We reported yesterday here on eWN that Eric Bischoff was a recent guest on Jim Ross’ The Ross Report Podcast. You can check out some additional highlights from his interview below:
On his advice for the upcoming WWE Brand Extension & Draft: “I was faced with that challenge when Ted Turner basically mandated that Thunder become a primetime show on TBS when I already had one primetime show on TNT. And there was no choice but to figure out a way to create two separate brands and I wasn’t successful, by the way. I acknowledge that. But because I had to try it and because I had to try it in a very high profile way, tried to have feeling for it. And WWE tried it. They didn’t try it, they did it. But I’ll let other people decide how successful it was. Right after the brand split was announced, somebody asked me on Twitter and I responded. Can it be successful? Sure, it can be successful. What’s it going to take? A tremendous amount of creative discipline. If you’re going to make the brand split, then, by definition, they have to be different from each other. It can’t just be part one and part two. Monday Night RAW on Monday and Monday Night RAW part 2 called SmackDown. If you do that, it’s going to die and that’s kind of what I did. And without casting any aspersions to the billion dollar company, that’s what they did the first time. You couldn’t really differentiate between the two significantly enough for the viewer to feel like they were two separate brands. You can’t just use blue lights on one show and red lights on the other one and call them different brands when the talent is going back and forth and there’s no distinction. It requires a tremendous amount of creative discipline.”
On Cody Rhodes getting the mindset to request his WWE release from his dad: “Dusty was a maverick. Dusty didn’t play well within the lanes for a lot of his career. He had a tremendous amount of drive and confidence and vision for himself. Most of all, I think vision for what he could be and what he could do. More importantly, what he could do, I think, from that perspective. And when I read about Cody asking for his release, and when I read subsequent postings he put up, and I haven’t seen Cody since he was 11 years old, so it’s not like I have a relationship with him at all other than a memory of him as a child. I have tons of respect for his dad. But it reminded me of Dusty. Dusty just had this amazingly powerful drive creatively and sometimes it worked in his benefit, [and] sometimes it didn’t in the short term, but in the long term, it served him really, really well. And I think what Cody did, whether he meant it or not, was entirely fitting and appropriate and respectful of [the fact that Dusty]’s his father. He’s his father’s son. I think that Dusty’s probably smiling in many ways right now. Now, Dusty may not be thrilled about the financial choice, but, at the end of the day, Dusty didn’t always do the smartest things financially either. I mean, he was true to himself. He was true to who he was and that’s what Cody did, so I have nothing but a ton of respect for him and admiration. And it is just one short chapter in what is I’m sure is going to be a long legacy of Cody Rhodes.”
On a possible full-time return to pro wrestling: “Yes and no. Mostly yes. I don’t have the desire to kind of relive what I’ve lived through in the 90s because I’m not 35 years old anymore. I don’t like the idea of traveling five or six days a week. I don’t like the idea of the kind of pressure that came with working for a multibillion dollar corporation run by idiots. But there are so many things that I miss about it. I miss the creative process and not being in charge. I don’t miss being in charge either, but I miss being involved in the creative process a lot. I miss working with young talent, and even more established talent, and helping them find ways, not in the ring because that wasn’t my forte as we all know, but when it came to working a mic and helping to find a character and a point of view that was unique [and] that resonated, I occasionally got pretty decent at that and that’s the part that I miss more than anything at all is working [with] and directing young talent in ways to get themselves over outside of the ring or inside the ring with a microphone. I miss it tremendously. I mean, if WWE called me tomorrow and said, ‘get on a plane tomorrow by noon and show up somewhere’, I wouldn’t even ask them what I’m doing. I would be happy to do it. And I’m really careful about saying ‘if the deal is right’ because there’s an implication with that. There’s an implication that I’m sitting somewhere on a mountaintop and I’m only willing to do something if the conditions are absolutely perfect. Look, if somebody called me and said, ‘look, I’ve got no money. I can only pay you a buck a year, but here’s my vision and I really think you could help me achieve it’, I would do it for a buck a year as long as I don’t have to travel five days a week. So it’s not about the money. It’s about the passion and the opportunity. And if that opportunity came along, the money isn’t even an issue. Money comes. Money’s there. If the opportunity is right, the effort’s right, the intent is right, the money will follow.”
