Sonny Onoo on His WCW Release, Eric Bischoff, More

Sent by Jordan Garber:

Sonny Onoo was recently a guest on Cut The Promo podcast with host Jordan Garber. The show can be listened to every Sunday at 10 PM CT and Wednesday at 10:30 AM CT on blogtalkradio.com/cutthepromo. Here are some of the highlights!

Sonny Onoo On Eric Bischoff bringing him to WCW:

“Eric Bischoff and I were karate mates. We’d travel across the country on the weekends and that’s how we became friends. Many years later Eric Bischoff started working with Turner and there was some issue with NJPW at the time and Eric asked me to help repair that relationship. Right after our time in Japan, he said, “hey you have to help me come on board and keep this thing going with New Japan” and I became the agent officer. Mainly for NJPW, I did some on-air work and prior to that, I had done movies. Including some martial art movies so I’ve been on a camera before. So I knew at least somewhat of how a production works.“

Sonny Onoo On WCWs Cruiserweight Division:

“If you really follow the history you find that because of WCW. Quote-unquote cruiserweight talent that made wrestling different. It’s not to bigger than life. The different style of wrestling. Not too many big guys to be doing a hurricanrana or moonsaults although Vader did it. You just don’t see that fast-paced, holy cow kind of action. These different type of matches that you is must faster-paced, and if you add Japanese strong style. Along with the acrobatic of cruiserweights and the stuff they were doing were a phenomenon and thus the cruiserweight matchup back than needed a lot of background stories.“

Sonny Onoo On Vince Russo being a huge part of WCWs demise:

“I think one of the reasons why WCW got bought out was because of Time Warner Merger. I think that has more to do with it than anything else. The programming was suffering because Eric Bischoff was gone I believe in September of 99. They brought in Vince Russo who just made a mockery of wrestling. He just made a mockery of a lot of stuff that we hold dear in wrestling. The demise of popularity in Nitro is on his shoulders. But as far as the demise of the company its self was the demise of Time Warner Merger.“

Sonny Onoo On His WCW Release:

“I signed a 2-year extension in September of 99 and Vince Russo came in and did an interview on WCW on one of their podcasts or shows that he was American and that he wouldn’t use Japanese on their television anymore and I get a call from J.J. Dillion staying that they were terminating my contract. I said, “you can’t terminate a contract because of someone’s race or country of origin”. The issue was settled and satisfaction was held to my part. When Vince Russo cut ties with NJPW, he was left millions of dollars a year New Japan was paying to WCW in their talent exchange program. He wasn’t the brightest apple in the cart.”