There are not many people in any industry could say they were the king and the best at what they did. In a span of four years, Eric Bischoff took World Championship Wrestling from losing money on a yearly basis to being the most watched show on cable TV. While accomplishing conquering cable TV, he also pushed Vince McMahon and the WWE to the brink of closing the doors.

Eric started with the AWA in the sales department and slowly worked his way up and became an announcer with WCW. In 1993, Bischoff was give the opportunity to try and take WCW to the next level and with Ted Turner’s blessing started to compete with wrestling superpower Vince McMahon’s WWE.

Eric’s story is well known by now. He got the green light for Monday Nitro and his story had been told by many.  That is not the route Back Sports Page wanted to take on speaking with Eric. Why ask him to share the same stories to us that many have heard...

Mr. Bischoff was nice enough to carve out thirty minutes of his time to speak with Back Sports Page founder Randy Zellea to discuss his love for the behind the scenes aspect of TV production and the pro wrestling industry.  

Q: Can you discuss when you developed your passion for Producing TV?

A: It’s Hard to pin point exactly when but it had to be when I was working with the AWA. When I was working with them I received my first real exposure to the inner workings of producing a TV show. I had never been on a set and I had no real understanding of the production process. Honestly, it really fascinated me. Just being in a production truck during a live or taped show was an amazing experience at that time. Learning the post production process was so much fun for me. While in the AWA as I would take care of my daily responsibilities in the sales side and then I would work nights and weekends just as an intern learning the production process. I learned everything from how to duplicate tapes to editing shows, to being an assistant director. All of these were steps that I had taken over a long period of time to learn the business from the ground up.

Q: Can you discuss the difference between producing a live TV show and a Pre-Taped show?

A: That’s really apples and oranges. Live production is intense and its time critical. That means when you are producing a live show, you are coordinating with the network, you must hit your commercial breaks on time and end the show on time when it is live. The logistics that go into a show are challenging enough. It doesn’t matter if its chess, the NBA or Pro Wrestling. It’s all critical and a challenge when it’s live and makes it more fun for me because of the adrenaline rush. You are basically flying or walking on a tight rope without a net because of the things I just talked about and the variables that take place during a live show. When you are producing live you have to prepare as if anything could happen.  Unlike the NFL and other sports that have formatted time outs or things that could bring programming to an end. In wrestling you have to work through the unexpected especially during a live show. I love that. I love working under intense pressure. Post Production, as it doesn’t have the same adrenaline rush as being live, your still under deadline. The Pressure is there just in a different form.  You have to get the show delivered at a cretin time and much like producing a live show, things could happen or you could discover problems on a show that was taped or segments that were produced and you have to find solutions in that particular time frame. They are both challenging but just in different types of ways.

Q: You were on the Steve Austin Show and you spoke about producing with Turner and the little details like not having a consistent camera crew. WWE did as they were all employed by them. Was that challenging not knowing who you were going to have show by show?

A: I’m glad you picked up on that. That’s one of the details at WCW that a lot of people did not realize. People always said during the Monday Night Wars that the only way we were able to compete was due to a large checkbook and deep pockets. That’s not very true at all. That is a false narrative designed to shape history. WWE had significant advantages over WCW and vice versa. One of the advantages and disadvantages of WCW had to deal with was being a member of Turner Broadcasting. The advantage is true you are owned by a network therefore they are more invested in you and you have more latitude in certain aspects. The disadvantage was our crew at times because when I started with Turner, they still had the NFL and the NBA. Turner had a significant sports tradition and we had to use only Turner production people.  We were on the bottom of the list and if we were in the NBA season for example and the entire best camera and tech guys, production guys that we normally used were needed as they would go and be on the more important broadcasts. That left us in a tough spot because of where we were on the bottom of the pecking order. We got what was left over and sometimes need to scramble at the last minute and find freelancers we never worked with us before. The result would be ending up having a rotating door of production staff due to Baseball, the NBA and the NFL. That was a tough situation to be in. That was most of the time. We had a lot of people that never worked with us before operating hand held cameras. Specifically those guys were not used to or familiar with shooting the action in a wrestling ring, they are always a heartbeat and a half behind. When you shoot wrestling, you have to anticipate what is going to happen next and be slightly ahead of it as opposed to following as it happens unlike other sports. The results of that would be sloppiness and a lot of missed shots. The angles you would have liked to have were never really there because our cameraman were not used to what they were seeing or how to cover it.  That was a big disadvantage that WCW had. WWE had years to develop and train their staff. WWE makes sure the production team got exactly what Vince McMahon was looking for and how he wanted it. He was able to build that, we couldn’t. We had the where do we go environment 75% of the time.

Q:  Did that change at all over time or was it like that the whole time you were there?

A: It was that way when I started and it was that way when I left. If Turner still had wrestling, it would probably be that way now. I inherited it and there was no discussion because of the corporate structure of Turner and what the company goals were. There was no way I could advocate and push to try and hire my own staff. That would have never been an option for me.

Q: Lets jump around a bit, Did you find it hard to get involved and be accepted to be involved with non wrestling projects when you were told to “Take a Vacation in 1999”?

A: The fact is I never really did much when I left in 1999. It was September 10^th 1999 when I was told to take a vacation. I had two years left on my contract at the time. I was pretty tied up under Turner Broadcasting. There really wasn’t anything I could do. Surely nothing to do with wrestling, truth is I didn’t really need to do anything. I had a guarantee income and I had been working very hard for six or seven years straight for 16 and 18 hour days. Seven days a week. I had a good income with time left on my deal. It was all the same except I didn’t have to go to work. I really didn’t try to do much during the initial period after I left wrestling. Then I went back shortly after with a new deal which gave me much more latitude in terms of working with other projects and that’s when I really stuck my toe in the water. It’s a double edge sword when your bio is 100% wrestling in terms of your experience. People generally look at that in two ways. Either they really understand the complexity of the product and admire it for what it is. They understand that there is no script, with no real actors who are working with formats and create a phenomenal product. They will look at you as a good show runner and a great producer.  There are other groups who look at it not so fondly and it’s hard to get by that. We and I mean both Jason Harvey and I were able to overcome that with the help of Jason’s stature in Hollywood. We were able to overcome the negative stigma of pro wrestling and take advantage of the positive association on what wrestling can be and how much it parallels so many other realms of entertainment especially now that non-scripted entertainment is such a big thing now days. It depends as I gave a long winded answer it’s a matter of circumstance.

Q: When did you become friends with Jason Hervey?

A: We became friends early on during my days at Turner. Jason was still working on the Wonder Years and he had friends at WCW. He would show up and Jason was a big fan of pro wrestling from the time he was a kid. He grew up a big fan, his whole family was. Shout out to the Hervey family. We became closer as that developed he came around more because of his friends in the company and we became great friends and even better business partners.

Q: What are some of your current projects?

A: The Most recent project is called Outlaw country, its going be on WGN. It’s an UN-scripted reality show. I don’t want to give too much away as it’s about a credible group of law enforcement professionals who deal with riles and western communities. It’s a cool as hell. It’s a great show I have been watching the dailies and all the promo spots. The show has been promoted on SONS OF ANARCHY. We have a special surprise for the Fan base of the shows. Jason did a great job as did everyone on the team to make this successful. We had a great cast and I wouldn’t want to be on either side of the equation. The bad guys scare me as do the cops so it’s pretty cool.

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