Eric Bischoff

Eric Bischoff
Born	(1955-05-27) May 27, 1955 Detroit, Michigan
Professional wrestling career
Ring name(s)	Eric Bischoff
Billed height	5 ft 10 in (178 cm)
Billed weight	195 lb (88 kg)
Debut	1989

Eric Bischoff (born May 27 1955), is a former professional wrestling promoter and on-screen personality, most known for serving as President of World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and later "on-air" General Manager of World Wrestling Entertainment's RAW brand. He still makes occasional appearances on RAW.

Life before wrestling

Eric Bischoff was a wrestling fan growing up in a rough Detroit neighborhood. He and his family relocated to Pittsburgh just before high school, where he began competing in amateur wrestling for his school. Bischoff moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, for his senior year of high school, where he continued his amateur wrestling career until sustaining a knee injury. A short while after leaving school to pursue his interests in business, he became interested in taekwondo, eventually earning a black belt, and competing across the country in small tae kwon do tournaments.

Before getting into professional wrestling Bischoff had a number of occupations. He owned a successful construction company, worked as a veterinary assistant, and, for a time, ran a butcher's shop where he would sell the meat by van delivery. Hulk Hogan would famously refer to this time in his life during a promo at the end of the 1996 WCW pay-per-view event Bash at the Beach in Daytona Beach, Florida, saying, "If it wasn't for Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff would still be selling meat from a truck in Minneapolis."[1]

American Wrestling Association (AWA)

Bischoff started his wrestling career in the late 1980s for the American Wrestling Association (AWA). Eric was a telecaster and syndicator for the company (Verne Gagne is quoted as saying he thought Eric "had the right look for television," but his announcing at this point was, even according to Bischoff himself, admittedly mediocre). Contrary to popular belief, Eric claims he never had any creative input in the company, and denies ever being a "gofer".

World Championship Wrestling (WCW)

In 1991, Bischoff joined World Championship Wrestling (WCW) as an announcer, debuting at The Great American Bash.

As an announcer, Bischoff reported to producer Tony Schiavone and WCW's Vice President of Broadcasting, Jim Ross. After WCW boss Bill Watts was fired by TBS executive Bill Shaw in 1993, Bischoff went to Shaw and WCW Vice President Bob Dhue to ask for the job of executive producer. Although Jim Ross and Tony Schiavone seemed to be the two top candidates, Shaw and Dhue went with Bischoff. Schiavone remained a producer until the company's demise, but Ross was soon let go by Bischoff and ended up in the rival World Wrestling Federation (WWF). In 1994, Bischoff became a Vice President, and cleared house within the WCW front office. He famously fired event manager Don Sandefeur, junior Vice President Jim Barnett, and his old boss Bob Dhue, all on the same day (in a 10/14 blog entry on his website, Bischoff denied this, stating that Sandefeur and Dhue never reported to him). In 1996, Bill Shaw was reassigned from WCW, leaving Eric with the title of Executive Vice President/General Manager, and by 1997, Bischoff was promoted to President of World Championship Wrestling by the head of TBS Sports, Dr. Harvey Schiller.

Bischoff convinced Turner executives to better finance WCW in order to compete with the WWF. Almost immediately he used the money allotted him to sign big names such as Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage and others away from the WWF. He also invested money in production values and increased the number of WCW pay-per-views (first 7 a year, then 10, and then once a month, with the WWF following suit each time). The plans paid off, and in 1995 WCW turned a profit for the first time.

Monday Nitro

Main article: WCW Monday Nitro

During one WCW meeting in 1995, Ted Turner asked Bischoff how the company could possibly compete with the WWF. Bischoff, taken aback by the question, told Turner to put WCW on prime time television against the WWF's Monday Night RAW. At the time, the flagship show for WCW was WCW Saturday Night, which ran on Saturday Nights at 6:05, and as such there was no direct competition between WCW and WWF for viewers. To the surprise of many within the wrestling industry, Turner agreed, and gave Bischoff a 1 hour prime time slot every Monday on TNT (in 1996, due to high ratings, it would expand to 2 hours, and eventually 3 hours in 1998).

Bischoff designed and produced the new show, WCW Monday Nitro, and showcased the company as a fresh alternative to the WWF. While new episodes of RAW were taped weeks in advance, Nitro was live each week, with Bischoff often giving away RAW results to encourage viewers to watch his show instead. In his book (Controversy Creates Ca$h), Bischoff describes the design for Nitro as being a complete alternative to the WWF. RAW catered to younger crowds, so Nitro would in turn cater to the 18-35 male demographic. Character-wise, Raw featured larger than life cartoon characters, while Nitro would begin to feature edgier characters with more depth.

Because WCW and TNT were both part of Turner, Bischoff was able to start Nitro several minutes earlier than RAW, as well as provide a late-night rebroadcast so viewers who opted to watch RAW could still see the show. With the influx of new money Bischoff also began signing wrestlers from around the world, including All Japan and New Japan, to fill the undercard with quicker paced, more action-packed matches.

The plan worked as Nitro beat RAW in their first head-to-head week and ran neck-and-neck with the WWF for the remainder of the year.

nWo

Main article: New World Order (professional wrestling)

In 1996, Bischoff revealed that WWF superstar Scott Hall, better known to audiences as "Razor Ramon", was defecting from the WWF to join WCW. Hall was soon be joined by Kevin Nash, better known as "Diesel", to become "The Outsiders". The duo was depicted as invading WCW on behalf of the WWF to start a "war" between the two companies (though Bischoff was later forced to clarify that Hall and Nash did not represent and were not under contract to the WWF).

The Outsiders expanded and became The New World Order when perennial fan-favorite Hulk Hogan aligned himself with the Outsiders. Led by the nWo storyline, WCW overtook the WWF as the number one wrestling promotion in America with Monday Nitro's rating defeating Monday Night RAW's by a wide margin for 84 consecutive weeks. Through this Bischoff moved from a commentator to a manager type role in the nWo and enjoyed a lot of screen time. He also enjoyed some mainstream exposure in his own right at the time, appearing on the HBO series Arli$$ as well as The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Downfall of WCW

By January 1999, however, the tide had turned. The WWF, buoyed by its new "Attitude" branding, was regularly beating an increasingly stagnant WCW week after week in the Monday night ratings war. On January 4, 1999, a live Nitro was scheduled to air alongside a taped edition of RAW.

His TV presence disappeared, and he began looking for an out from WCW, often missing shows so he could pitch ideas to TV executives in Hollywood, being introduced by his friend Jason Hervey as "The golden boy who saved wrestling."

When Bischoff returned from hiatus in April of 1999, the company was in bad shape. He would try to unsuccessfully extend the WCW brand outside of wrestling with a restaurant called The Nitro Grill (which went under in less than a year), a brand of cologne, and a poorly received line of video games for the Sony Playstation.

Bischoff ousted—the death of WCW

All plans were scrapped when, on September 10, 1999, Bischoff was suddenly relieved of his management position with WCW. In August, when WCW was projecting huge losses for the upcoming months, a meeting was held with WCW's accountants and TBS executives in the sports and programming divisions. Bischoff was replaced with WCW accountant Bill Busch. A month long promoted contest for one million dollars and a KISS concert/wrestling PPV scheduled for December 31, 1999 were canceled.

The management change went un-mentioned on WCW television.

However, less than six months went by before Bill Busch was removed from power. Busch, according to Bischoff's book, was a numbers man and had no idea how to run a wrestling company. Despite his profession as an accountant, WCW continued to wallow in red ink under his watch, much as it had under his predecessors (with the exception of Bischoff). To make matters worse, ratings, which had been at least decent under Bischoff's tenure, plummeted to embarrassing all-new lows. Replacing Busch at the helm was Brad Siegel, a Time Warner programming executive. Siegel's first order of business was to ask Eric what could be done to save the company, and because of this, Bischoff briefly came back into power in April 2000, although not as president; instead, he was named event and television manager, and was to be partners-in-charge with creative director Vince Russo. Although unhappy with Russo's booking (which Bischoff would later describe as "dark, mean-spirited, and creatively shallow"), Bischoff worked with Russo for the good of WCW. The last straw, according to Bischoff, was the Hulk Hogan incident at Bash at the Beach 2000. Bischoff would leave the company after six weeks.

Attempted purchase of WCW

In late 2000, with WCW facing major financial woes, the company was put up for sale. Brad Siegel wanted little to do with the company, and his new boss in the AOL Time Warner merger was former WB Network executive Jamie Kellner, who wanted even less to do with the company. In the Turner era, WCW had always been classified as a sports division, yet under the new corporate umbrella it was overseen by television executives, many of whom hated the idea of wrestling on their station, seeing it as "low brow", and attempted to remove it entirely.

Bischoff and a group of investors, named Fusient Media Ventures, signed a letter of intent to buy the company, but later backed out when Kellner canceled Nitro's timeslot (Bischoff claimed that the move "took the deal from something worth $67 million to something worth $67"). Without the Fusient interest, WCW was purchased by the World Wrestling Federation for a substantially lower price (approximately US $2 million) than what had been offered in March 2001. Bischoff took some time off from wrestling to work on other TV projects. He produced several reality TV shows and signed on as president of Matrats, a youth-based wrestling company.

World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)

In 2002, Bischoff was hired by World Wrestling Entertainment to be the (kayfabe) general manager of RAW, a role he played until late 2005. His debut as RAW GM resurrected his characteristic brand of smarminess with the GM position, again playing the arrogant heel character he had perfected as the nWo boss in WCW.

His reign as GM was longer than any other GM in WWE history and included "innovations" like the "Raw Roulette" (a wheel with different match possibilities on it), and the Elimination Chamber, as well as feuds with Stone Cold Steve Austin, John Cena, SmackDown! GM Stephanie McMahon, and Extreme Championship Wrestling representative Paul Heyman.

Bischoff was "removed" as General Manager in late 2005, when Vince McMahon tossed him into a garbage truck - following a "trial" where his history of unscrupulous actions were listed - and driven out of the arena. Bischoff then sat out the remainder of the year and spent the start of 2006 writing a book that would become Controversy Creates Cash. Although it was widely believed that his contract expired during his sabbatical, Bischoff recently confirmed on Live Audio Wrestling that he is under contract with WWE until September 2007.

On September 25, 2006 Bischoff appeared on WWE TV for the first time in close to a year, being brought into the ring by Jonathan Coachman where he proceeded to promote his recently finished book Controversy Creates Ca$h (ISBN 1-4165-2729-X) and take several "cheap shots" at Vince McMahon and WWE. During his segment Bischoff stated, "Without Monday Nitro there would be no Monday Night RAW...without the nWo there would be no DX...and without Eric Bischoff there would be no Mr. McMahon." After the personal crack at McMahon at the end of his tirade, Bischoff's microphone was turned off, and he was escorted out of the building.

A few days later John Bradshaw Layfield conducted a four-part interview with Bischoff, further discussing his book, on WWE.com. During the interview, Bischoff discussed various topics, such as his true feelings towards Lex Luger, his thoughts on ECW promoter Paul Heyman, his questionable decision of giving Kevin Nash booking power, and his overall reaction to the Monday Night Wars. At one point, it was even on the New York Times best seller list.

Bischoff was chosen as the special guest referee for the D-Generation X vs. Edge and Randy Orton match at Cyber Sunday on November 5, with 60% of the vote. He then cheated DX out of the win, leaving Orton and Edge the victors.

On the November 6, 2006 episode of RAW, Bischoff was reinstated as General Manager for one night only. During his time as the GM on RAW he would restart matches if he didn't like the outcome. He restarted the match between Jeff Hardy vs. Johnny Nitro for the Intercontinental Championship. Hardy won by DQ, but Bischoff had the match restarted with no DQ. Nitro took advantage of that using Melina to distract Hardy and striking him with the title belt. Nitro won the title due to Eric Bischoff thinking that Nitro "deserved" the title. Hardy would go on to win the belt back the following week on RAW.

On March 5, 2007, Bischoff made a brief appearance on RAW in Phoenix, Arizona to give Vince McMahon his thoughts on the WrestleMania 23 match against Donald Trump.

Life outside wrestling

Bischoff, with Jason Hervey, runs his own production company, Bischoff-Hervey Productions, which co-produced the reality TV series I Want To Be a Hilton for NBC in 2005. They also produced a live Girls Gone Wild pay-per-view event from Florida in 2003 with the WWE and another pay-per-view about the Sturgis, South Dakota motorcycle rally in 2004. Currently, they are working on a reality series project with Limp Bizkit lead singer Fred Durst.

Today, Bischoff lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, with his wife, Loree, and two children.

Wrestling facts

• Finishing and signature moves

• Roundhouse kick

• Managers

• Hollywood Hogan
• Chief Morley

• Nicknames

• Mr. Bischoff

Championships and accomplishments

• Pro Wrestling Illustrated

• 1996 Most Influential Figure In Wrestling
• 1996 Feud of the Year – vs. Vince McMahon
• 1997 Most Influential Figure In Wrestling
• 1998 50 Most Beautiful People in Wrestling
• 2002 Feud of the Year – vs. Stephanie McMahon

• World Championship Wrestling

• WCW Hardcore Championship (1 time)

• World Wrestling Entertainment

• RAW General Manager (July 15, 2002 – December 5, 2005, November 6, 2006)

• Wrestling Observer Newsletter

• 2005 Best Non-Wrestler

Trivia

• In 1990, Bischoff auditioned for an announcer's position with the World Wrestling Federation, but Vince McMahon turned him down. In a July 2003 interview, Vince McMahon said: "I regret not hiring Bischoff at the time. To be honest, I don't recall his audition, and I don't know why I wouldn't. He has a great look. He has a great on-camera presence. I don't know why we didn't grab him at the time."
• Bischoff has fought for a world championship three times: Once in a tag team match with Jeff Jarrett against then WCW Champion, DDP and David Arquette for the WCW Championship in WCW Thunder and once against John Cena at the RAW's USA Homecoming for the WWE Championship.
• Bischoff's name is mentioned on the song "Ain't Ya" by Rap Duo Clipse, from their 2006 album "Hell Hath No Fury", in the line "My dream team wrestle for cheese like Eric Bischoff ". The song is also featured on the Step Up soundtrack.
• Bischoff hates most wrestling books, as he believes most are "bitter, self-serving revisionist history at best" and refers to them as "bullshit".

External links

• EricBischoff.com (Official Website)
• Eric Bischoff's Book at WWE.com
• Eric Bischoff's Interview with JBL on WWE.com