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SPECIALIST - WWE 24/7's "Legends of Wrestling" Roundtable: "The Monday Night Wars," pt. 1 of 2
Sep 7, 2007 - 12:26:00 PM |
By Alfonso Castillo, PWTorch 24/7 Specialist
WWE 24/7's best feature, "The Legends of Wrestling" roundtable discussion returned this month to discuss the topic of the Monday Night Wars. The host, Jim Ross, introduced the panel for season two of the semi-regular series, Michael P.S. Hayes, Jerry "The King" Lawler, Mick Foley, and Eric Bischoff, who as Ross noted, would be on "the hot seat" for the next 90 minutes.
Ross began by talking about how the war "ignited the awareness" of pro wrestling in the mainstream. He mentioned WCW's 83-week winning streak, and added that WWE then went on to have a 110-week winning streak, "not that anyone was keeping score." Ross talked about how Bischoff set the competitive tone of the wars by having Lex Luger appear on the first edition of Nitro. Ross talked about how Bischoff rose from relative obscurity as a "candle in the wind" announcer. Hayes recalled an old WCW skit when Bischoff was a B-team announcer and interviewed the Freebirds during a recording session. A clip was shown.
Bischoff said a lot of people applied for the WCW VP job, and Hayes noted that WCW producer Keith Mitchell was very disappointed about being passed over, but Bischoff was the "golden boy." During the whole discussion (and really, for this entire season) Hayes had a real snarky tone with Bischoff, that Bischoff clearly didn't appreciate. Bischoff denied being the golden boy, and said he was as shocked as anyone when he got the job. Bischoff said that, with no disrespect intended to Jim Ross, WCW had "been through hell Bill Watts," and so it helped that Bischoff was not considered a wrestling guy and brought a different perspective.
Hayes interrupted and told Bischoff not to sugarcoat it: "The reason this all happened was because Bill Watts failed. He tried to take wrestling backwards." They talked about top-rope moves being banned, and the ringside mats being removed, as clips from the Watts-era WCW played. Foley chimed in that he believed Watts left because of "racial issues" - referring to Watts' racially insensitive comments in a Torch interview.
"I didn't think I would get the job. I was as surprised as anybody," Bischoff said. Foley recalled working for WCW at the time and also being surprised that Bischoff got the job, even after Dallas Page predicted it.
Ross asked Bischoff how he convinced Ted Turner to go live Monday nights head to head with Raw. Bischoff said he didn't have to convince Ted, and explained that he was meeting with him to discuss an international distribution deal when Turner asked, "What do we need to do to be competitive with WWE?" Bischoff said he was caught off guard, took a moment to get "shit together."
"The truth is they're in primetime. We have a Saturday night show. It's not a level playing field," Bischoff recalled saying, to which Turner replied, "Give Eric Monday nights on TNT." Bischoff said Turner's words "sucked the air out of the room."
Bischoff said he immediately got to work on creating a list of ways the new WCW show could be different than WWE, because he didn't think WCW could beat WWE at its own game. He said on the top of that list was doing to show live.
Clips aired of Nitro's debut at the Mall of the Americas, with Luger coming to ringside during the Sting vs. Ric Flair match, and later Luger challenging Hulk Hogan for the title.
Lawler asked Bischoff if he thought WCW could have reached the same levels of success if they chose Tuesday night rather than Monday night for its show. Bischoff said no - it had to be head to head. Bischoff said, despite McMahon's beliefs, he didn't think Turner was fueled by a personal vendetta against McMahon, but was rather just competitive by nature. Lawler noted that Turner had a special place in his heart for pro wrestling, and Bischoff agreed. Ross asked about the decision to air the first Nitro on a night when Raw was pre-empted by the U.S. Open, and Bischoff said it was deliberate.
In one of the more spirited exchanges of the discussion, Hayes pointedly asked Bischoff if he wanted to put WWE out of business, and Bischoff said he did not. Hayes said he thinks Bischoff did, which upset Bischoff and put him on the defensive. "I think you're wrong. I was there," Bischoff said. Hayes reiterated that he believed Bischoff's "ultimate goal" was "putting us out of business." Getting ultra-serious, Hayes said that the problem he had with that was that, by doing so, he would be "putting families out of work."
Bischoff said that, during the wars he may have said he wanted to put WWE out of business, but added that he used to say "stupid shit" like that all the time. He said his goal was not to put WWE out of business, but rather "to be number one… Whether WWE went out of business or not was irrelevant." Lawler chimed in and said he believed Bischoff, and also believed that Vince didn't want to put WCW out of business either. Hayes agreed, saying that if Vince wanted to do so, he would have gone "for the jugular."
Ross said, despite Bischoff's claims, there was malice behind some of his tactics, including giving away the results of taped Raws on Nitro. Bischoff said he would have done anything to "bury your show." Hayes said that the tactic backfired, and Bischoff disagreed even while acknowledging the story of Raw's ratings having gone up after he gave away that Foley won the title. He said what Bischoff wanted was to create controversy, and by giving away Raw's results, he thought it would drive viewers to Nitro to see what else he would do.
Bischoff said he believed Nitro was edgier than Raw, had better production and better talent. Lawler seemed to have a problem with that claim and asked Bischoff who he was talking about. Bischoff named the NWO, Hogan, Nash, Hall and Goldberg. Lawler said most of the guys he named were "ex-WWE talent." Bischoff said that in the cases of Nash and Hall, they were in WCW before they went to WWE.
They got to talking about the NWO and Hayes praised Bischoff for the invasion angle, which he called "genius."
They cut to Hall debuting on Nitro.
Ross asked Bischoff if he thought Hall, Nash, and Hogan were the reason for WCW's fortunes, and Bischoff noted that Hogan had already been with the company for two years before the NWO was formed. Hayes - again appearing very resentful - said that he recalled that era and was bitter that Bischoff gave him a $75,000 pay cut that drove Hayes out of the company. But he said he understood that Bischoff had a new vision for WCW that included tie-ins with Disney, as well as using names like Hogan, Bobby Heenan and Gene Okerlund. Bischoff said that WCW was "stacking talent," but said it didn't make much of an impact until WCW and WWE went head to head.
Bischoff noted that, despite the criticisms that he built WCW on stolen talent, Goldberg was a homegrown star, and Nash and Hall were bigger stars in WCW than they previously had been in WWE. Hayes said he agreed. Bischoff reiterated that, regardless of WCW's talent depth, nobody would have noticed if WCW was stuck on Saturday nights. "The war made it interesting," he said. Lawler interjected, "In war, there's going to be a winner and a loser." Hayes added that the real winners were the fans. Ross agreed, and called the time "a golden era" for wrestling, and Hayes said it would never be repeated. Bischoff said it felt like every Monday night was a SuperBowl.
Foley talked about how stale and outdated Raw looked at time compared to Nitro's cutting edge production, and how that drove McMahon to shake things up. Hayes said a lot of people don't realize how close WWE came to going out of business during the wars, and Ross added that a lot of talent had to take significant pay cuts in order for WWE to make pay roll. Ross said he remembers how bad it was because he had "the worst job you could have" at the time as head of talent. He said it was a job that would "shorten your life" and he talked about the regular one-on-one meetings he would have with McMahon at the time. He said McMahon realized that the way to compete with WCW was to create new stars. "We realized, God bless his soul, how many times can you repackage the British Bulldog?" Ross said.
The show went to a break.
Ross talked about how the wars forced WWE to go out and hire fresh talent - including some names that were not part of McMahon's vision for WWE. Ross included Foley and Austin on that list, and took the credit for bringing them in. Lawler mentioned that there were WWE stars at the time who refused to take a pay cut. Hayes sarcastically asked Lawler who he was talking about, and Lawler said Bret Hart. Ross conceded that WWE had a hard time honoring Bret's big contract at the time and so they made it easier for Bret to leave. Hayes clarified that Bret was going to leave WWE, but then decided to stay, and left everybody guessing for a while what he was going to do until finally announcing his intentions at a show where he showed up "late as usual." Ross confirmed the story, but added, "I love him to death and I wish we had 20 more just like him right now, quite frankly."
Lawler again brought up WCW signing away Heenan and Okerlund and Ross said WWE couldn't afford both of them at the time. Bischoff clarified that their signings were years before the wars. Foley asked Bischoff if he thought, if there were no Monday night wars, would WWE stars be getting big, guaranteed contracts today, and Bischoff said they probably would not. Foley gave his own situation as an example, and said that when he joined WWE in 1996 he was told he was being "given an opportunity" and so he would only make a guaranteed $1,500 for working ten dates. He said shortly afterward Marc Mero came in with a guaranteed six-figure contract. Hayes shot back, "Who's Marc Mero?"
Sensing that all the rest of the panel was really piling on Bischoff, Foley came to his defense and said that Bischoff should not be cast as the bad guy because he was only doing what he had to do at the time. Ross conceded that the pro wrestling industry was in a slump at the time - that it was not trendy, and was using rehashed stars. Foley recalled McMahon calling in everyone on the roster for a big meeting that would go on to be a "turning point" for the business.
"Vince admitted that maybe he had dropped the ball - That maybe he wasn't on the cutting edge anymore," Foley recalled. He said that Vince announced then that they would be creating characters that were "closer to the people portraying them." He said that led to acts like "Stone Cold" Steve Austin and the Nation of Domination. He said fans stopped seeing "dentists and Royal Canadian Mounties." They showed clips of Isaac Yankem, the Quebeccers, Mantaur and Max Moon.
Bischoff said, "Call it whatever you want," what WWE did was start copying WCW. He talked about how HHH started wearing a leather jacket and jeans like the NWO and said it was "exactly" what WCW was doing. "A lot of things that were part of the Attitude formula were either directly or indirectly derivative of the NWO," Bischoff said.
Saying that he and Bischoff are "buddies now," Hayes praised him for the original black and white NWO interviews. He called them, "a work of art." Bischoff said that was "more accident than design," and that the quick-cut editing of the commercials was just a product of the shooting sessions being a clustermess because of all the personalities involved. "We just couldn't get these guys to work together," Bischoff said.
They aired one of the original New World Order commercials with Hogan, Hall and Nash.
Foley said he remembers watching Nitro at that time and thinking that WCW "had the hot hand." Foley and Hayes both raved about how great the NWO was. However, Foley said he thought Raw was better than Nitro for a lot of WCW's winning streak, but the ratings didn't reflect it.
Ross added that he felt that part of the reason of Nitro's success was the exciting cruiserweight stars like Eddie Guerrero and Chris Jericho. Ross said he has never subscribed to the theory that wrestlers have to be "6-foot'2 or more and weigh 250 pounds… I think that's just jackass dumb." Ross talked about how wrestlers should be measured by their heart and athletic ability. He said the cruiserweights allowed WCW to put on strong undercard matches that captivated fans, provided athleticism and action and built toward the NWO. Bischoff took it a step further, saying about the NWO that "with the exception of Scott, they couldn't work." Foley talked about the contrast between WWE and WCW at the time - where WCW pay-per-views offered good undercards, but bad main events, and WWE offered good main events, but lackluster undercards.
Hayes asked Bischoff if he regretted not reigning in his main event workers more than he did. Hayes added that "quite frankly" WCW had WWE "beat" if he were to have done that. Bischoff said that there was no doubt that his pay-per-view main events "didn't deliver," but said that the fans were satisfied nonetheless. He repeated that Nash and Hogan couldn't work, and that "Scott (Hall) could when he wanted to - two percent of the time." But he said fans were still staying tuned because of the attitude of the performers.
Hayes said the problem was that there was no pay off to their programs in terms of good matches, and he said he believed that was because "everyone had creative control" in their contracts. Bischoff responded, "Bullshit" and said that only Hogan, and maybe Bret Hart, had creative control. Nonetheless, Bischoff admitted that he listened to the input of wrestlers. "If I made a mistake and didn't deliver… It wasn't because we didn't care," Bischoff said. He said that, in hid mind, Nitro was there to build to pay-per-views, and that he thought of each Nitro as a chapter in a book where a pay-per-view offered the big finish.
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