On a recent edition of his “Strictly Business” podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Eric Bischoff discussed former ESPN executive Lee Fitting handling top WCW talent contracts, the unique requests from talents during contract negotiations, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On his reaction to WWE hiring Fitting as head of TV Production: “Great. I mean, I don’t know… that’s an interesting observation [hiring outside instead of looking internally]. And I didn’t have time to think that through. But yeah, that’s — you know, Mike Mansury, who’s now at AEW. My impression was, back in 2018 when I had my cup and a half of coffee in WWE, my impression was that Mike Mansury was being groomed for that eventual opportunity. And I was so impressed — and am, by the way, still am — I’m so impressed with Mike and his capabilities, and his just broad fundamental understanding of the process and the technology that goes with it, and the creativity that goes with it. And that’s another thing; when Mike jumped over to AEW, I was 100% supportive and very optimistic. We’ll leave it there.
“But yeah, I think going outside as opposed to inside, and I’m sure — look, [I’m] not even going to begin to second guess the decision by Nick Khan. I’m not even going to, or be in a room with someone that wouldn’t necessarily be because I don’t like hanging around with stupid people. But we’ll see. I know I don’t know enough about it to have an opinion.”
On the most unique requests from talent in WCW contract negotiations: “I mean, nothing that you wouldn’t expect, right? First class airfare, first class hotels. I mean money, obviously, that’s the central focus. But I never had — you know, like nobody said, ‘Okay, I’m only going to do this if you bring green M&Ss to my room.’ None of that weird s**t. It was just trying to squeeze as much juice as you could out of the lemon, and all the things that you might expect… The only people that could propose an outlandish contract request are people that were pretty successful. And they had a pretty good idea what the parameters were, they would try to push those parameters, but no one’s gonna make me bring M&Ms to the party. Not with that level of talent.”
