Eric Bischoff recently took to his podcast, “83 Weeks,” to talk about several professional wrestling topics.
Here are the highlights:
Not being that disappointed about Triple H leaving WCW:
I wasn’t excited about hiring Paul Levesque. I really could have taken him or leaving him. And at the time, because budgets were such a big issue when Paul came onboard, and because he did live on the east coast and, we’ve talked about this before, I was really trying to concentrate our roster, build our roster up of people that lived in close proximity of Atlanta, where if they did live out of state, for example a lot of talent lived in Florida, the airfares were relatively inexpensive.
I didn’t want to be flying people in from New York, or Boston, or Seattle, or Los Angeles because it was just really expensive to have to do that every week or every other week. So I wasn’t excited about Paul when he came in, and I wasn’t that disappointed when he left. Not that I didn’t think that he had talent, not that I didn’t think he was all that valuable, but I didn’t look at him as a guy that I invested in and I created and I gave this opportunity.
His belief that Triple H came to WCW to get on WWE’s radar:
I’ve never talked to Paul about this. Truth is, Paul Levesque was in WCW for a cup of coffee. He wasn’t a high profile guy, so there’s just not a lot of concrete stories or relationships or conversations or issues or negotiations or anything that I can really talk about because he was just there for a brief period of time. What I have heard, second hand and third hand, so I don’t know if it’s true at all, is that Paul’s original intention was to come to WCW to try to get on the WWF’s radar, and that makes sense to me. Paul is a very smart guy.
He’s a really smart guy. And being that Paul grew up in, I think it was Boston or wherever he grew up, I can’t remember where he’s from, but the Northeast where WWE was prominent. It was the brand, it was the wrestling company. And Paul was just coming on, I think it was Killer Kowalski’s wrestling school, and hadn’t really had much exposure at the time. I think he looked at WCW as a transition and platform and opportunity to get noticed to go to WWE. So it was a means to an end. He did make the right decision. Go back and look at it.
Historically, WCW, other than Sting, and a couple of other characters, Lex Luger I guess, WCW didn’t have a track record of creating stars. They didn’t really have the platform to do it, but didn’t really have the history of doing it either, creatively. So it was a good decision. But I think if you were to ask Paul, and at some point either you may have that opportunity, or I may run across him and ask him because I’m curious now, but I’m pretty sure he came to WCW for the sole expressed reason to go to the WWF.
And I heard something similar, or read something similar, in an interview with Chris Jericho, that that was his ultimate goal, was to get to WWF and take advantage of the exposure WCW gave him, and the fact that we made him a star, to go to WWF, in order to become, or WWE, a bigger star. And he did. Nothing wrong with that.
Also Read: Eric Bischoff Talks if Vince McMahon Tries to Kill Off WCW Ideas in WWE
H/T 411Mania for the transcriptions
