Athletes - Eric Bischoff

Home > Listing Index > Athletes > Eric Bischoff

	Athletes - Eric Bischoff

Eric Aaron Bischoff (born May 27, 1957 in Detroit, Michigan) is a professional wrestling promoter and personality, who served as president of World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and later as an on-screen General Manager for World Wrestling Entertainment.

Bischoff has the distinction of being the only American wrestling promoter to successfully overtake McMahon's promotion in popularity. From 1996 to 1998, Bischoff's WCW was the most-watched wrestling company in the world.

Before Wrestling

Bischoff was a wrestling fan growing up in the suburbs of Detroit. He relocated to Pittsburgh just before high school, which is where he began studying martial arts. Currently, he holds an 8th degree black belt in karate, as well as black belts in several other disciplines.

Bischoff moved to Minneapolis for his senior year of high school, and graduated from the University of Minnesota with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration and a minor in radio, TV and film. He has owned a successful construction company and worked as a veterinary assistant.

American Wrestling Association

Bischoff started his wrestling career in the late 1980s for the American Wrestling Association. His initial duties were to get coffee, run errands, and mow Verne Gagne's lawn; Bischoff eventually worked his way up to associate producer and announcer, and was given a chance to book the promotion shortly before it folded. As booker, Bischoff created the infamous Team Challenge Series storyline in 1990, which was poorly received and even credited by some as hastening the AWA's collapse.

In 1991, Bischoff joined WCW as an announcer, debuting at the 1991 Great American Bash.

World Championship Wrestling

As an announcer, Eric Bischoff reported to producer Tony Schiavone and WCW's Vice President of Broadcasting, Jim Ross. After WCW head-honcho Bill Watts was ousted by TBS executive Bill Shaw in 1993, Bischoff went to Shaw and WCW Vice President Bob Dhue to ask for the job of executive producer. Jim Ross and Tony Schiavone seemed to be the two top candidates, but Shaw and Dhue decided to go with Bischoff. Schiavone remained a producer until the company's demise, but Ross was fired by Bischoff and ended up in the World Wrestling Federation. In 1994, Bischoff became a Vice President, and cleared house within the WCW front office. He famously fired event manager Don Sandefeur, junior Vice President Jim Barnett, and his old boss Bob Dhue, all on the same day. In 1996, Bill Shaw was reassigned from WCW, leaving Eric with the title of Executive Vice President/General Manager, and by 1997, Bischoff was promoted to President/CEO of WCW.

Bischoff convinced Turner executives to better finance WCW in order to compete with the WWF. He used the money to sign big names such as Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and others. He also invested more money in production values and increased the number of WCW PPVs (first 7 a year, then 10, and then once a month). The plans paid off, and in 1995 WCW turned a profit for the first time.

Monday Nitro

During one WCW meeting, Ted Turner asked Bischoff how the company could possibly compete with the WWF. Bischoff told Turner to put WCW on prime time TV against the WWF's Monday Night Raw. At the time, the flagship show for WCW was WCW Saturday Night. Turner agreed, and gave Bischoff a 2 hour prime-time slot every Monday on TNT.

Bischoff used the new show, WCW Monday Nitro, to showcase the company as a fresh alternative to the WWF. While new episodes of Raw were taped weeks in advance, Nitro was live each week, with Bischoff brashly giving away Raw results to encourage viewers to switch over to the new show. Because WCW and TNT were both part of Turner, Bischoff was able to start Nitro several minutes earlier than Raw, as well as provide a late-night rebroadcast so Raw viewers could still see the show. Bischoff also signed wrestlers from around the world, including All Japan and New Japan, to fill the undercard with superb, action-packed matches.

The plan worked. Nitro beat Raw in their first head-to-head week and ran neck-and-neck with the WWF for the remainder of the year.

nWo

In 1996, Bischoff revealed that WWF superstar Scott Hall, better known to audiences as "Razor Ramon", was defecting from the WWF to join WCW. Hall would soon be joined in WCW by Kevin Nash, who was known best to wrestling fans as "Diesel" during his WWF tenure, in forming the New World Order (nWo). The duo were depicted as "outsiders" invading the company to start a "war" betweeen the two companies (though Bischoff was later forced to clarify that Hall and Nash did not represent the WWF).

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Eric Bischoff ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Eric Bischoff; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay