During the latest episode of his “83 Weeks” podcast, Eric Bischoff delved into the decline of the nWo storyline, sharing insights into how he would have concluded it and addressing the challenges faced by WCW at that time.
Bischoff acknowledged that in 1998, the most successful financial year for WCW, there were internal budget cuts and conflicts within Turner Broadcasting, along with competition from WWE’s creative warfare. Bischoff explained that these factors diluted the creative and execution aspects, resulting in pressure and challenges for the company. He said,
“In 1998, the most successful financial year we had — in the middle of that, I was getting my budgets cut that were approved the year before, that affected our plans going forward. And that’s just one example. So now you’ve got the WWE, you’ve got a brand-new front there because now they’re engaging in a type of creative warfare that we had never seen and didn’t expect, and they came on strong. That took a significant chunk of our audience. That was one battle. The other battle was Turner. The internal battles going on within Turner — not just with WCW, but with a lot of divisions within Turner as a result of the merger that we’ve talked about to death. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Read Guy Evan’s book. But that was a new front.
“That’s the reason why one of the reasons why creative got diluted. Execution got diluted. ‘Oh, let’s throw a brand-new primetime television show we had to produce that nobody else wanted to pay for.’ So, I just said, ‘F**king, I’ll do it. Ted wants it. I’ll pay for it.’ How stupid of a decision was that? I understand why I made it. If you’re gonna go to battle and you want, and you want somebody that you know will enjoy being in the trenches and embracing the fight? I’m your guy. I’m that guy. And when Ted said, ‘I want it,’ and everybody else said, ‘I can’t do it,’ I said, ‘I will!’ That was a mistake on my part. So it was; it was the pressure of Thunder. It was the internal pressure probably most of all that really affected me, creative and everybody else in WCW. Not just talent. That’s the context that I would hope that people that really want to understand what happened to WCW at least take a look at to try to understand the context.”
Speaking about the proper ending of the nWo, Bischoff emphasized the original concept of having separate shows for the nWo and WCW, creating a real rivalry between the two brands. He said,
“The proper end would’ve been the original concept of having to do a second show in giving nWo its own branded show and giving WCW its own branded show. And having that conflict between the two quote-unquote ‘wrestling organizations,’ much like SmackDown and Raw tried to do, right? They haven’t really been successful with it. They’ve tried it for years to try to create that inter-company rivalry and try to make it feel like two separate brands, and not letting talent cross over. All of those things.
“And by the way, WWE hasn’t been they’ve successfully had two different shows. Don’t misunderstand me here, folks, do not misunderstand me. WWE have been incredibly successful in building two different brands, but not the way they started doing it. Right? It’s different now. And I think that if the original idea that was born out of, ‘Okay, Ted wants a second show.’ Had we been able to execute that properly, that would’ve been the right thing to do. The idea of just ending the nWo ’cause it’s a storyline, I don’t think; it would not have been a good business decision. Using the success of the nWo, expanding upon it, and creating a sense of a real rivalry between the two brands would’ve been the ideal way to end it. Not end it but continue it.”
Bischoff felt that the nWo’s energy began to dissipate in early-mid ’98 due to internal collaborations ceasing, making the process less fun and more work. Despite this decline, WCW’s financial success continued, leading to a dual messaging and conflicting feelings for Bischoff about the state of the nWo storyline. He said,
“While creatively, I would say that the nWo started feeling less exciting for me as a creator or producer — both, I guess in this case. For me, it would’ve been early-mid ’98. Because that’s when the energy started to dissipate internally. That’s when the collaborations, everything — so much of the success of the nWo wasn’t because of me or Kevin Sullivan, Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Sting, or anybody else. It was the result from everybody working together and collaborating and having fun in the process. That stopped around the second quarter of ’98 and began to be more work and less fun. Because now we’re managing personalities and chemistry. Once you start managing personalities and chemistry, you’re putting a lot of time and energy into something, that isn’t productive or positive. It isn’t fun. No creative energy comes out of managing personality issues. That’s like putting out a fire. Putting out fires isn’t fun. And that’s when that started happening.
