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 when he first met Steven Regal.
Bischoff said, “Probably had to be in ’92, ’93, I think. It was during the — Bull Watts brought him in. So it was during the Bill Watts era, which was a relatively short era. Yeah, I believe it was Bill Watts who brought him in, and that was the first time I remembered what I do remember, whatever that time period was, Jim Ross was really, really excited about Steven Regal.”
On how WCW brought in talent during the Bill Watts era:
“I remember in WCW specifically, in the booker’s room, where we had a group called the booking committee come together. And there would always be three, four, five stacks, foot and a half to two feet high of people who sent in VHS tapes, 8X10s. That week, that week. Because the agents at the time — Terry Taylor predominantly, Mike Graham, Greg Gagne a while. There were others in and out — would sit during their downtime. And they would just look at tapes, talk about these guys, some of them they knew or had heard of, a lot of them they never did. But that was the point of entry back then for any — certainly with WCW, we didn’t have any working arrangements with inddependent promoters or anything like that as WWE did with various promoters. Jim Cornette I’m sure, OVW and others. We didn’t have any of that really. Maybe some informal contacts, like Terry Taylor, because he was pretty well connected. But the primary way in was, ‘Send a tape. We’ll take a look.’”
On Regal joining WCW at the worst possible time:
“I’m trying to look at this from Steve’s point of view back in 1993. He came into a s**tstorm. WCW was at its lowest point probably until the very end, 2001. From a moral perspective, a performance perspective, WCW was ain the f**king toilet. They were just abysmal, with no hope even on the horizon. And from the office to the locker rooms and everything in between, it was — everybody hated [it]. Hell, at this point in time when Steven came in, I was looking for a way out of WCW before I got the nod as an executive producer once Bill Watts got fired. Up until that point Bill Watts got fired and I found out they were bringing in an executive producer, I was packing my s**t. I was on my way to LA. I was selling shows already at that time. Sold my first show to Fox network in 1993, and I’m looking at Lori going, ‘this place is f**king crazy.’ My contract was coming to an end. Everybody was so miserable, including me, who just a year and a half before was just kissing the ground every time I walked into CNN Center, I was so grateful for that job. Within 18 months or so, I was ready to pack my s**t.”
“So that’s when Steve came in. So the fact that he was — first of all, I can’t imagine how he made it on 75 grand a year. Now you have to pay double taxes and you’re living in a hotel. Even a cheap hotel, it gets really expensive to live in it. Buying your food out. I mean, it’s almost –I don’t know how to be honest. But on top of that, you stepped into WCW at the worst possible times.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
