Eric Bischoff

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Template:Infobox Wrestler Eric Aaron Bischoff (born May 27, 1957 in Detroit, Michigan) was a professional wrestling promoter and personality, who served as President of World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and later as an on-screen General Manager of World Wrestling Entertainment's RAW brand.

Bischoff has the distinction of being the only American wrestling promoter to successfully overtake McMahon's WWE promotion in popularity. From 1996 to 1998, Bischoff's WCW was the most-watched wrestling company in the world.

Before Wrestling

Bischoff was a wrestling fan growing up in the suburbs of Detroit. He relocated to Pittsburgh just before high school, which is where he began studying martial arts. Currently, he holds an 8th degree black belt in karate, as well as black belts in several other disciplines.

Bischoff moved to Minneapolis for his senior year of high school, and graduated from the University of Minnesota with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration and a minor in radio, TV and film. He has owned a successful construction company and worked as a veterinary assistant.

American Wrestling Association

Bischoff started his wrestling career in the late 1980s for the American Wrestling Association. His initial duties were to get coffee, run errands, and mow Verne Gagne's lawn; Bischoff eventually worked his way up to associate producer and announcer, and was given a chance to book the promotion shortly before it folded. As booker, Bischoff created the infamous Team Challenge Series storyline in 1990, which was poorly received and even credited by some as hastening the AWA's collapse.

In 1991, Bischoff joined WCW as an announcer, debuting at the 1991 Great American Bash.

World Championship Wrestling

As an announcer, Eric Bischoff reported to producer Tony Schiavone and WCW's Vice President of Broadcasting, Jim Ross. After WCW head-honcho Bill Watts was ousted by TBS executive Bill Shaw in 1993, Bischoff went to Shaw and WCW Vice President Bob Dhue to ask for the job of executive producer. Jim Ross and Tony Schiavone seemed to be the two top candidates, but Shaw and Dhue decided to go with Bischoff. Schiavone remained a producer until the company's demise, but Ross was fired by Bischoff and ended up in the World Wrestling Federation. In 1994, Bischoff became a Vice President, and cleared house within the WCW front office. He famously fired event manager Don Sandefeur, junior Vice President Jim Barnett, and his old boss Bob Dhue, all on the same day. In 1996, Bill Shaw was reassigned from WCW, leaving Eric with the title of Executive Vice President/General Manager, and by 1997, Bischoff was promoted to President/CEO of WCW.

Bischoff convinced Turner executives to better finance WCW in order to compete with the WWF. He used the money to sign big names such as Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and others. He also invested more money in production values and increased the number of WCW PPVs (first 7 a year, then 10, and then once a month). The plans paid off, and in 1995 WCW turned a profit for the first time.

Monday Nitro

During one WCW meeting, Ted Turner asked Bischoff how the company could possibly compete with the WWF. Bischoff told Turner to put WCW on prime time TV against the WWF's Monday Night Raw. At the time, the flagship show for WCW was WCW Saturday Night. Turner agreed, and gave Bischoff a 2 hour prime-time slot every Monday on TNT.

Bischoff used the new show, WCW Monday Nitro, to showcase the company as a fresh alternative to the WWF. While new episodes of Raw were taped weeks in advance, Nitro was live each week, with Bischoff brashly giving away Raw results to encourage viewers to switch over to the new show. Because WCW and TNT were both part of Turner, Bischoff was able to start Nitro several minutes earlier than Raw, as well as provide a late-night rebroadcast so Raw viewers could still see the show. Bischoff also signed wrestlers from around the world, including All Japan and New Japan, to fill the undercard with superb, action-packed matches.

The plan worked. Nitro beat Raw in their first head-to-head week and ran neck-and-neck with the WWF for the remainder of the year.

nWo

In 1996, Bischoff revealed that WWF superstar Scott Hall, better known to audiences as "Razor Ramon", was defecting from the WWF to join WCW. Hall would soon be joined in WCW by Kevin Nash, who was known best to wrestling fans as "Diesel" during his WWF tenure, in forming the New World Order (nWo). The duo were depicted as "outsiders" invading the company to start a "war" betweeen the two companies (though Bischoff was later forced to clarify that Hall and Nash did not represent the WWF).

The wheels of the nWo were set in motion when perennial fan-favorite Hulk Hogan aligned himself with the Outsiders. Led by the nWo storyline, WCW overtook the WWF as the number one wrestling promotion in America. Monday Nitro's rating defeated Monday Night Raw by a wide margin for 84 consecutive weeks.

Bischoff also enjoyed some mainstream exposure in his own right at the time. He appeared on the HBO series Arliss(Arli$$) as well as The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Downfall

By January 1999, however, the WWF had begun catching up to WCW in the ratings. On January 4, 1999, Nitro was scheduled to air alongside a taped edition of Raw. The night of the taping, former WCW wrestler Mick Foley won the WWF Championship. The night of January 4, Bischoff instructed Tony Schiavone to remark, "I hear that Mick Foley, who once wrestled for us as Cactus Jack, is going to win their title tonight. Huh! That should put some butts in the seats." Bischoff's intention was to spoil the main event, causing fans to lose interest in Raw and stay tuned in to Nitro. Instead, there was a significant backlash; Nielsen ratings showed that within minutes of Bischoff's announcement, nearly 300,000 Nitro viewers switched the channel to Raw so they could see the title change. However, both shows broke quarter-hour ratings records that night, and Nitro beat five of Raw's quarter hours. For months afterwards, fans showed up to WWF shows holding signs reading "Mick Foley put my butt in a seat," signs which received prolonged attention from WWF cameras during pans of the crowd. It proved to be a turning point in the Monday Night Wars. Even though Nitro ratings were still very solid in the 4.5-5.0 range, Nitro never beat Raw in the ratings again.

Frustrated and burnt-out, Bischoff lost his cocky attitude. His TV presence disappeared, and he began looking for an out from WCW, often missing shows so he could pitch ideas to TV executives in Hollywood, being introduced by his friend Jason Hervey as "The Golden Boy who saved wrestling." While wandering elsewhere, Bischoff left Kevin Nash and Nitro producer Craig Leathers in charge of WCW, and ratings tanked. When Bischoff finally returned, the company was in terrible shape, and Bischoff's solution of throwing money at the problem created in itself more problems. On top of this, he seemingly could not produce a follow-up to the nWo cash-cow that had been milked dry. Storylines were utterly confusing. He decided to hold a ridiculous contest in which a lucky Nitro fan would be eligible to win a million dollars of Time Warner money. The contest was soon dropped despite the fact it had been promoted on air for a month. A new Year's Eve concert, performed by KISS, was to be co-branded with WCW.

Bischoff Ousted

All plans were scrapped when, on September 10, 1999, Bischoff was sent home by President of TBS Sports Harvey Schiller, although the decision was made by top executives on Time Warner's board of directors. In early September, when WCW was projecting a huge loss for the month of August, a meeting was held with WCW's accountants and TBS executives in the sports and programming divisions. Presiding over this was Harvey Schiller, who shot down the prospect of firing Bischoff. Hours after this meeting ended, WCW executives Gary Juster and J.J. Dillon staged a coup, and went over their boss's boss's head and met with members of Time Warner's board of directors to try getting Bischoff demoted, and to everyone's astonishment, it worked. The parent company even went so far as to ban Bischoff from WCW offices. The million-dollar contest and the KISS concert-wrestling PPV were canceled, as well as a planned Nitro animated series.

Many in the company were shocked to see Bischoff go. For all of his failings, he was seen as the only manager of a successful WCW, the Vince McMahon in a company that had previously never had such a figure. On top of this, he had always been tight with Turner Broadcasting higher-ups and with Ted Turner himself, who considered Bischoff his wrestling visionary. When Turner's role within Time Warner was reduced to being a member of the board rather than acting chairman, Bischoff lost his favor. The management change went un-mentioned on WCW television. The WCW website claimed it would have more information on Bischoff's involvement in the coming weeks, yet the company seemed ready to quickly forget him. All images and references to Bischoff were banned from WCW programming.

Bill Busch, a company accountant and close friend of Gary Juster, became Vice President after Bischoff's departure. Initially, many in the company were glad for a change, but Busch was a numbers guy who clearly had no idea how to run a wrestling company. WCW lost even more money, and the ratings, which had always been decent under Bischoff, began falling to humiliating lows. With Bill Busch at the helm, a power-struggle between longtime WCW booker Kevin Sullivan and former WWF creative director Vince Russo ensued, resulting in a confusing and inconsistent product.

Less than six months went by before Bill Busch was removed, and Brad Siegel, a Time Warner programming executive, assumed control of WCW. Thanks to this, Bischoff briefly came back into power in April 2000, although not as president; instead, he was named event and television manager, and was to be partners-in-charge with creative director Vince Russo. After six weeks, Bischoff left his post; Russo subsequently took control of all wrestling and television operations, while Johnny Ace became event manager.

Attempted Purchase Of WCW

In late 2000, with WCW facing major financial woes, the company was put up for sale. Brad Siegel wanted little to do with the company, and his new boss in the AOL Time Warner merger was a former WB Network executive named Jamie Kellner, who wanted even less to do with the company. In the Turner era, WCW had always been classified as a sports division, yet under the new corporate umbrella it was overseen by television executives, many of whom hated the idea of wrestling on their station. Bischoff and a group of investors named Fusient Media Ventures signed a letter of intent to buy the company, but later backed out when Kellner cancelled Nitro's timeslot, without which, as Bischoff had said, "WCW would only be worth...20 bucks.". After McMahon bought WCW for a substantially lower price than what Bischoff and Fusient Media Ventures offered in March 2001, Bischoff took some time off from wrestling to work on other TV projects. He produced several reality TV shows and even signed on as president of Matrats, a youth-based wrestling company. Image:Bischoff.jpg

World Wrestling Entertainment

In 2002 Bischoff was hired by WWE to be the on-air general manager of RAW, a role he played until late 2005. Bischoff resurected his characteristic brand of smarminess with his GM position. Off-screen, many in the company were shocked that Bischoff was brought in, and some who did business with him in the past - most notably Ric Flair - were unhappy. Vince McMahon, however said "Bischoff is an excellent performer. And he was innovative, and he was unquestionably ruthless. Those are qualities that anyone can endear themselves to me." Bischoff was "fired" as GM in late 2005, when McMahon tossed him into a garbage dumpster and drove him out of the arena. Bischoff remains under contract, but remains "off TV." and is currently writing a book about WCW.

Life outside wrestling

Bischoff, with former Wonder Years star Jason Hervey, runs his own production company, Bischoff-Hervey Productions, who co-produced the reality TV series I Want To Be a Hilton for NBC in 2005. They also produced a live Girls Gone Wild pay-per-view event from Florida in 2003 with the WWE and another pay-per-view about the popular Sturgis, South Dakota motorcycle rally in 2004. Currently, they are working on a reality series project with Limp Bizkit lead singer Fred Durst. Today, Bischoff lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, with his wife and three children.

Championships and accomplishments

• World Wrestling Entertainment
  • RAW General Manager (July 15, 2002 - December 5, 2005)
• World Championship Wrestling
  • Executive Producer (1993-1994)
  • Executive Vice President (1994-1995)
  • Senior Vice President of Wrestling Operations (1995-1997)
  • President of WCW (1997-1999)
  • 1-Time WCW Hardcore Champion
• Pro Wrestling Illustrated
  • PWI named him the most influential person in wrestling for both 1996 and 1997.
  • Feud of the Year in 1996, Bischoff vs. Vince McMahon and in 2002, Bischoff vs. Stephanie McMahon.
• Wrestling Observer Newsletter
  • 2005 Best Non-Wrestler

Championship succession

Template:Start box | colspan = 3 align = center | WCW Hardcore Championship |- | width = 30% align = center | Preceded by:
Terry Funk | width = 40% align = center | First | width = 30% align = center | Succeeded by:
Big Vito and Johnny Stamboli |- Template:End box

Trivia

• In 1990, Bischoff was given an honorary award by the MA Karate Corp. In the late 70s, Bischoff competed in ISKA welterweight tournament kickboxing and holds two black belts in Judo and Karate, with an amateur record of 21-8-1. It was during this time Eric met his good friend and former WCW personality, Sonny Onoo.
• According to official WCW history, Bischoff defeated Vince McMahon via count-out at Slamboree 1998. Bischoff challenged McMahon to show up and fight him at the WCW PPV, but McMahon declined. Years later, on a February 2004 edition of WWE RAW, the two fought to a no-contest, when the special referee "Stone Cold" Steve Austin was attacked by Brock Lesnar.
• Bischoff is a big fan of country music star Shania Twain.
• Eric Bischoff's wife Loree has posed in Playboy.

External links

• EricBischoff.org Fan sitede:Eric Bischoff

ja:エリック・ビショフ