On a recent episode of his “83 Weeks” podcast, Eric Bischoff recalled WCW Spring Stampede 1998.
Bischoff discussed whether WCW considered signing Jake “The Snake” Roberts, his relationship with Ted Turner, and his appearance on Off The Record.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On if there was talk to bring Jake Roberts into WCW in 1998: “Oh, I think there might have been, you know? Jake Roberts was always a name that would come up a couple times a year. I don’t know where Jake was at personally, you know, in his personal life at that point in time, but that was always kind of a question is ‘oh yeah, I know Jake’s great. It’d be great to have Jake, but which Jake are we talking about bringing in?’ Because he was going through some s***, but he’s one of the most talented, I thinks probably he’s got better instincts for the wrestling art form then almost anybody I know. It’s really, really good.”
On his interactions with Ted Turner: “Ted would usually call on Tuesdays when the ratings came out not every single week, obviously. But, when he was in town, which was frequently, Ted would call me on Tuesday usually between 4:30, 5, 5:15, because that’s when the numbers were published and he was always in a good mood. I always loved getting those calls. I mean, who wouldn’t right? It’s Ted Turner.”
On appearing on Off The Record with Michael Lansberg: “I wanted to go to Toronto. The show is being taped in Toronto. I heard there were a lot of great restaurants in Toronto. I enjoyed talking about WWE success and our growth and our goals and I love, look we were successful for a lot of reasons. But, in no small part due to the fact that there was a real war going on. Not a cosplay Tony Khan AEW war where you pretend you’re actually in a fight with somebody when you’re really just standing on the sidelines. This was a real war. This was every single week head to head and me pushing Vince McMahon and Vince McMahon pushing me and the audience benefiting from all that pushing and shoving is what grew the audience in large part. I mean there were a lot of other reasons for it, but it was the fact it was Coke and Pepsi. It was the Ford and Chevy battle. People like that. People like a good war. They unfortunately, in some cases, just do. This war was real. So, any opportunity that I had to get especially outside of traditional wrestling coverage even though TSN wasn’t the large, it wasn’t ESPN by any stretch. But, it was Canada and Canada was an important market for us, so I was anxious to do the show.”
