Bischoff on Wrestling – Episode 58
Release Date: August 30, 2017
Recap By: Andrew Soucek, PWPodcasts.com Editor
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Show Rundown
The show opens with a commercial of Eric Bischoff hyping an upcoming boxing fight.
2:30 – Eric welcomes us to the show. His co-host Nick Hausman is doing well. They talk about the flooding in Houston and send their thoughts out to listeners in the area. They move on and plug the bonus version of the show, which features an in-depth rundown of Eric’s book Controversy Creates Cash.
They briefly touch on Ninja Star Wars, a toy that Eric and Sonny Onoo created years ago. He credits this silly concept with helping him land in the business through a spider web of choices.
8:45 – This Week in Bischoff History is introduced. The two start up a new segment for the show where they will talk about moments from Eric’s career that happened around this date in time. They’re going to cover Shane McMahon vs. Bischoff from SummerSlam 2003.
9:40 – News.
Bischoff and Nick talk about the Sexy Star/Rosemary incident. Eric says everything he has heard has made it seem like it was intentional. He says Sexy Star is neither Sexy nor a Star. She’s not even a professional wrestler because she took advantage of her opponent. He says she’s the first performer in the business to future endeavor herself.
Eric says nothing like that happened in WCW. He booked matches where he knew the competitors hated each other. But he knew they wouldn’t take it out on each other in the ring. “You just don’t freaking do that.” He thinks fans shouldn’t go near any promotion that books her, because they are then supporting that kind of behavior. “I don’t know why AAA paid this b***h.”
Vampiro comes up due to him apologizing to Rosemary. Bischoff said he was in WCW for “a cup of coffee” and was irrelevant. Bischoff also thinks anyone who agrees to wrestle Sexy Star is equally stupid. He also called her a “coward” and a “gutless piece of s**t.”
18:30 – McGregor vs. Mayweather. Bischoff didn’t see the fight. This upset Nick as he wanted to talk about it. Nick asks if it’s one of the great fight stories of all-time. Eric thinks it’s not even close. He thinks McGregor shouldn’t push his luck and fight in boxing again. If Bischoff was able to book this, he would have them fight in MMA. Mayweather would be pushed farther than anyone would have ever guessed. They then have a third fight, but the competitors don’t know whether it will be boxing or MMA be until they flip a coin right beforehand.
Was WWE trolling Enzo Amore by posting on social media that he paid $10,000 to see the fight? Eric doesn’t seem to think so.
Jon Jones then comes up for failing a drug test. Eric calls him a “dips**t.” “How profoundly stupid can you be?”
Will stories like this hurt the drawing power of UFC? Eric wonders why sponsors would spend money on UFC knowing that 30-40% of the fighters will be suspended after the fight for drug use. Fair point. He says he clearly did not have that gift while running WCW and trying to find sponsors.
Bischoff also thinks the fines in UFC are too lenient. For example, Brock was fined a couple hundred thousand dollars for his failure while he made millions off the fight. Why wouldn’t someone take that chance? Another good point.
31:10 – Asuka being stripped of the NXT Title. Was it the right move? Based on what Eric has read, it was presented in a way that made sense.
34:22 – The Cena and Roman Reigns segment on Raw. Nick says Roman looked visibly shaken. What kind of effect will that have on Roman? Eric doesn’t know, he didn’t see it. He read about it and thought it was interesting that they were doing something different. It catches the attention of the viewers.
39:00 – Back to Enzo. Nick said a stripper said Enzo had a big head. Eric wonders why they keep talking about the guy. Nick asks if guys like him should be on 205 Live. Eric says no. WWE has failed with the Cruiserweights because they haven’t defined what it is. There has to be a particular style and feel different from everything else on the show. Otherwise it’s just another match with lighter guys.
42:00 – Did Eric have any experience with Shelton Benjamin? He interacted with him a little bit. He thinks he’s a really nice guy and isn’t surprised that he’s back.
42:50 – Before they move on, Eric declares he doesn’t want to go into anymore dirt sheet bulls**t. No more stuff like that Enzo news piece anymore! The two argue back-and-forth about this for a bit.
47:45 – Shane McMahon vs. Eric Bischoff at SummerSlam.
Before they start, Nick asks if they should they have taken the mask off of Kane? “No.”
Did Eric break his nose in his match with Shane? No. He split his upper lip.
Does Eric ask wrestlers to “lay it in” when facing him? Yes. He does. (randomly, I can attest this is true. Eric came to a local indy show in my area and was booked to get pushed over by a wrestler named “The African Prince” ALI. Right before their segment, Bischoff told ALI to not go light on him and really give him a good shove. That’s exactly what happened.)
Nick runs down the story of the Shane/Eric match. Eric first picked up a fluke victory against Shane on TV. Eric interjects and jokingly said he “beat his a**.” Steve Austin tricks Eric into the SummerSlam match. In the storyline, Eric broke into the McMahon home and made out with Linda McMahon. Vince was there for the segment. What was his demeanor like? Eric doesn’t remember.
Eric said he saw Linda on TV recently next to Donald Trump. It was surreal for him, as he once made out with her on TV.
Did Shane or Stephanie ever say anything to Eric about the makeout skit? No. Everyone was professional about it.
During the actual match, did Eric think he could take him in a legit fight? No. Shane is “tough as hell.” Though maybe when he was 25 it may have been different.
Did Eric have a relationship with Howard Finkel? Not really. They’d chat backstage a bit. Fink always seemed to be in a great mood.
Was Eric more relaxed during this time as a performer? He was always relaxed performing. He never got nervous.
Who was the agent for the match? Eric doesn’t remember.
Was Eric a fan of all the “shenanigans” in the match? Decisions like that were made to cover the fact that Eric couldn’t wrestle an actual match. It had to be a gimmick match.
Did Vince ever feed Eric things to say about Jim Ross? No. That never happened.
Did he ever notice anything between Ross and Vince? No. Never.
On the way home after the match, Eric realized he was bleeding from the back of the head. He went to the hospital and got a few stitches.
Was Eric happy with the match? He was. Even though they had to cover for his lack of ability, he enjoyed the experience. It was an adrenaline rush when Shane dropped an elbow on him from the top of the turnbuckle. Eric is superstitious about rehearsing stuff, so he hadn’t ever experienced anything like that visually.
1:05:12 – Mailbag:
Is Eric a religious man? Does he believe in God?
He believes in God and is a spiritual man. He shuns the word “religion.”
Are valets/managers a dying breed?
Yes. Eric is fine with this. He thinks they’re useless unless they’re someone like Bobby Heenan, Jim Cornette, and Paul Heyman. He talked about cutting down on tag teams in WCW because you had to pay double the number of people. The same goes with managers.
Eric goes on a side rant about hating oranges put on his plate when he goes out to eat breakfast. Who the hell invented that and why? It’s a waste of space and food! He said managers are just like extra oranges on his plate.
Nick fought back on this a bit, but Eric said there just isn’t people out there to develop like Heyman.
What are Eric’s top three pearls of wisdom as to why someone should be an entrepreneur instead of working a 9-to-5?
Eric said it’s a personal choice. If they don’t like the structure then they should go with their heart. Believe in yourself. Read up on everything you can. Find mentors. However, there are a lot of benefits and rewards to a 9-to-5.
Can Eric think of any other form of entertainment that has as much of a lack of logic as wrestling?
Eric says “politics.”
Tony Schiavone said Vince McMahon won the Monday Night War because Eric used Ted Turner’s money and Vince used his own. Is that true?
“No.”
What are some of Eric’s favorite vignettes that he shot?
The only one he recalls are when he challenged Vince McMahon to a fight.
Was there a Kanyon/Saved By The Bell-esque project that almost was?
Surprisingly, yes! Eric met with Peter Engel about a potential project. It ended up falling through. (A lot more details on what the hell this was all about would have been nice! Kanyon and Saved by the Bell?!? That’s one of the most random things I’ve ever head. What was the show going to be about? One can only wonder.)
The subject switches to the movie Ready to Rumble. Nick is a huge fan of it. He wants to talk about it sometime with Eric. Eric said he wasn’t involved with it, so why would they?
They wrap up the show by telling listeners how they can help those affected by Hurricane Harvey. Check out LoveForHouston.com. All the proceeds go to charity.
Rating: 4.5/10
Eric is upfront about his poor memory and it’s one of the major things that held this episode back from being…memorable. So many of his answers are either “I don’t remember” or a simple “no” that it’s hard to feel like you’re really gaining much knowledge from listening.
Because of these memory issues, the This Week in Bischoff segment is horribly flawed. It’s basically a take off of shows like Something to Wrestle With, where they grab a storyline and run over all the noteworthy moments from it. However, we didn’t gain much insight because everything that is potentially intriguing (how did Vince McMahon act while Eric made out with his wife? Who was the agent of the match?) is often a “I don’t remember.”
The lack of follow-up questions is also maddening at points. Besides the stated “What was up with that Saved by the Bell project?”, reminding Eric about vignettes like the NWO or even Glacier would have been fun. Instead, they float on by.
It was also really disappointing that Eric hadn’t seen the Roman/Cena segment. I was very curious what his thoughts were on one of the most buzzworthy wrestling moments of the year. It seems the hosts should go over their subjects before the show, so they can find out what Eric has and hasn’t seen. It may take out some of the spontaneity, but it will remove the embarrassment/disappointment of not knowing much about a major happening in the business.
However, there were some interesting moments to be had. It’s always fun when Eric is honest in his assessment of someone, like calling Vampiro “irrelevant.” His take-down of Sexy Star, his views on the suspensions in UFC, and his analysis of WWE’s Cruiserweight division were interesting as well.
For more, check out our archives of Bischoff on Wrestling.
poor memory or just trying to ‘side step’ things? Eric’s good at side stepping a lot of things. And there’s ,plenty of people on indy groups you can develop into great managers. obviously Eric needs to leave Wyoming more often.