How Overrated is Eric Bischoff?

[RedRegan1005]

I Guess overrated might not even be a good term sense I've always thought he was garbage creatively. To me he's more of a blind squirrell that found an acorn once. Some think he's actually a smart booker, but i thinks he's so far from that. He's a one trick pony that keeps trying to pull of the same trick and get the same result. He got lucky with the NWO and it worked, but that's about the only good thing he took part in coming up with. Hell he even messed up the NWO angle as it never seemed to die. It's like the only wrestling Ideas he comes up with have to do with heel factions and control of the company. Think about it, almost the entire time he was with WWE what was the main angle on raw? Evolution, a heel faction that at one point held all the gold. Then he went to TNA and what did we get? Immortal another heel faction. And that was filled with swerves of people turning and joining Immortal. Oh and don't forget all the crap we got over control of TNA in that storyline. The Immortal storyline really kicked off at Bound For Glory when the loooong time face Jeff Hardy did the "unthinkable" and aligned with Bischoff and Hogan. Which was an attempt to mirror the way Hogan joined NWO, except there was one problem. IT DIDN'T WORK! The whole heel faction formed of random wrestlers and taking over a company is dead and doesn't work and won't until it goes away and we don't see it for awhile. Don't get me wrong factions still work. Like the shield and the wyatt family. But all the wrestlers in it have some sort off connection and came up to the main roster as a group. What doesn't work is when its random guys and you spend weeks trying to swerve people and have wrestlers join and leave said faction. In my eyes Bischoff and Hogan were a cancer that has put TNA on life support and its going to take a lot for them to get off of it. In a nut shell, I'm saying Bischoff as a writer or booker, sucks.

So the main question I'm asking is: What do you think of Bischoff?

 

[Claude Speed]

I heard he had something to do with that Sting/NWO angle. For him to drag it on as long as he did was genius. It's still one of the best angles ever.

And he did bring in Goldberg.

 

[MWRedskins]

Well firstly I can't answer how much booking power he had on RAW. Sure he was the storyline GM, but did he book the show?? If he didn't book the show then Evolution has nothing to do with Bischoff. Now to my opinion if him. He had really good ideas, but also really bad ones. Thanks to Eric, the Monday Night wars happened. He helped with the one PPV a month and he did find nice Cruiserweight wrestlers while having edgy stories. The bad though was how long he stuck with some things (nWo) was too large and lasted too long and Eric constantly pushed Hogan and gave many wrestlers too much power. Eric shouldn't be underrated or overrated to me. He should be known for his good and bad ideas which makes him average to me.

 

[ProWrestlingFan]

I think you are confusing his on-screen persona with him being a booker. He never had any booking power on RAW. That was all Vince and his writers, same with TNA. He was the Executive Producer of the show (Impact) not the head writer/booker. (TNA has been doing the heel faction storylines way before Bischoff arrived in TNA. Main Event Mafia vs Frontline, EV 2.0 etc.)
The only time he had booking power was in WCW and WCW from 1996 to mid-1998 is one of the best booked promotions in wrestling history.
Also,
-Bischoff is responsible for wrestling being Live today
-Bischoff is responsible for 1 PPV per month format which WWE still uses today.
-Bringning cruiserweights to mainstream wrestling
-NWO
-Booking of crow Sting
-Goldberg,
-DDP etc

He made some bad decisions like he gave too much creative control to Hogan etc but he also contributed a lot to wrestling. He doesn't get enough credit. Underrated.

 

[relentless1]

Bischoff was underrated if anything, he was an innovator of many ideas that the guy above me touched on but one that ppl don't really touch on is he was the innovator of the modern heel boss character, he did it a year and a half before Vince and IMO he did it better.

 

[haydo 434]

Bischoff is one of the greatest on screen characters in wrestling history. His work with nwo was brilliant, overall in wcw his work was great, the move to wwe was also very impressive not only was he a great gm but he drew great heat from the crowd the only other on person who draws natural heel heat like that is the genius paul heyman!

 

[TDFG]

I'd say he was underrated. Ok, he had a massive bank book to work with, but he brought cruiserweights to the mainstream in a way it was never seen before, without him there probably wouldn't have been a Monday Night War.

His downfall was he was too loyal to the veterans & was there when crazy contracts were being handed out, instead of concentrating on keeping WCW No. 1, it seemed like he was more intent on driving WWE out of business and took his eye of the ball when WCW started to fall apart.

 

[Wald]

He's very much underrated as a booker. I don't know how old you were back in the early 90s but to take WCW from the heap it was in in 1993 and make it more popular than the WWF by 1996 is an insanely great achievement.

 

[JoeyJoeJoe]

I would say he's average, possibly underrated. The issue is that it's tough to separate Bischoff's actions and decisions from Hogan's presence and creative control. The rise of WCW Monday Nitro can't be discussed without its fall as well. I always felt the nWo angle went on far too long, and should have ended possibly 6 months earlier in the summer of 1997 with the Sting/Hogan main event held then. They should've certainly moved on by 1998. They should've done more to push their own homegrown talent. Again, the waters get muddied because Bischoff didn't always have full control over the product and the egos involved were absolutely massive.

 

[aaronmb]

Overrated.
NWO- he took the idea from Japan and WWF main eventers that Vince made and mislead the fans, thinking it was going to be WWF vs wcw. Hogan suggested that he be the third man since he was very stale as a face, so he became a heel.

Goldberg- A lot of his streak was most mid carders.

Cant forget that he fired Steve Austin and Foley.

 

[Makaveli31]

Kevin Sullivan was the booker during the first NWO angle. Bischoff may have had the idea but it was Sullivan that got the NWO heat. I think was also the booker for the Sting/Hollywood Hogan angle. Anyway, it was a committee. All the major players would sit around and throw ideas out.....Hogan (of course) only when it applied to him, Hall, Nash, Bischoff etc.....and they would go from there. I remember someone actually that no one knew what they were doing until Nitro went on air.

So he wasn't "the booker" per se. We all know it was Hogan was piloted the "Sting" angle hence the botched finish at Starrcade '97, the next night on Nitro and at SuperBrawl in 1998. Sting never got a "clean" win over Hogan.

Nash and Hogan controlled the NWO angle. Nash has even said the "split" in 1998 was a direct result of Hogan and Nash legit not getting along in the back and having creative differences. I think it all came to head when Syxx was released and Hall sent to rehab, limiting Nash's power in the back. But it seemed the entire NWO angle had no direction. It seemed nobody knew where it was going eventhough it was still extremely successful. I mean the Wolfpack and Hollywood never ended up meeting in the ring.

 

[Creepy Old Man]

WCW might have been hot from 1995-1999, but I never saw ANY creative brilliance from Bischoff. I was hooked by the former big WWF stars (Hogan, Savage, Hart, Nash, Hall etc.), amazing pyro, cool sets, snazzy merchandise, hot women... but the storylines were close to non-existent, and that was a major factor in their demise IMO. Bischoff just threw around Turner's unlimited money, which just about any of us could have done.

 

[SinCityBlitz]

He used others peoples ideas, stars and money. Like Makaveli said the nWo angle was taken from Japan and Sullivan was the booker at the time.

He is responsible for the shows being live now and bringing in the cruiserweights. He is not responsible for the PPV once a month format though. The WWF already started going that direction with In Your House back in 95. He didn't book so it is hard to give him credit for any of the wrestlers.

By creative standards I would say overrated but by character standards I would say underrated. No matter what you thought of him creatively, from a character standpoint he was great.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

In many ways Bischoff is the ultimate "kid in a sandbox" in that he had the resources to sign anyone and everyone he wanted at ludicrous sums with almost no limit to his authority and even fewer checks and balances. Ultimately that is what led to the downfall of WCW, not politics or anything else...too many guys on safe harbour deals getting more and more money each time someone else did... These are the guys who sat out post buyout cos it was worth more to them to be home than part of the invasion angle.

Creatively, it's harsh to say Bischoff has NO clout, however his judgement of talent was suspect to say the least with Austin, Simmons, Foley, Jericho, Benoit and Eddie all slipping through his fingers or being purposely let go only to be instrumental to the WWF's ultimate victory. The best general knows that any solider can fire the shot that ends the war, not always your point men... Austin was clearly the most costly but at the time he was not who he became, he had potential and letting him go was a risk that may not have paid off... Same for Brian Pillman, in that case Brian's own actions and the accident ruined it... had he remained fit however it would have bitten Eric just as much as Austin.

What can be said of Eric is that he was a great TV Producer... he knew better than anyone how to manipulate quarter hours, how to spike a rating and how to build an audience.

Was his downfall and WCW's all linked to that Foley moment? not as much as you'd think... when he told Tony S. to use the "Butt's in seats" line he had no reason to think it would happen as it did... perhaps naivety, perhaps arrogance, perhaps he really believed people thought of Foley as a joke over there... I think he may have genuinely stopped watching the completion bar the numbers and thus when people deserted for that quarter hour and came back it threw him when he finally did watch the show again it was too late... RAW was back in the driving seat.

I almost refuse to count his TNA period as he and Hogan were a double act... for every good idea Bischoff could have, Hogan who really is the worlds worst self booker would probably have 5 bad and ultimately Dixie is a money mark and would listen to Hogan first.

Onscreen in WWE he was a fun character, a great foil for guys like Heyman as duelling GM's (That moment with Hunter's drafting), Vince (the hair dye line) and even guys like Jericho and Austin who he had previously shitcanned prematurely.

Is he overrated? A little but so is Vince, not everything either touches turns to gold... but for a long enough period for Bischoff and WCW it did... and let's not forget this was just an announcer who had the balls to walk up to Ted Turner and say "You're hiring the wrong guys to run this... hire me and I'll make this the #1 show" and he did. Not Russo, not the NWO, not Hogan, Nash or the Cruisers... but Bischoff.

 

[FlairFan2003]

This same topic was discussed a while back. Bischoff (once he came into control in 93) was responsible for piloting several changes in US Wrestling.

Monthly PPVs (an easy revenue source) were unheard of before WCW started running them after Bischoff came in. Part of the attraction was the free production courtesy of Turner Broadcasting (an advantage Vince didn't have in WWE) but for better or worse the quickened pace of storylines (which affected weekly TV) and monthly PPVs, staples in the US by the late 90s, started in WCW under Bischoff.

Live TV: WWE never did live TV - even specials like Sat Nite Main Event were taped and edited in advance. WCW was doing live TV for their Clash of Champions specials but the idea of weekly live TV was unheard of. Again, Bischoff had an advantage over Vince here thanks to virtually no production costs courtesy of Turner Broadcasting, but other people had that same advantage and did not know how to use it. Don't underestimate the power of Monday Nitro, by early 96, several months before the NWO angle started, Nitro was must see TV for wrestling fans, and several times beat WWE Raw in the ratings between Jan-June of 1996, pre NWO.

The NWO Angle: Its been widely reported that Bischoff saw this angle played out in New Japan (they had a brief co promotional agreement with WCW). Maybe so, but it was Bischoff who brought the idea to WCW and oversaw it's implementation, the portraying of Nash & Hall as invaders from WWE, etc. Hall & Nash's performance and promos, not too mention the Hulk Hogan Heel Turn, certainly had a lot to do with the angle's initial success but Bischoff started the whole thing.

Also keep in mind that in wrestling, many of the best ideas/storylines/gimmicks are one guy's interpretation on someone else's work. The Rock & Roll Express vs The Midnite Express is a red tag team fued in the NWA so Vince McMahon created The British Bulldogs vs Hart Foundation (complete with southern, wimpy mouthpiece manager) to compete. Starrcade was a huge financial success, an event grossing a million dollars in the pre PPV days with ticket prices topping out at $10, thus Vince McMahon created WrestleMania, his version, to compete. Bischoff also had a lot of success recycling WWE feuds of Ric Flair in WCW vs Randy Savage (complete with Elizabeth shocking heel turn and siding with Flair) and of course Flair vs Hogan. Bischoff needed Flair to recruit both Hogan and Savage to WCW, moves the two would not have made without Flair's involvement, but that's not necessarily a knock on Bischoff. Again, other top execs had similar advantages and failed to capitalize.

I think Bischoff was definitely contemporary for the time and updated WCW's look and appearance significantly. He also was the creator of the evil on air authority figure (past on air figures such as Jim Crockett Jr, Nick Bockwinkle, and Jack Tunney were portrayed as neutral personalities who tilted slightly towards fan favorites). There would be no "Mr McMahon" character if there was no "EZ E" as the leader of the NWO.

Now no look at Bischoff is complete without examining how he lost control of the locker room, leaving the roster split into at least three separate camps that didn't work well together, and how he allowed too much say in match and storyline direction to individual stars. There is no doubt, as wild as the industry was at the time, Vince had a much tighter reign on Austin & Rock than Bischoff had on Hogan & Nash, to the detriment of the company. De emphasizing Goldberg at the height of his popularity in 1999, constantly under utilizing Flair, even driving him off television, never having any coherent plan or direction for Brett Hart, these were huge and costly booking mistakes that killed the audience that happened as Bischoff A) Allowed a select group of stars to have way more say in product content than they should B) Bischoff ceded much of his creative authority to people not capable of booking properly.

Bischoff also was not a shrewd manager of money, hence his "ATM Eric" nick name. Several stars got guaranteed contracts well over a million per year, many of the undeserving (Scott Norton, Scott Steiner). WCW was turning huge profits from 95-98 but started bleeding money in 99, thanks largely to Bischoff's mismanagement.

Was Bischoff a genius ? No, there were too many major negatives to say he was. He definitely could not sustain his success so he's no Vince McMahon, and in terms of long term viability, both in quality and popular product content and managing talent, he wasn't Jim Crockett Jr either.

Is he over rated ? I don't think so. I don't see too much proclaiming him a genius in the first place, some fans don't like giving him his due but most of what I see in print indicates he gets much credit for stabilizing WCW and turning them into a profitable outfit circa 95-96, pre NWO Explosion, and for bringing the original NWO storyline from New Japan. He changed the pacing of storylines on TV, greatly expanded the PPV market, and made Nitro a much watch program, which in turn changed the way WWE produced it's product and presented it to fans. He was definitely a success story, not a genius though.

 

[FlairFan2003]

He used others peoples ideas, stars and money. Like Makaveli said the nWo angle was taken from Japan and Sullivan was the booker at the time.

He is responsible for the shows being live now and bringing in the cruiserweights. He is not responsible for the PPV once a month format though. The WWF already started going that direction with In Your House back in 95. He didn't book so it is hard to give him credit for any of the wrestlers.

By creative standards I would say overrated but by character standards I would say underrated. No matter what you thought of him creatively, from a character standpoint he was great.

I was watching WCW PPVs monthly in 93 and 94, long before "In Your House".

That's not to say they were all that good LOL - But WCW was definitely running monthly or almost monthly PPVs before Hogan arrived.

 

[JoeFromTomsRiver]

Bischoff's most important contribution/change he made when he took over WCW was modernizing the presentation of their product. I'm not getting into anything involving booking, I'm dealing solely with the aesthetics of the shows.

NWA shows looked like crap. Dimly ligt, grimy, grungy, too-southern looking. It looked like welfare-wrestling. They could have been in the Philadelphia Spectrum, and it somehow looked like they were in a flea market in North Dakota. Just "dirty".

He upped the presentation to match what the WWF was doing, and then upped the ante w/ the pyro and set of Nitro, which caused the WWE to bring out the stage and the Titantron.

If you only care about what happens in between the ropes, and what happens w/ storyline development, I'm not going to start pleading Bischoff's case. But he changed that company for the better even before he started buying WWF's top talent.

 

[justtxyank]

Well he wasn't even the booker of WCW. He was the man in charge, the final say so.

WCW used a committee that was largely run by Kevin Sullivan for years. Sullivan admits it and so do other wrestlers who there. Bischoff gets entirely too much blame AND credit.

 

[justtxyank]

You always see people saying the "nWo was stolen from Japan!' on the internet, but nobody actually explains the angle in Japan it was based on.

The Angles are not the same.

It is loosely based on the New Japan invasion angle that occurred because they were both invasion angles, but the nWo was hardly the same thing and it was hardly even an invasion angle after a quick time.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

Well he wasn't even the booker of WCW. He was the man in charge, the final say so.

WCW used a committee that was largely run by Kevin Sullivan for years. Sullivan admits it and so do other wrestlers who there. Bischoff gets entirely too much blame AND credit.

Not really, the issue isn't even that Bischoff had final say or Sullivan was poor as a booker. The issue was the contracts for the top talents all had creative control and safe harbour clauses. It's what sold Nash to go when he was undecided famously. Hall telling him that if they bring someone else in, they would automatically get the same... thus when Bret came in on his 3m a year, they got 3m a year...when Goldberg signed a big deal, they got a raise too and so on. That added to the creative control meant Bischoff had NO control at all. It was all with the talent, the Nash booking himself over Goldberg/Finger Poke of Doom summed it up. You then had the issues with Russo and Hogan, Russo was at least trying (badly) to book according to a form of logic rather than "That doesn't work for me brother".

The ATM Eric thing started and ended with those clauses. Soon even mid level talents were getting stupid money because they needed an undercard. A 4-5 man roster doesn't work and the guys beneath them ain't gonna work for peanuts while the big guns are on millions... Soon they were all gettin paid regardless of being on TV, so you had the ridiculous situation Jericho outlined where he could basically "dodge" signing a new deal as he wasn't on TV for months and getting full pay and could basically negotiate with the opposition on the company dime.

Today's WWE model is what Eric needed in 96-99, let the Merch drive the guarantees and nobody has creative control over the final direction of the show/their character. Even Cena CAN be told what to do, he just isn't cos he is a team player anywhere... if people don't like it like Punk, they leave but they are well paid enough to either tolerate it, or be able to leave at the time that suits them.

 

[JoeyJoeJoe]

Bischoff's most important contribution/change he made when he took over WCW was modernizing the presentation of their product. I'm not getting into anything involving booking, I'm dealing solely with the aesthetics of the shows.

NWA shows looked like crap. Dimly ligt, grimy, grungy, too-southern looking. It looked like welfare-wrestling. They could have been in the Philadelphia Spectrum, and it somehow looked like they were in a flea market in North Dakota. Just "dirty".

Am I the only one who actually liked the "dirty" look in many of those old arenas? Presentation and pyro is great, but there's something to be said for the old style promotions where the talent had to get over and create drama on their own. There was a time that not everyone got their own entrance music, which meant that when Black Sabbath "Iron Man" hit, you KNEW the Road Warriors were coming and it had even more of an impact. I know everything's a polished product now, but I liked the gritty "realism" of some of those old cards.

 

[Headman]

Am I the only one who actually liked the "dirty" look in many of those old arenas? Presentation and pyro is great, but there's something to be said for the old style promotions where the talent had to get over and create drama on their own. There was a time that not everyone got their own entrance music, which meant that when Black Sabbath "Iron Man" hit, you KNEW the Road Warriors were coming and it had even more of an impact. I know everything's a polished product now, but I liked the gritty "realism" of some of those old cards.

I enjoyed the presentation. Some of those old arenas had character and it was fun seeing the arena and not all of that stage dressing. I loved the WWF's presentation as well, but there was something classy about the old NWA / Pre-Disney WCW look.

 

[DukeSkeletor]

No the guy was simply underrated,yes its still my opinion but take a look at what he did in WCW,first of all the man collected the old buddys from the WWF and say whatever you want on Savage,Hogan,Nash,Hall,steiners etc,but he made an epic angle using these men and its still the best angle in wrestling history,he took the cruiserweight mainstreams to the top of the roof,the PPVs every month was a huge step from him,hell he even made the WCW compete with WWF in the monday night wars and he created the big heel character.yes he has gone way too far with the nWo and it costed him a whole company run and he kept being loyal to the top stars instead of developing his young superstars and they ended up in the WWF ,people like Guerrero,Jericho etc...yes he did a lot of mistakes but he was a brilliant booker and controller,,and the reason why he is underrated in my opinion is because we're still talking about something that happened over 15 years ago and yet we can't get over it because it was simply great and entertaining!!

 

[WWEWrestleFest]

Bischoff is HUGELY underrated these days by the internet.

There's only one person in the history of the planet who's ever beaten Vince McMahon in promoting wrestling, and that as Eric Bischoff. IN THE HISTORY OF THE PLANET!

He got Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage, and later Lex Luger, Scott Hall, and Kevin Nash, to join WCW. Yeah, the nWo angle was done in Japan first, but who cares. It was brilliant. Turning the biggest babyface in wrestling into a heel? Brilliant. WWE tied that with Austin and failed. Guys like Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Scott Steiner, Lex Luger, etc were all arguably bigger stars working for Bischoff than they were working for Vince. He was able to completely re-invent Steiner, Hogan, and Sting's characters. Made stars out of guys like DDP and Goldberg. Brought Japanese and Mexican wrestlers to the American mainstream. He got rid of the predicable jobber/squash matches on Nitro, expanded to 12 PPVs a year, and had each Nitro be live, all things Vince still does to this day. Just from a business standpoint, he was also the first person to help WCW make a profit, which it had never done before.

Did he make mistakes? Sure. Was he perfect? Of course not. But other than Vince McMahon himself, there's no one I'd rather have run my wrestling company than Bischoff.

 

[enviousdominous]

I don't think he was over-rated at all. I think he managed to make the best of some really bad situations. He made some pretty stupid decisions, firing Austin for example. As an executive and as an on-screen promoter I think he did a decent job.

The dude was humble enough to ride through whatever fucking stupid gimmick Vince had for him. He played the part of Eugene's uncle, he got his head shaved again and presented himself as a deviant asshole. I don't know where everyone else might rate him, but I think he had a place on the show and that he was never boring in any of his roles.

I honestly think the dude deserves a HOF induction someday. He was the one who decided to challenge the current landscape of pro-wrestling programming and go head-to-head with Monday Night Raw, he was the one who put out a PPV every month. Pro-wrestling wouldn't be what it is today without him, I personally think that it's better off for his contributions.