Wrestling Without Bischoff
 

Was just thinking about how, without Eric Bischoff, WCW probably never would have signed Hogan nor 90% of the big name talent they did when they did, the nWo never would have happened, WCW likely would never have threatened the WWF and the Attitude Era would never have taken place.

So really, we have Eric Bischoff to thank for the last twenty years of wrestling. But what would wrestling have been without Eric Biscoff? Am I off base?

Discuss.

Dunno, people say wrestling would still be in the territory system if it wasn't for Vince but really other companies were trying to nationalise before/at the same time but with limited success, so i think somebody else would have seen the potential in signing Hogan and kickstarting Nitro even if Bischoff wasn't around.

No, you make a good point. Without Hogan having somewhere else to go, WWF would never have been forced to make new mega stars. The Era of Hulk Hogan would have just continues on and on like The Era of John Cena. Until they realized "Hmmm... we should probably make some new names for the future", but only half-heartedly enacted it because they still had Hogan around.

Even without Bischoff, WCW still had Turners money though, the alternative was still there for Hogan he just wouldn't have had Eric offering him the keys to the kingdom and i suppose the nWo.

I want this thread to be about how GOD FUCKING AWFUL Garrett Bischoff is.

hes not been on tv fir 2 weeks..hopefully it stays that way

yeah maby paul hyman could have done something with wcw, it could have been ecw with money.

I agree with Xero. WCW had been floundering under a number of booking committees and head honchos prior to Bischoff. They weren't able to find stable footing, and probably wouldn't have had they continued the merry-go-round of "leaders". Bischoff was able to come in and had the charisma and chutzpah to make some quick decisions that gained him confidence with Turner brass. I don't see this happening with Heyman because he was too caustic, nor anyone else present at the time to be honest.

I think Turner was a bigger influence considering he was willing to pay almost anything but to his credit Bischoff was smart enough to go after the real money and interest making stars from WWF (and later ECW).

Hogan's real impact doesn't occur until 2 years later with the nWo. Wasn't that long after appearing on WCW that people got tired of him until he evolved into the Hollywood Hogan character. Also it seemed like Vince cared or hated more about Macho leaving than Hogan at the time.

Well there's no telling what would have happened with WCW as far as the nWo angle is concerned. If you watch the rise and fall DVD, Mike Graham mentions that he and others attempted to get Hogan into WCW prior to Bischoff being in charge, but the money wasn't right. I think at some point Hogan would have showed up anyway, but there's no way to know how the whole nWo thing would have played out. It may have happened anyway as well because Hogan was also trying to do something that hadn't been done yet, he just had Bischoff giving him ideas. I would say that the Monday Night Wars might not have ever happened because it seemed that Bischoff was the main person behind getting the competition going and trying to put the hurt on the WWF.

I absolutely think the Attitude era still would have happened. Some of those Russo interviews shed some light on how it happened in the first place, if they're true. Russo and his backers believed that they needed to do something drastic because too many fans were becoming aware of the backstage politics and such. He seemed to indicate that the attitude transformation had nothing to do with WCW and its popularity at the time. It almost makes sense though because that era really didn't kick into high gear until '98 or so. The nWo had been around for nearly two years already and was getting stale fast.

Shut the fuck up with that shit. You have a thread for this garbage.

Bischoff was a genius, it is pretty much as simple as that. Without him, wrestling would not have had that big boom period.

That period wouldn't have happened without a bunch of other people as well.

He took an idea from Japan and threw money at everyone, not what id class as a genius.

If we are to give Bischoff credit for this, then it wouldn't be fair to leave Russo out, since Russo's 1998 WWF material helped bury Eric, even more so the (sabotage) material when Russo jumped ship to WCW. Without Bischoff, wrestling may have turned out better or may have been worse, but he did have a monstrous part to play in the way it turned out. As far as if his idea that breathed life into wrestling was genius, only a spurt, in the longrun the idea grew very lame and lacking.

It's also possible that WCW may have continued stumbling down the path of revolving doors of "the guy in charge" until the very end, or came across someone (theoretically) better than Bischoff. The landscape would have been different, for sure, but who's to say it would have been less successful? Maybe some future successor would have torched the place and run with Turner's money, or maybe they would be the ones ultimately buying WWF from Vince due to the ideas of whoever ended up running the company. There may not have been a Nitro or a Monday Night War or even nWo, but maybe some other innovation that caught on and worked.

ECW could have went mainstream to be take WCW's spot, a helluva long shot, but they were the runner up after WCW. If they did go mainstream in place of WCW, they would have needed better matches, more wrestlers, and lots and lots more money to afford better than a fucking bingo hall. All in all, Heyman knows how to push talent, even if the talent is a very very shitty wrestler. If he only had more wrestling wrestlers, ECW may not have died as soon as it did.

With all due respect to the intended nature of this thread, I kinda want to talk about this too. The kid is fucking TERRIBLE. Are there any Garrett Bischoff fans here? Like, one at all? He literally makes me angry when I watch him.

Now watch when he turns heel, he'll become my favorite wrestler of all time, but until then, FUCK HIM. :foc:

If he does turn heel, I hope doesn't get as rediculous as David Flair's.
http://www.obsessedwithwrestling.com...idflair/02.jpg

You do realize that David Flair's heel run that you're referring to was the only time he was ever entertaining, right?

Exactly!

It was also a very horrible storyline too, despite this.

I guess we have different connotations for "rediculous" (sic) then.

Eh, it was just a bad time for WCW, and I was really hooked on WWF at the time, so maybe it just made it look worse than it really was.

I have it on good authority that Garrett Bischoff got his tattoos at the toilet store.

Must be some bad shit!

oh how is pipers kid doing in mma is he any good or is he a waste like dave and garrett

Like Whitey said, some other hotshot exec would prol have had the same big ideas and poor excecution.

Not to write off everything Bish did, of course.

Now if this thread was about being without Vince... wrestling may have been mainstream dead.

Gotta agree, as much as I don't really care for Bischoff. The Hogan heel turn was one of the defining (or at least highly memorable) moments in professional wrestling to this day.

crazy david flair was awesome, and to his credit the guy could really bump

His crazy part was better than the time the heel david was shaving his dad's hair off.