LogFAQs > #905419518

#15 - Eric Bischoff Nominated by: Lopen

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Eric Bischoff, liar, snake oil salesman, cheat, slick tactician, businessman. If you know anything about me, you know that I'm an avid comics fan. And one of my all time favorite characters in comics is Maxwell Lord, the clever businessman who foists himself into the position of corporate executive of an entire era of internationally flavored Justice Leagues. Bischoff, both on-screen and off, is the very definition of Maxwell Lord. Completely disingenuous, a politician, a man who hides vile behind a smile. The fact that Bischoff is simultaneously an underdog hero of sorts and a complete villain makes him such a compelling figure in wrestling history.

The narrative of Bischoff vs. Vince McMahon is such a unique and unprecedented one in wrestling history. It will likely never be duplicated. Bischoff's sudden fortuitious rise to the top of the WCW hierarchy led to the single biggest boom period in the history of wrestling. It wasn't just the NWO (which was virtually his own idea, including all of the pitfalls that accompanied it), it was the entire structure of WCW from top to bottom. Eric loved fast moving segments, rapid-fire promos, and a certain attention to the flow of a show. It's why that the bad on Nitro wasn't that bad under his tenure; if it sucked, it was short. You weren't just interminably bored. It was entertainingly bad. And when it was good, it didn't linger too long. You were ready for more the following week. In look at 1996-1997 WCW as a perfect example of how to book a wrestling TV show. Bischoff had an excellent format developed, and yet he wasn't afraid to change up once and a while just to keep things unpredictable. He never threw out what didn't work in this era; instead he tried to prevent anything from overstaying its welcome, and I think he did so to great success.

Of course, Bischoff had to juggle Turner execs on top of wrestling egos, and this eventually led to the collapse of his position in 1999. I don't particularly blame Bischoff for this. His system had flaws to be sure; a top-heavy card, WCW suffered when it couldn't push blooming talents into meaningful positions. The backstage politics of WCW was something to behold, since Bischoff believed in being a friend to the boys in a world where he had nearly 200 guys on partial or full-time contracts. When the money began pouring in, Bischoff reinvested it in future talent but was never able to capitalize on the massive pool of waiting future stars that needed stronger pushes.

Bischoff has always been a man who wants to write his own history, and when you look at him in his waning years on podcasts now, he very much is hoping to capitalize on what I consider the fake news epidemic. Bischoff will flat out contradict historians and reporters, impugning their character and insulting them extremely personally in an effort to discredit them and make his agenda appear more genuine. It's a very carny attitude to have, and one that makes perfect sense with Bischoff. It's also caused him to drop in my personal rankings as of late. This is a shame, since Bischoff was at one point an innovator, a risk-taker, and a man who was uncomfortably close to unseating Vince McMahon as the greatest wrestling mind of an era. Sadly, it looks like that keen manipulator has verged into a style of self-promotion and propaganda that I find distasteful. But when I look back at the good years of Eric, I have to admit that he was an extremely interesting character in the history of wrestling.
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