Eric Bischoff Responds to Claims He’s Responsible for WCW’s Demise

World Championship Wrestling would be thriving to this day if not for the actions of Eric Bischoff, according to the man himself.

Bischoff joined WCW in 1991, initially as an announcer, but worked his way up the company, both on and off-screen.

In 1997, the man known as ‘Easy-E’ had the official role of President of World Championship Wrestling and would remain with the company until its end in March 2001.

Taking the Blame

A large part of Bischoff’s WCW was to attack WWE, infamously spoiling results of Monday Night Raw, which was pre-taped, during live episodes of Monday Nitro.

During the January 4, 1999 episode, announcer Tony Schiavone revealed that Mick Foley was set to become WWF Champion, causing hundreds of thousands of viewers to switch from Nitro to Raw.

Speaking on his 83 Weeks Podcast, Bischoff reflected on the criticism that his focus on WWE led to WCW’s demise.

“I went after WWE because I was focused on WCW. It’s part of the underlying narrative, if Eric would have been more focused on WCW instead of trying to take out WWE, WCW would still be around. I’ve heard that kind of thing for 20 years now.

“What people fail to recognize is that I made WCW number one, by focusing on WWE and by focusing on outperforming WWE… That’s why I brought in the Luchadores, created a cruiserweight division. All of those things were because I was focused on going after WWE.”

AEW

Nearly two decades after WCW left Turner Network television, AEW is hoping to also stick it to WWE.

The Tony Khan-led promotion has been popular so far, winning the Wednesday Night Wars, but has yet to match the ratings of WWE’s flagship shows: Raw and SmackDown.

On the podcast, Bischoff refuted the idea that Tony Khan poses any threat to WWE Chairwoman Stephanie McMahon.

“They’re delusional. They want you to be delusional because it’s like if you keep saying it, eventually people will believe it. Right? Just keep repeating the same nonsense over and over and over again. And people will eventually believe it.”

Bischoff has appeared for both AEW and WWE in recent years, though given his consistent criticism of Khan and his company, is unlikely to make more AEW appearances.

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