home. Because I was here in Wyoming on September 10 on the anniversary. On that day, I got on my plane because I had my own plane at the time and I flew out here to Wyoming by myself and I had two–and–a–half years left on my contract and they owed me close to a million dollars a year, so I wasn't worried about money at the time. So to hell with it, I'm going to go fishing. And I came out here for a month or so and had a great time. My wife came out shortly thereafter and we spent some time up here. We went back to Atlanta for the holidays and then flew back out here, actually, for the Super Bowl. We wanted to hang out with some friends that we had here and I picked up my brother in Minneapolis and my sister and my wife and we jumped in my plane and we flew out here to Cody for the Super Bowl.
On the way home, because my brother lives in Minneapolis, we left Cody in my plane and flew into Minneapolis and I dropped them off and I was originally gonna just drop them off and fly to Atlanta, but it had gotten late and the weather was a little lousy, so my wife and I decided we were just going to stay in Minneapolis for the night. So I parked my plane and gassed it up and we rented a car and I drove over to a Chili's near the Flying Cloud Airport, actually, where I had landed. We were sitting there eating dinner and I was watching the monitor and it was the night that Chris [Benoit] and Eddie [Guerrero] and Dean [Malenko] and Perry Saturn and all made their move over to WWE. Again, much like I described to you the other day when I was watching TNA when I could see them on the monitor, but couldn't hear it, we were in this Chili's restaurant eating dinner, and I look up on the monitor and see Chris and Eddie and Dean and I think Perry might have been there.
My wife and I looked at each other and I was thinking this was so surreal that I'm for the first time for me—because I hadn't really been watching it, I made a mental decision that I wasn't going to watch wrestling because it was just emotional and it was just kind of a weird time for me. So I hadn't watched any wrestling until that moment and there I looked up and there are those guys on the screen. It was the first time the reality of the situation really kind of dawned on me in a visual way. I looked at my wife and I said, "Wow, this is bizarre." And she said, "They're going to call you back." They meaning WCW. I said, "I just don't see it." She said, "Trust me, they're going to call you back. So we left Minneapolis that night, flew to Atlanta, and probably within 24 hours, 48 hours, my phone rang and it was Brad Siegel.
His question was, after we got through a lot of other stuff, "Do you think you could work with Vince Russo." I said, "Brad, I can work with anybody. As long as I can trust them, I can work with them. I don't have to like somebody to work with them. But I do have to trust them. We don't have to best friends. We don't have to go out to dinner. We don't have to do any of those things. But if you can't trust somebody that you work with, it's horrible. It's just not worth it. I said as long as I can trust the guy, I can work with him, I don't care, it doesn't matter to me."
So the process was, he said, "Okay, we've got him under contract." I like Brad. I haven't talked to him in years, but I always liked Brad. He got a lot more heat than he deserved. He's stuck in the middle of a situation he didn't ask to be in. He was just trying to make the best of it. He was hoping he didn't have to fire Vince or put him on ice. He was hoping we could work together. I wanted to make it as easy on Brad as I could because I did like him and I had always gotten along with him. And he was kind of a confidant and supporter of mine all along the way. So I said, "Sure, I'll meet with him. As long as it's not oil and water, I'll do my best to make it work." I met with him in a clandestine way, away from everybody, and we sat there, and I talked to him. He's a likable guy, a charming guy. No doubt about it. Vince Russo can be a very, very disarming personality. I sat there and had lunch with him. I thought, to hell with it, I can make this work. And I literally tried for a few months. But his approach to things and my approach were decidedly different. And it ended up the way it is now.
MORE TO COME ON MONDAY WITH BISCHOFF TALKING MORE RUSSO SUBJECTS...
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