There’s no denying that Eric Bischoff had a huge impact on the wrestling industry. In the 90s Bischoff turned WCW Nitro into a massive phenomenon, and with Bischoff in charge the show went to war with WWE’s Monday Night Raw. Eventually Bischoff lost the war, but he was a good sport about it, and he later joined WWE where he worked as the General Manager of Raw.
It’s been a long time since we’ve seen Eric Bischoff on WWE programming, but he recently caught up with Sean Waltman when he appeared on his 1,2,360 show, and Bischoff was asked if he thinks he belongs in the WWE Hall of Fame. The former General Manager responded with the following:
“This is hard to talk about for me. But I’ll do my best and keep it short, or try. I have two answers for that. Obviously it’s always great to be recognized by your peers, right? I would be lying if I said that wouldn’t be important to me. It wouldn’t be true. But I will say that I’m not sure I’m comfortable with it either. That’s because it’s my own personal belief, and this doesn’t have anything to do with me, this is just the way I feel about things. I am a peripheral character, and I’ve said this before. If the WWE decided to add an executive wing to the hall of fame for people on the business side of the business were recognized, then hell yeah! I think I should be there. In fact I think there should be a statue of me there, because I think in many respects I’m responsible, at least partially, for the success of what the WWE has become today…I think as an executive yeah, I’d love to be recognized for that. But to be in the same Hall of Fame with guys like Roddy Piper and Ric Flair and all the guys that are in there that spent years learning their craft inside the ring, I don’t feel like I’m in that neighborhood, bro. It feels a little weird to me.”
One of the things that made WCW so popular during the Monday Night Wars was the success of the NWO. The group put a different spin on what a wrestling faction could be and fans loved it.
Over on the WWE side, the members of DX were doing their best to push the envelope as well, and both factions have a special place in history.
Bischoff was asked about his thoughts on which faction was more influential, and he went with NWO over DX.
“NWO was new. It was fresh. It was an entirely different take on wrestling factions. There was the Four Horsemen. It’s not like it was the first time there was ever a faction. But it was the first time you ever had badass, cool heels. It was the first time that we saw so many of the antics and the things we saw the NWO do backstage. The NWO story took place in parts of the arena that nobody had ever seen on camera before. It broke ground in so many different ways that I think it paved the way and created a template almost for DX, and to this day I still see more NWO merchandise than I see DX merchandise. So from my point of view, because we got there first and because I think it still exists in the minds of so many people today, my perspective at least is that the NWO was the greatest faction of all time in the wrestling business, and therefore probably more influential in the long run.”
You can listen to the full episode below.
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