Byte This Report w/ Bischoff

[haVoc 0]

Byte This Main Event

September 21, 2005

Hosts: Todd Grisham

Guest: Eric Bischoff

 

Todd Grisham opens the show by saying that it’s gonna be a great show, but they have just one guest but it’s Eric Bischoff. Enough said. He said they will be taking calls, but Eric does not tolerate stupid questions.

 

Todd talks a bit about the main event from Unforgiven and the events that transpired on RAW the next night as a result of that. If you didn’t know by now, Eric Bischoff will be facing John Cena at Hardcore WWE Homecoming. We will hear Eric’s thoughts on that later.

 

Todd does a quick preview of the matches that you will be see if you remembered that Smackdown is on Fridays.

 

Eddie Guerrero and Batista vs. MnM.

Booker T vs. Christian.

Chris Benoit vs. Orlando Jordan. Todd says don’t go to the bathroom or a snack break when this match is on because it might get over in half a minute.

Also the debut of Bobby Lashley. Todd puts over his physique and in-ring ability. Todd mentions that he is a 3-time amateur wrestling champion, 4-time All-American.

Plus, the Ortons will have something in store for the Undertaker.

 

Todd mentions that it is exciting time for the WWE (actually he said WEWE or something like that) because RAW is going back home. He asks the staff if he is allowed to say where they are going. I guess Todd doesn’t go to WWE.com He mentions USA network. Todd says everyone is excited. He has seen the USA executives in WWE HQ feeling their way around.

 

He plugs WWE Homecoming and besides the returning wrestlers, WWE legends and WWE Hall of Famers scheduled to appear, two matches have been signed already.

Edge vs. Matt Hardy in a ‘loser leaves RAW Money in the bank’ ladder match.

John Cena vs. Eric Bischoff for the WWE Championship.

 

Which leads to…Eric Bischoff joins the show.

 

(The phone connection was very bad. It made it difficult to understand some of what Eric was saying.)

 

Todd calls him the next world champion, and Eric tells Todd it’s great to be working with a professional at Todd’s level.

 

Todd asks Eric what he will do when he wins the title. Maybe go to Disney World? Eric says since they are going to be in Dallas, he knows of some great gentlemen’s clubs there. He’ll take Coach and some other people he likes to party with and make a night out of it. He says he will show Ric Flair how to party, and adds that he doesn’t need the Viagra. Todd asks if he can come, and mentions that he is attractive to back it up. Eric says absolutely.

 

Todd asks him what he is doing between now and then to prepare for the match. Eric says there isn’t any time to prepare for the WWE champion no matter who it is. Eric puts over John Cena as having a phenomenal physical condition and being a great wrestler. He is only improving every day of the week. What would you expect a 50-year old GM to do to get ready? The only thing he can do is be mentally prepared because he doesn’t have much time for anything else.

 

Todd mentions the 10 year anniversary of WCW Nitro debuting. He asks Eric when he thinks about it, does he think about it with glee and happiness or he thinks of ‘what could have, would have been’? Eric says a little of all three. He has a lot of great memories of WCW, things that he experienced and things that he accomplished as well as things that they did to change the industry as it is today. A lot of things that we see today on Monday night and Thursday nights (oops) are a result of Eric’s tenure at WCW. No one will be able to take those accomplishments away from him, and he will remember them fondly. Does he think about things that he could have done or wish that he could do differently? Absolutely. A lot of mistakes were made. A lot of choices were made that had he known then what he knows now, he would do differently. But he says that life. He doesn’t let it get him down. Occasionally he does think about ‘what could have been’. Had he been able to make those different choices, what would the roles be like? What would the sports entertainment industry be like? We know what it is like now, but what would it have been then. He does think about it, but doesn’t dwell on it. He thoroughly enjoys what he is doing right now. He loves the relationship he has with WWE. He likes the people he works with a great deal. He has tremendous respect for almost everyone he works with. So when you have that, you tend not to dwell on the past.

 

Todd asks what its like to work for Vince McMahon, mentioning that Eric probably never thought that he would. Has McMahon been great to him, good to him or just doesn’t talk to him that much? He says all of the above. They don’t talk that much. Eric says that his own nature is that he is not a needy person when it comes to having relationships. Eric says Vince probably doesn’t remember this, but Eric told him the first night he debuted on RAW that his job was to be high performance and very low maintenance. That’s what he strives to be. Part of being high performance is being a professional and being the best at what you do, trying new things and willing to do things that you wouldn’t be comfortable doing and put a 110% into it. That’s what he is about. In terms of being low maintenance, having been in a position that Vince is in right now, he is being not needy i.e. not having to go to Vince and have a talk every time he sees him, have the need for Vince to convince him or communicate with him on a regular basis what he expects out of his character. It’s time-consuming. There are about 80 performers and if every one of them wanted ‘5 minutes’ with Vince, it is just impossible. Besides, the producers, writers, directors and executive producers want their time with Vince as well. Eric tries to stay out of Vince’s way. That’s the relationship he likes to have. Does he talk to Vince? Seldom do they do. Does he get along with Vince? They don’t socialize. They have a great professional relationship. When they need to have a dialogue, they have a great way of communicating with each other. When Vince transcribes what he wants to happen, Eric can visualize it clearly and makes it easier for him to deliver. So, they have a great professional relationship, but their socializing relationship is non-existent. But Eric has a great amount of respect for Vince.

 

Todd says one of the lasting impressions or biggest moments in WCW was not only the NWO, but Hulk Hogan joining them.

 

They show a clip of Hogan cutting a promo after joining NWO telling why he decided to join them.

 

Todd asks Eric what his thoughts were just before Hogan joined NWO. Was he nervous or anxious or there would be bedlam in the arena? Eric didn’t think there would be bedlam. He knew it was going to be a big moment. They just didn’t know how big. They knew they were gonna get a phenomenal reaction from the audience. But they didn’t know how phenomenal. So there was lot of anticipation, and there was lot of drama leading up to that moment. It was literally 6 hours before the event started that they were certain that it was going to be Hogan in that role. There was question about whether Hogan would go through with it or not. So once they got through that drama and emotion, which was pretty stressful, it was anticipation. Eric says it was one of the most exciting moments that he ever experienced. He wasn’t part of the story on camera, but being the architect, and orchestrating the whole thing, and managing to keep it a secret from everybody was pretty cool. Todd says it was memorable for sure.

 

 

Todd asks him when he took over WCW, was Eric’s initial plan to revolutionise things? Did he want to feel his way around and take baby steps or did he just want to go in there and drop the hammer and revolutionise wrestling? When he first took over WCW in late 1993-early 1994, his goal wasn’t to be aggressive as he ended up being. His goal was not to revolutionise anything. His goal was to be strong and allow the company survive. When he took over WCW, it was a company that has gross sales of $24 million a year and losing $10 million in the process. Everybody within the Turner organization wanted WCW “off the menu”. They didn’t want the company there. The only one that wanted it was Ted. His way of justifying it was to look at the hours of programming they get out of it. If they were to get rid of WCW, they would have to go out and buy programming to put in those spots. They were viewed as a “lost leader” item. Eric says lot of people talk about how much money he spent on contracts etc, but they fail to remember that in his first two years after taking over, he would literally make the people count the number of pencils they have on their desks just so they don’t have any waste etc. The first two years of his existence was really cost-cutting and cutting their expenses down to the bone. Once they cut down the expenses to the point that they just couldn’t cut anymore, that’s when they started building and things started to happen. It wasn’t until a faithful Monday or Tuesday afternoon when he was sitting in Ted Turner’s office, and Ted asked him what do they have to do to make this company number one. Eric wasn’t prepared to answer, but to be on a defensive mechanism, he said that they have to be in prime time, since WWE were in prime time and they were Saturday afternoons. They need a prime time slot. When he gave it to him, that’s when he knew he had to do something big. He had to be aggressive, had to think outside the box, had to revolutionise the business. It didn’t occur to him until two years after he started running WCW.

 

Todd brings up Eric wanting to be number one and doing anything to get there. He mentions Eric challenging Vince to a fight, and giving away RAW results on Nitro. But then WWE retaliated with the DX invasion. Todd asks Eric to talk about how dirty it got between the two companies. Eric says those are the things that we know about, because we got to watch it unfold. He says those things were part of the reason of why the industry is what it is today. They were alternative programming before the term got invented. They were doing reality programming before it became the ‘thing’. But it reared its ugly head too. There were federal investigations, copyright trademark infringement. There was Vince McMahon writing letters complaining about things WCW were doing on-camera like use of blood etc. It got ugly on camera and equally as ugly off camera. He says challenging Vince was fun as hell. It was very brave and very good and cheesy on his part as well. But where did it come from? He didn’t just wake up one morning and decided to do it. It started with the DX invasion. He calls Sean Waltman a ‘skinny puke’. Eric says his beef was not with Waltman and says he is a washed-up hang around that he kept around as a favour to Nash and Hall, as long as he didn’t piss him off. Eric says Waltman got big for his britches, and thought he was worth more than he was being paid so Eric just got rid of him. He says his issue was not with Sean, but with Vince. Sean was just a mouthpiece for Vince. So if Vince wanted to do something about it, step in the ring. If he wants to kick Eric’s ass, so be it. He had his ass kicked before, so it’s no big deal. He says what was cool about it was the reality involved. Nobody knew if Vince was gonna show up, Eric included. Hogan told him to be careful because he felt that Vince would show up. He takes this stuff seriously. Up until the point that he got in the ring, Eric didn’t gonna jump through the crowd, and get in the ring and rip his head off. Todd says it’s a good thing he didn’t. Eric says it would have made a hell of a buyrate though. Todd says hope he doesn’t get his ass kicked against John Cena.

 

Eric addresses that issue for a moment. He says he has been in a lot of fights before, but this is different because the title is involved. He has the opportunity to be WWE champion. If you thought it was a shock when Eric showed up in WWE, imagine what shock it would be if Eric became WWE champion. It’s been ten years since the launch of WCW Nitro, and the Monday Night Wars and all that stuff. Can you feel the shock the world will feel when Eric becomes WWE champion? (Yep, me neither.) Eric thinks it will be great. Todd wishes him luck and maybe we will see him as new champion. Eric says that it is what it is, but he has a couple of friends. One of them is Kurt Angle, who Eric feels is the baddest man on the planet. So don’t sell it short. Don’t think what we’ve seen in the past is a preview of what we will see in two weeks. Part of him doesn’t want to be in this match, but if Vince is forcing him to be in the match, Eric is going to find a way to come out of the match on top.

 

 

Todd says that with all due respect to Triple H, Eric knows how to ‘play the game.’ Eric says he has been in the business for 20 years. Don’t you think he has learned from things he has seen, and from being involved in everything that he has been involved in?

 

Todd mentions Goldberg, and asks Eric to talk about the creation and what went wrong down the stretch. Eric says he doesn’t remember who it was that told him about Bill. Everybody takes credit for it. That’s the way the nature of the business is. Somebody told him about him, and Eric went up to a club in Atlanta where Bill was hanging out with his friends. He was impressed with him. He ended up with a development deal and went to the Power Plant. Eric thought he was ‘money in the bank’. He had potential, great intensity, a great look. He says what was interesting was that when they put him in dark matches and just watching people react to him. He says he was inexperienced but has charisma, so they wanted to put him on TV in a good and meaningful way. They didn’t want to wait till he became what they wanted him to become, but they could work around his lack of experience. Keep him in short matches, keep his intensity and make it killer. Eric would like to make people think it was a grand architectural plan that he had, but it was a quick scheme type plan. It was their desire to get him out there. He says he was limited, but it wasn’t his fault. He says he was different, that’s why people were attracted to him. As far as what went wrong, it was the same as what went right. It started off as a rocket that it became successful. That’s what went wrong. Bill did not have a firm grasp on the business. He didn’t quite understand the business. He was insecure and he was surrounded by people who pull him in a 100 different directions. He didn’t have experience or knowledge to make his own decisions. He was constantly confused and emotional, unsure about himself. Couple that with him having a big head led to disaster.

 

Todd mentions Eric writing a book, and brings up Ric Flair’s book where he didn’t have anything nice to say about Eric. What is his relationship with Flair? Do they talk? They are obviously not friends. Eric says it’s funny. They are friendly. They had drinks before and after the book came out. He mentions Ric barging into a room wanting to tear his head off. He says they have a weird relationship. He wouldn’t call it a love-hate relationship. As far as what they are today, he says Ric is a consummate professional. He knows in Ric’s mind that he has put the past behind. He knows Vince has. Eric doesn’t carry any baggage around from his past. He says if Ric wants to have a beer with him, he has no problem with that. But he feels that Ric still has some resentment toward him. He can’t go back and change that.

 

 

Todd asks him if he would be in favor of ‘WCW One Night Stand.’ Eric thinks it would be great for a number of reasons. First, if there was a big WCW invasion prior to such event happening. He says the first invasion wasn’t a success because a lot of wrestlers associated with WCW were not included naming Sting, Luger and himself. So it was just a group of people using the WCW logo and letters. He says though something like that happening is impossible. Goldberg was already in WWE and so was Scott Steiner and I think he said they both failed. The only person that hasn’t been in WWE is Sting and Eric doesn’t think he could carry a WCW reunion show by himself. He would like to see such a show happen, but he thinks it unlikely.

 

Eric Bischoff leaves the show.

 

Todd mentions that they had phone problems so we couldn’t hear him crystal clear, but we heard enough. That’s why they didn’t take any phone calls.

 

They show the ‘RAW is moving’ commercial.

 

They take calls for the rest of the show.

 

One caller said he hoped Edge would win the ladder match in two weeks because Matt Hardy would be a good addition to Smackdown. Todd was quick to point out that leaving RAW didn’t mean they would appear on Smackdown. He mentions last time Matt left WWE, he didn’t go anywhere. He was wrestling in Timbuktu. Todd says he could end up on Smackdown, but before that he could end up in Japan or end up at home “wrestling with his conscience”.

 

They end the show with the Smackdown Rebound.

 

Credit: PWInsider.com

[Vampiro69 0]

A Bischoff book would be interesting if it doesn't get revised by the WWE.

[SuperJerk 0]

It would almost need to be. You think the man's going to admit his mistakes?