WWE Hall of Famer and former WCW President Eric Bischoff took to an episode of his 83 Weeks podcast, where he talked about a number of topics including how pro wrestling shows need to be live instead of taped as it adds more value.
Bischoff said, “I think it definitely matters more now. I think it always mattered. But clearly, they just look at the values of WWE content because it’s live. It’s not sports, but it’s as close to sports as you’re going to get on television because sports are generally live and so is professional wrestling. And I think that moved to the live format consistently weekly because WWE had done Raw. They’d had one live show, one tape show, one live show, one tape show. So it wasn’t like we were the first Nitro was the first live show. We were just the first live show 52 weeks a year. And changing that paradigm and making that standard operating procedure. It’s one of the reasons why the values for and the values for WWE today are what they are. Had it not been for Nitro going live every week and then WWE in order to compete, going live every week until it became the standard? That’s what you do if you do professional wrestling and you want to be successful at it. It is one of the reasons why professional wrestling content today is worth what it’s worth. But even back then, 25 years ago, a quarter of a century ago, life still had. There is an urgency to it that a tape show just didn’t have. And it’s hard to explain. I think some of it is subconscious in the minds of the viewer. They’re there. They’re watching as if it’s really happening. It’s not that the show is necessarily any better creatively or in terms of the talent performance, but the connection that you’re making to the audience, however conscious or subconscious that may be when it’s live. Matters. I believed it back in 95 when we launched Nitro, which is why I wanted to do it live every week. Even though it was more expensive, it was a bigger investment to go live every week. It would have been cheaper to do what WWE was doing and go live tape or even just tape the shows. But I wanted it to have that energy conscious or otherwise subconscious of being a live show. It reinforced the message I was trying to send to the audience, which was that you have to be there. You don’t want to watch it after the fact. You want to be a part of the event as it’s happening. And it clearly worked.”
Bischoff also talked about WWE Hall of Famer Scott Hall.
Bischoff said, “I was going through social media a couple of days ago, and somebody sent me a photo of Curt Hennig and Scott Hall back in the AWA. He was cool back then. I think he came out of the shoot. Cool. I don’t know if there was ever a time in Scott Hall’s life where he wasn’t kind of and it was not like he was always trying to be. He just was. He just had such an instinct and look in the way he carried himself. And it’s really unfortunate. Obviously, it’s unfortunate. Cost him his life. But the demons that got ahold of Scott as we’re watching him here and prior, I mean, this wasn’t new. The situation that Scott was in here was something that had been building up and developing for a long, long time. Wow. And here we’re making fun of it. Had that not been the case, had Scott not had the demons, he had not even gone into why he had them because I understand it. People didn’t know Scott’s story and his history and some of the things that happened in Scott’s life before professional wrestling know what I’m talking about. But had that not happened? Scott Hall was not only cool as shit. Not only did he have an amazing instinct. Beyond his knowledge, he had an instinct. It understood what worked and how to create that emotion and how to get over it. And it’s timing. Everything about Scott was almost perfect when he was in his right mind. But his creative instincts and what he could do and could have done what he did for Sting. Steve Borden with the Crowe character Scott Hall. That wasn’t Eric Bischoff; that wasn’t Steve Borden. That wasn’t Kevin Sullivan. That wasn’t anybody. It was Scott Hall who created that character. And he did it effortlessly. He had a major influence on the product that we’re seeing today, whether it’s a WWE or anywhere else, because he was one of a kind. One of a kind that can not only do it, but he could teach it and inspire others and get people over whether he was involved in the ring with them or not. He was. He was a magic, magic guy.”
You can check out Bischoff’s complete podcast in the video below.
