During the latest edition of his 83 Weeks podcast, former WCW Executive Vice President Eric Bischoff commented on Lex Luger’s jump from WWF (WWE) back to WCW in September 1995 on the debut edition of WCW Monday Nitro.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
Eric Bischoff on Lex Luger jumping from WWE to WCW in 1995 and his surprise appearance on Nitro: “I think Lex saw the impact that surprise appearance was gonna have. If you’re gonna bring somebody back, what better way to bring somebody back in a shocking, unexpected moment. Not promoted, not advertised, not speculated on. We were able to keep it extremely quiet and only a handful of people knew, and those people were very good at keeping secrets, thank goodness. But Lex knew that. If there were any reservations, and maybe he had them, but he certainly didn’t express them. I didn’t sense it either. Sometimes you can tell, but I didn’t get that sense from Lex. He was fully committed from the get-go and enthusiastically so.”
On the impact of the debut episode of Nitro: “What a perfect setup. You’re gonna launch a show to go head-to-head with a No. 1 program in your genre, but we get to do it on a night when they’re taking the day off. So, you know with the hype and everything that at least you’re gonna get a good sampling. That’s the most you can hope for in a situation like that. I don’t think the circumstances for that Nitro could have been any better than they were on that particular premiere. So, you’ve got a great sample size and you’re confident you’re gonna get that audience and that first impression means everything. You know if you check the boxes that needed to be checked in terms of what the wrestling audience was looking for and what you know they would get excited about, the odds the following week are gonna be in your favor or at least you’re gonna be competitive. That was the thought going in. It proved to be true and it worked. You could not have asked for a better situation for Nitro, or Lex Luger, for that matter.”
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