Posted on Mar 13, 2002               <<BACK TO NEWSBOARD

Alex Marvez Interviews Eric Bischoff WRESTLINGOBSERVER.COM INTERVIEW WITH ERIC BISCHOFF By Alex Marvez E-mail: alex@wrestlingobserver.com. Eric Bischoff may no longer be in the wrestling spotlight, but he remains almost as busy as when he was the executive vice president in World Championship Wrestling. Through his Battle Entertainment company, Bischoff is working with Survivor creator Mark Burnett to develop a reality-based martial arts television show. Battle Entertainment already has a business relationship with K-1, which is considered one of the most successful mixed martial arts promotions. Bischoff also is working on helping Next Generation Wrestling (formerly known as MatRats) land a syndication deal with a new grappling-inspired contract. And there’s always the chance Bischoff may wind up in the World Wrestling Federation as part of the New World Order faction. In the following interview, Bischoff, 46, discusses all of those topics and reflects upon Fuscient Media Venture’s failed purchase attempt of WCW last year and his thoughts on upstart promotions trying to provide competition with the WWF. Q: So what do you think of the NWO stuff and do you take it as a compliment that they're using your gimmick? Bischoff: "Obviously, I'm happy to see it. I'm happy to see it for all the right reasons. Hulk Hogan is one of my closest friends. I'm very close with Kevin Nash and I've been friends with Scott Hall for a long time. It's good for me as a fan because I enjoy seeing them back on TV again. Clearly, it's kind of a compliment if you look at it that way. To see an idea I worked so hard on and was a big part of manifest itself on WWF programming was satisfying and gratifying. As a fan, I'm happy to see it because it's interesting and exciting. It has raised the level of expectations in the audience." Q: But so far, the ratings haven't shown any growth since the NWO returned. Does that surprise you? Bischoff: "That's the downside of raised expectation. The expectation of the audience -- particularly with the core wrestling audience - was raised to a certain level and built to anticipation, which the WWF did very well. They then expect great things to happen immediately. The truth is the story line and integration of the NWO into the WWF has achieved a certain level of success and raised awareness. But in terms of execution of a story line, they have not done that. I think it's a little early to be reading into quarter-hour ratings and the overall success of their effort until after the story has played out to a certain extent. "That being said, the NWO concept -- I don't want to even call it an angle because it's bigger than just an angle - is just like the WWF 'attitude.' It's a clear change in the strategic approach of the wrestling brand. But I believe a story line or strategic approach has to have five key elements in wrestling to be successful. You have to have anticipation. People have to look forward to what's going to happen next. You have to have surprise. That was one key ingredient that made the NWO angle so exciting. In WCW, fans felt they had to absolutely tune in to see what was going to happen. You have to create a sense of anticipation by using surprise as a catalyst. There has to be a story there. And along with the story, there has to be reality. If the story is so far removed from reality, the audience is not going to buy into it at the same level. I haven't been watching a lot of the (WWF's NWO) story unfold closely because I've been busy and traveling a lot lately. But from the amount that I've watched and from what I've read and heard, the story element is maybe not quite hitting on all cylniders. The reality element is not quite firing yet on all cylinders with the audience. Here's an example. When Vince (McMahon) bought the WCW brand and created a story where Shane (McMahon) got control of it, nobody believed that. It was too far removed from reality. It couldn't possibly be true. So that only fired on two cylinders. Perhaps the reality of the NWO integration is kind of falling short in that regard. And the fifth element you have to have is action. It's wrestling. You have to have action. Certainly, at some point they will. Hulk is very competitive, as are Scott and Nash. When the lights are on, they will perform and perform up to the level of their opponents. I truly believe that. I know a lot of people have the own opinion about their quality of work, but the audience will get what they pay for when they wrestle." Q: Did you ever think you'd see these guys working for Vince again? Bischoff: "Yeah. It's no secret that Hulk and I close friends. The way he went out in WCW because of all the things going on with the company at the time left a bad taste in his mouth and the people around him. This was an opportunity to certainly extend his career while writing the final chapter in his wrestling legacy. I think he should end up in the WWF quite honestly. That's where people recognize him from. That's where he got his mainstream start. Even though he spent a lot of time in smaller promotions, when the world thinks of Hulk Hogan, they think of him in the WWF in the 1980s. It's only fitting he would close out his career here. In terms of Scott and Kevin, this is a business. There are not very many places to go in this world and ply your trade. In Kevin's situation, he's got a young son and wants to spend time with him. He's not 25 anymore and he can't afford to be traveling around the world working Japan, Europe and Australia and be a good father. This was a great opportunity for him. I think Scott recognized the same thing." Q: So when do you start up with the WWF? Bischoff: (Laughs) "I haven't had any discussions with them, honestly. I had been some conversations back last July and for a variety of reasons it did not work out. From my point of view, I was not in any kind of shape on such short notice and did not want to embarrass myself or blow a good opportunity rushing into something I was not ready for. I passed back then and since then haven't heard from them and don't expect them to call." Q: Would you be interested if they did call? Bischoff: "If it made sense all the way around. When I say made sense, from my point of view it was, a) fun and b) would raise the bar a couple of levels. If it was something that got people talking and was unique and created a strong interest in what was going on, I'd be real excited about that. But if it was doing something that would just get me on TV or as a part of something for the sake of doing it, no. It's not even a money issue. I read somewhere in one of the dirt sheets or on an internet site that the amount of money I would require is huge. That is not true. It has to be fun and make me feel like I was taking a step forward conceptually." Q: You weren't always kind to Vince McMahon in the media. Bischoff: (Laughs) "Sure. People have to realize that a lot of what I did and what I said was designed to create controversy. I've said this a million times and in a million different interviews that controversy creates cash. It's the three Cs. Everything I did I did to either make people want to root for our effort or want to see us fail. We wanted to make people feel passion one way or another, not be in a gray area and not care." Q: But you did have some valid criticisms, like how the WWF's approach with a raunchier product was alienating advertisers. Bischoff: "That was true. And I was right to a certain extent. That's not a situation where I get a sense of gratification out of it. The truth of the matter is the WWF embarked upon a strategic change in their approach to business when competing head to head with us. They decided that because they were no longer No. 1 with the family entertainment format that they had to go after the 18-34 (year-old) demographic. To do that, they had to do things that were controversial from Steve Austin flipping people off to drinking beer in the ring to (Mae Young) giving birth to hand. All these crazy things did create talking and controversy and people tuned in. To some extent, they're still living in many ways off that success. Unfortunately with a lot of advertisers, the WWF had a double whammy. Not only did they alienate certain mainstream advertisers, but combined with ads in general across the board being scaled back, it put them in a very precarious position. To their credit, they've survived it because their business model is not dependent upon television the way WCW was. They're strong enough in their live event business and have maintained enough strength in pay-per-view and licensing that the hiccup they had to deal with in terms of advertising revenue did not have that much of an adverse affect. Certainly, it had an adverse affect on WCW. Q: I heard you were backstage at the recent World Wrestling All-Stars pay-per-view show. What do you think of that group? Bischoff: "First of all, I think Andrew (McManus, WWA promoter) had the right idea in the beginning, which was to tour markets that get a lot of wrestling on television but no live event opportunities. What a lot of people don't realize is that in Australia they're seeing WCW from 1998 for the first time. The same is true in a lot of places overseas. Because of the nature of the television deals, the product is not as current. A lot of day- and date-intensive language from the show is taken out by editing. The pay-per-view references are taken out. It's just action. When you've got an audience who sees some things -- like Rey (Mysterio Jr.) and the cruiserweights - for the first time, there is a market for him and a way to exploit that. It's a very smart first approach. But I think he is biting off probably a lot more right now than anyone is capable of chewing. The wrestling business is a very complex business. It's not as easy as it looks. A lot of very talented executives at Time-Warner and AOL and Turner can attest to that. They are successful in a lot of areas of life, but wrestling was a unique challenge for them." Q: What are the biggest challenges a start-up wrestling promotion faces today? Bischoff: "Financial resources and a lack of sufficient talent. There are a couple of guys out there. Goldberg is out there, but he's not going to work for anybody any time soon. Sting is out there, but I'm not sure he's working for anybody any time soon. No disrespect to everybody else. Scott Steiner, everybody knows he's a friend of mine, just like Marc Bagwell and Lex Luger. But unless you have a couple of main-event players - and you need more than one or two of them - I just can't see anybody doing it (successfully). And if you don't have a television platform to build and introduce new talent, then there's nowhere to go. The talent issue is an obstacle that can't be overcome. Thirdly, nobody else out there -- and this sounds self-serving as hell -- has been successful running a wrestling company at that level. You've had local promoters like Jerry Jarrett running (Memphis) 35 years ago or whatever it was, but this is a different business. For a model to compete on pay-per-view and television, you've got to know the industry and have credibility. No disrespect to Jimmy (Hart) and what they're trying to do in Tampa (with the XWF), but I see nobody having that level of success unless you've got a substantial investment. And I'm not talking $10 million or $20 million. Unless you have significant financial resources and a business plan and a strategy and some strategic partners that can sustain a two- or three-year growth period, there's not a chance in hell they're gonna make it. That makes the stakes very high." Q: Can you talk about why the potential sale of WCW to Fuscient fell apart? Bischoff: "It was almost exactly a year ago to this date (March 6) that we were preparing to close that deal. But a big part of the transaction had to do with the distribution component. When we were negotiating to buy, we were not just negotiating to buy copyrights and trademarks, the tape library and a handful of contracts. We were negotiating for long-term distribution on TBS and TNT. That's where the value in the transaction was. When that distribution component evaporated because AOL wanted to make their programming different and not make a long-term commitment, there was not much value left. There was nowhere to take it. Despite what people think who create wrestling organizations - and I refer to them as fantasy camps - there's not a network or cable station or otherwise interested in being the poor man's WWF. Nobody wants it on the air. There's nowhere to go with it. So we walked away. All that was left was copyrights and trademarks and the video library. It's not worth that much money. It may be to Vince, because he has the means to exploit it to a certain level more so than anybody else But unless you're in the business and have distribution, that video library is worth pennies." Q: But were you as surprised as I was that the company was sold for just $2.5 million? Bischoff: "What did Vince get for $2.5 million? What he got was a handful of talent agreements, most of which he got rid of pretty quickly. He got copyrights and trademarks that really weren't worth anything. He got an opportunity to creatively use a long-standing brand and integrate into a story line that could have and should have worked. But beyond that, there was nothing tangible there. He wasn't buying a production truck. He did not need a ring. There was not an infrastructure to the office. There wasn't anybody in the office who was worth bringing over with the exception of Johnny Ace and a handful of others. There was no administrative structure that would have any value. So what did he really get? I think he paid a lot of money." Q: None of this would have happened if (TBS Chief Executive Officer) Jamie Kellner hadn't decided to pull the plug on wrestling. Bischoff: "AOL did that. Vince, to this day, I haven't had a conversation with him. But my guess is he's smart enough and the people around him are smart enough to know that competition was a pretty good thing. He's trying to artificially create that NWO. That's a problem. We went through the same thing when we tried to split our roster and split the company (into WCW and NWO factions). It's a real challenge. It's a challenge because nobody really believes it. It doesn't feel like two different companies when you all get your paychecks from the same company. "Here's the problem. They've got a limited pool of talent that actually drives the ship. Immediately, that comes across as, 'Bischoff still hasn't learned the undercard is important.' That's not true at all. Everyone on the show is important, from the referees to the security guards to the audience, which is an integral part of the show. But the truth remains that you have to have stars to drive it. The challenge is going to be splitting the talent down the middle so that you have a significant enough group - and I mean that in terms of size - that can drive the ship and the discipline to keep (the groups) apart except for pay-per-view or strategic times when you intentionally bring them together. If you flip-flop them back and forth, within six months, it's not going to feel like two different companies. The chances are you're going to suffer some of the same results we did." Q: What going on with MatRats (Editor's note: Matrats began as matches being held out of Calgary by teenagers with tremendous athletic ability that were going to be marketed to a younger audience. Bischoff hooked up with the company in April 2001.)? Bischoff: "It's no longer MatRats. It's Next Generation Wrestling. Let me start by saying that the property is substantially different than what people think of when they think of pro wrestling. It's a very unique approach, which is why we call it Next Generation Wrestling. That being said, we're closing the financing literally as we speak and going back and forth with our television partner Western International Syndication, which is one of the biggest in the world. We have a television partner and have distribution and funding. The plan right now -- and again, nothing is for sure until after it happens because at any time during the process something can happen to derail it -- appears well on it's way to getting done, which is why we probably will go into pre-production June 1 for a September launch." Q: How do you describe Next Generation Wrestling (Editor's note: The content is expected to consist of matches that won't be decided by pinfall or submission but rather three judges who are grading on the level of performance in the ring). Bischoff: "It's the X-games meets pro wrestling. It's taking what has always been a fake fight and scripted violence and turning it into a real competition. It's taking the audience's interest in and knowledge of this business and exploits the fact they know this isn't real. It's going to be non-traditional in the ring. It will be like what the toboggan is to the half-pipe. It's going to be in a ring and there are going to be a lot of things people recognize out of the pro wrestling format, but the athleticism and action is probably going to be a half-dozen notches above what you now see in the ring. And the competition is real. You're still going to have all the strength of characters and story lines but the story will be on real competition as opposed to scripted violence." "When the Matrats people came to me with the idea almost a year ago, the first thing I said to them was, 'You have a great idea and talent, but the concept will never work because the talent is too young. You can't put 14- and 16-year-olds in the ring like that because of the insurance alone and the reality that no television partner wants to take that risk ... Let me play with this for a while and see if we can find a way to develop a plan that makes sense.' When you kind of rise above all of what people talk about when they get on the internet, they talk about quality of work. The audience is just as smart now and aware of what goes into a wrestling match as a lot of people in the ring. Rather than try to convince them the action is real, why not go the other way and say, 'Look, let's completely take the curtain down.' You can create a property like that, take it to an advertiser and say it's kind of like the X-Games but it appeals to people who like wrestling action. It's very visually dynamic and intense because it's real and not based on violence and fake fighting. The advertisers would feel comfortable associating with that. And you'd have a lot of music and record label deals. It's something a television network can look at and feel reasonably good about. It's not like the WWF. We can't compete with the WWF. But there's no way anybody can watch what we're doing and say we're just trying to be like Vince McMahon or the WWF." Q: Finally, I also understand you're in the process of developing a martial arts reality series with (Survivor creator) Mark Burnett. Can you talk about that? Bischoff: "A while back, I went into business with two guys (Peter Levin and Jeremy Lappen) and created Battle Entertainment. We kind of wanted to develop not only martial arts but to develop content for television that has multiple revenue stream opportunities similar to what the wrestling model is. This is perfect for someone like our partners. We know how to create an interesting television property built on an arena component, a pay-per-view component, and advertising and merchandise and make it attractive utilizing as a base my background in martial arts, K-1 in particular. This company (K-1) has produced live events on five different continents and put 60,000 to 70,000 people in the Tokyo Dome with a ticket price of $200 on the average. We entered into an agreement with them to launch their company here in the U.S. and try to get a television deal and develop a pay-per-view model. Along a parallel path, for the last eight months, we've been working to create our own opportunity in the area of martial arts. Unless you have, in my opinion, a mainstream television platform to launch the business of off, it's a very risky venture. So the first step is to try and create a martial arts platform bringing martial arts to the mainstream audience in a unique and exciting way. We're working together to create the reality concept. We went through the agents over at CAA to talk to Mark Burnett's office and went in and pitched the ideas. They said they were already looking at something. They knew they wanted to be involved in something but were not sure what they wanted to do or when they wanted to do it. When they heard about the show (idea) and what we had been doing and what our resources were, it made sense to work together."