Eric Aaron Bischoff (born May 27, 1955) is an American television producer, professional wrestling booker, promoter, and performer. Currently, he is the chief media officer for Real American Freestyle. He is best known for serving as Executive Producer and later Senior Vice President of World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and subsequently, the on-screen General Manager of WWE's Raw brand. Bischoff has also worked with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) where he served as Executive Producer of TNA iMPACT!. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2021.
With an amateur background in martial arts, Bischoff also sporadically performed as an in-ring competitor, becoming a one-time WCW Hardcore Champion, and headlining the 1998 Road Wild pay-per-view event, teaming with "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan against Diamond Dallas Page and Jay Leno. He wrote an autobiography titled Controversy Creates Cash, which was released in 2006 under WWE Books, and a second book, titled Grateful, which was released in 2022.
During the gradual demise of the AWA, the company was unable to meet payroll, and Bischoff auditioned for an announcer's position with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in 1990 but was not hired. During his audition, Bischoff was asked to do an on-camera interview to a broom, which Bischoff would later consider a huge embarrassment for himself.
In his autobiography Controversy Creates Cash, Bischoff mentions working in his office during his time in the AWA when he had heard a legitimate fight outside of his door. He said he had looked up just in time to see wrestler The Sheik's head come breaking through the wall. He said despite this, the Sheik continued the fight while a stunned Bischoff looked on.
In 1994, Bischoff was promoted from Executive Producer to Senior Vice President, putting him in charge of everything WCW. Dhue resigned, as did event manager Don Sandefeur and junior vice president Jim Barnett. Bischoff convinced Turner executives to better finance WCW in order to compete with the WWF. He moved WCW production to Disney-MGM Studios in Orlando, Florida. Hulk Hogan, who was filming a show called Thunder in Paradise at Disney-MGM Studios, was approached by Bischoff and Ric Flair and signed to a contract with WCW. He also invested money in production values and increased the number of WCW (first seven a year, then 10, and then once a month). He also started a weekly live program on TNT, WCW Monday Nitro, that went directly against WWF's flagship Monday Night Raw. Bischoff remained an announcer on Nitro, regularly spoiling Raw results (as the latter show was not always aired live) to boost ratings. This created what became known amongst fans as the Monday Night War, as both WCW and WWF fought for viewers and in the process kick-started a new level of mainstream popularity for pro wrestling. The changes paid off, and in 1995, WCW turned a profit for the first time in WCW's history. By 1997, Bischoff's official job title was President of World Championship Wrestling.
The nWo was depicted as a rival company engaging in a "hostile takeover" of WCW. Week to week, the angle grew more complex, with a mixture of main-eventers, mid-carders, executives, referees, managers, and announcers involved in various subplots related to the onscreen "WCW vs nWo" power-struggle. Led by the nWo storyline, WCW overtook the WWF as the number one wrestling promotion in America with Nitro defeating Raw in the Nielsen ratings by a wide margin for 83 consecutive weeks. During this era, Bischoff moved from his role as commentator and joined the nWo as a manager. His television character, dubbed "Eazy E" by Hall ("Sleazy E" by the WCW commentators), became a dictator and egomaniac as the nWo boss. In the summer of 1998, Bischoff hosted a Tonight Show like segment on WCW programming with Miss Elizabeth. Ted DiBiase has said in shoot interviews that Bischoff originally hired DiBiase to be the spokesperson and financial backer for the nWo, but when the nWo was getting to be a more prominent storyline, Bischoff replaced DiBiase as nWo spokesperson.
In late 1998 he feuded with Ric Flair. Bischoff defeated Flair at Starrcade and the next night lost to Flair on Nitro.
In early 1999, Bischoff promoted Kevin Nash to head booker. Despite Goldberg drawing at the box office and doing three shows in December and January that did nearly a $1 million gate, the decision was made to end Goldberg's undefeated streak and put the belt on Nash. On the January 4 Nitro, at the Georgia Dome, Nash dropped the title to Hogan in a match that became known as the Fingerpoke of Doom, and the nWo was rebranded. By March ratings began dropping, and WCW began experiencing an endless streak of ratings losses.
Throughout 1999, Bischoff reverted to focusing on aging WCW stars such as Hogan, Diamond Dallas Page, Randy Savage, Sting, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Nash, Ric Flair, and Sid Eudy. In an effort to improve ratings, WCW also began to focus heavily on several celebrities such as Master P., Chad Brock, Megadeth, Dennis Rodman, and Kiss. One of the last deals Bischoff structured was a deal with the members of the rock band Kiss to have their own wrestling character known as Dale Torborg.
By late 1999, WCW began losing around $5 million a month. Attendance, PPV buys and ratings were down significantly. On September 10, 1999, the decision was made to relieve Bischoff of power.
In April 2000, Bischoff returned as an on-air character alongside Russo to lead the heel faction The New Blood; Bischoff also worked on writing the shows with Russo during this time. He defeated Terry Funk for the WCW Hardcore Championship on June 6. Bischoff's last on-camera role in WCW was on the June 12, 2000 Nitro. He would exit WCW in July 2000 at Bash at the Beach, when Russo did a worked-shoot promo on Hulk Hogan.
However, the new head of Turner Broadcasting, Jamie Kellner then canceled all WCW programming due to losing money for several years from its television networks. WCW lost $60 million in 2000 alone. Kellner believed that wrestling did not fit the demographics of either TBS or TNT and would not be favorable enough to get the "right" advertisers to buy airtime (even though Thunder was the highest-rated show on TBS at the time). In the book NITRO: The Incredible Rise and Inevitable Collapse of Ted Turner's WCW by Guy Evans, it is said that a key condition in WCW's purchase deal with Fusient was that Fusient wanted control over time slots on the TNT and TBS networks, regardless of whether these slots would show WCW programming or not. This influenced Kellner's decision to ultimately cancel WCW programming. With no network on which to air its programming, WCW was of little value to Fusient, whose offer depended on being able to continue to air WCW programming on the Turner networks. Bischoff stated that "it made absolutely no sense for us to do the deal under those circumstances." With WCW programming canceled (and Viacom subsequently no longer objecting), WCW's key assets (tape library, trademarks, and selected contracts) were purchased by the WWF in March 2001 for a substantially lower price (approximately US$3.5 million) than what had been offered.
On the May 16, 2005 episode of Raw, Bischoff began a vendetta against an impending ECW revival, turning heel once again in the process. Bischoff later began a feud with John Cena (who was drafted to Raw in the 2005 WWE Draft Lottery), for Cena's refusal to "play politics" in regards to the Anti-ECW Crusade and citing disdain for Cena's rapping and "thug nature". Bischoff made wrestlers such as Chris Jericho, Christian and Kurt Angle try to take the WWE Championship away from Cena. Following several months of Raw and SmackDown! invasions, Bischoff lost to SmackDown! general manager Theodore Long at Survivor Series after The Boogeyman helped Long beat Bischoff.
On the December 5 episode of Raw, Bischoff was (kayfabe) "fired" as general manager, when Cena body slammed him and Vince McMahon tossed him into a garbage truck – following a "trial" where his history of unscrupulous actions were listed – and had him driven out of the arena. Bischoff then sat out the remainder of the year and spent the start of 2006 writing a book that would become Controversy Creates Cash. Bischoff was against writing a wrestling book initially, as he believes "most are bitter, self-serving revisionist history at best—and monuments to bullshit at their worst."Bischoff, E: "Controversy Creates Cash", page 3. World Wrestling Entertainment, 2006
A few days later John "Bradshaw" Layfield (JBL) conducted a four-part interview with Bischoff, further discussing his book on WWE.com. During the interview, Bischoff discussed various topics, such as his true feelings towards Lex Luger, his thoughts on ECW promoter Paul Heyman, his decision of giving Kevin Nash booking power, and his overall reaction to the Monday Night War. The book was released on October 17, 2006, and became a New York Times best seller.
Bischoff was chosen as the special guest referee for the D-Generation X (DX) versus Rated-RKO match at Cyber Sunday on November 5, with 60% of the vote. He then cheated DX out of the win, leaving Randy Orton and Edge the victors. The next night on Raw, Bischoff was reinstated as General Manager for one night only. During his time as the General Manager on Raw, he restarted matches if he did not like the outcome. He also got revenge on Maria Kanellis for her statement made in his trial the year before by making her face Umaga, forced John Cena to "take the night off," and banned DX from the building. He restarted the match between Jeff Hardy and Johnny Nitro for the WWE Intercontinental Championship after Hardy won by disqualification. Bischoff restarted that match as a No Disqualification match, and Nitro took advantage of that using Melina Perez to distract Hardy and striking him with the title belt. At the end of the show, DX interfered in the main event when Bischoff tried to help Edge and Randy Orton win the World Tag Team Championship from Ric Flair and Roddy Piper, and forced him to be humiliated by "Big Dick Johnson" as revenge for costing them their match the night before.
On March 5, 2007, Bischoff made a brief appearance on Raw in Phoenix, Arizona to give Vince McMahon his thoughts on the WrestleMania 23 match against Donald Trump. In August 2007, Bischoff's WWE contract expired. On December 10, 2007, Bischoff appeared on Raw for its 15th Anniversary Special, and was confronted by Chris Jericho, the man whom he fired on Raw on August 22, 2005.
Despite being a heel when dealing with the likes of Jeff Jarrett, Mick Foley and Abyss, Bischoff refereed his first TNA match at Against All Odds, favoring the face challenger Samoa Joe over the heel champion A.J. Styles in a match for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship. During the match, as part of the storyline, Bischoff punched out Styles' manager Ric Flair, after he interfered in the match, but the distraction led to Styles retaining his belt. On the March 15 episode of Impact!, Bischoff attempted to shave Foley bald as a punishment for trying to help Jarrett in a handicap match the previous week, but was shaved bald himself, when Foley turned the tables on him. At Lockdown, Bischoff turned face by helping Team Hogan defeat Team Flair in the Lethal Lockdown match. The next months Bischoff worked with Hogan, Jeff Jarrett and Samoa Joe against Sting and Kevin Nash, who claimed that they knew that Bischoff and Hogan were up to something. During this time, Abyss turned on Hogan and went on a rampage, which included attacking the TNA World Heavyweight Champion Rob Van Dam to the point that he was forced to vacate the title, all the while claiming that he was controlled by some entity, that was coming to TNA. After he manhandled TNA president Dixie Carter on the October 7 episode of Impact!, Bischoff presented Carter with the paperwork that would have Abyss fired after his match with Van Dam at Bound for Glory, which she then proceeded to sign.
At Bound for Glory, Bischoff turned heel with Hogan, as the two of them helped Jeff Hardy win the vacant TNA World Heavyweight Championship. Bischoff, Hogan and Hardy then aligned themselves with Abyss and Jarrett. On the following episode of Impact! it was revealed that Bischoff had tricked Carter and the paperwork she had signed a week earlier, were not to release Abyss, but to turn the company over to him and Hogan. Meanwhile, Bischoff's and Hogan's new stable, now known as Immortal, formed an alliance with Flair's Fortune stable. On the November 4 episode of Impact!, Bischoff took part in his first match in TNA, challenging the concussed Mr. Anderson to earn his shot at the TNA World Heavyweight Championship, only for Matt Morgan to take his spot and beat Bischoff to become the number one contender. Carter returned on the November 25 episode of TNA Reaction, informing Hogan and Bischoff that a judge had filed an injunction against the two on her behalf over not having signatory authority, indefinitely suspending Hogan from TNA. On January 31, 2011, at the tapings of the February 3 episode of Impact!, Fortune turned on Immortal, explaining that they were not going to let TNA suffer the same fate as WCW. Hogan, having won the court battle against Carter, returned to TNA on the March 3 episode of Impact!, declaring himself as the new owner of the promotion.
However, on the May 12 episode of the newly renamed Impact Wrestling, Immortal lost control of the program to Foley, who revealed himself as the Network consultant, and had been causing problems for Immortal ever since Bischoff and Hogan took over the company. However, this angle was aborted just three weeks later, when Foley left the promotion. Also in May, Bischoff declared war on the X Division, after the legitimate firing of Jay Lethal, and on the May 19 episode of Impact Wrestling, wrestled his second TNA match, when he teamed with Matt Hardy in a tag team match, where they defeated Generation Me (Jeremy and Max Buck). The storyline concluded on August 11, when the Network gave the division back to the original X Division wrestlers, after the success of Destination X, which saw Immortal's Abyss lose the X Division Championship to Brian Kendrick. On October 6, it was reported that Bischoff had signed a contract extension with TNA. On October 16 at Bound for Glory, after losing control of TNA back to Carter, Hogan turned on the rest of Immortal by saving Sting from a beatdown at the hands of its members. Sting had won the match when referee Jackson James, who had earlier in the event been revealed as Bischoff's real-life son Garett Bischoff, reluctantly called the ring bell for a submission, which led to Eric hitting his son with a steel chair following the match, starting a rivalry between the two. On April 15, 2012, at Lockdown, Eric and Garett captained opposing teams in the annual Lethal Lockdown match. Garett won the match for his team by pinning Eric, forcing his father out of TNA in the process.
In June 2019, WWE announced that Bischoff would be the executive director of SmackDown, and part of Bischoff's role is to act as an intermediary between WWE and Fox executives due to his background in the television industry, but he was replaced on October 15 by Bruce Prichard, and with immediate effect he had left WWE. Bryan Alvarez reported that he heard "zero good things" about Bischoff and that Bischoff did not know the product nor the wrestlers. According to Fox, Bischoff was released since "significant promises were made that we don't feel were upheld".
In March 2020, Bischoff reflected on his WWE departure, stating "I knew about six weeks in, eight weeks in, it just wasn't going to work out. ... I knew I wasn't fitting and it wasn't a secret. ... It just wasn't right. ... I had to fit in the system and I wasn't able to do it in the timeline it needed to be done". In June 2020, Bischoff further reflected on his departure by saying "it was on me" and backs his profession by blaming his failure to adapt to the new job for why his tenure was so short and described the problem as being more of a "chemistry issue" than anything else. Bischoff also pointed out that he had little creative control over SmackDown but was more of an overseer for Vince, who had the most say in WWE's creative direction at the time.
On April 6, 2021, he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. He also appeared on the December 27 episode of Raw, as the officiator for the renewal of The Miz and Maryse Mizanin's vows, and on the January 21, 2022 episode of SmackDown, during a backstage segment with Adam Pearce and Sonya Deville.
Bischoff appeared via a video on the November 26, 2024 episode of NXT to speak to Trick Williams and Ridge Holland. Bischoff appeared live in person on the December 4 episode of NXT, praising the brand and its potential and again talking with Trick Williams and Ridge Holland.
In early 2014, his online-gaming company announced a deal with actor Dan Aykroyd to launch a Blues Brothers online casino game in Europe. Later that year, MX Digital launched their games on Facebook, under the moniker "MX Casino". Slot-machine-style games playable upon launch as a Facebook app included "socialized" versions of Hulk Hogan's Hulkamania, as well as a similarly Facebook-friendly version of The Hoff. Also debuting in October of that year were a batch of new celebrity-themed games, this time starring the likes of Dennis Rodman, James Dean and Chuck Norris.
On May 5, 2011, Eric Bischoff announced that he was starting a brewing company in Cody, Wyoming. Their first beverage, called Buffalo Bill Cody Beer, featured the tag line "The Spirit of the Wild West".
On July 27, 2016, Bischoff premiered his first podcast show, Bischoff on Wrestling, on MLW Radio. After October 17, 2017, he quit the show due to being shortchanged on money. In April 2018, Bischoff returned to podcasting with 83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff alongside co-host, Conrad Thompson.
Bischoff helped launch Real American Freestyle on April 30, 2025, and currently serves as their chief media officer.
Bischoff is a longtime fan of Vermont-based jamband Phish and collects live recordings of their concerts.
Although critical of the time that they spent working together in WCW and TNA, Vince Russo said Bischoff has "contributed to in a tremendous way ... dating all the way back to his early days at the AWA". AEW promoter Tony Khan credits Bischoff with paving the way for his promotion, stating: "I wouldn't be here and there would not be an AEW without Bischoff and there would not be wrestling on TNT right now without him." WWE describes Bischoff as a "pioneer behind the scenes in sports-entertainment, as well as an incredibly entertaining performer in front of the camera", further stating that he achieved "success everywhere he went in the business".
Backstage roles, lawsuit and departure (2012–2014)
Sporadic WWE appearances (2016–present)
All Elite Wrestling (2020–2021)
Television production career
Video game production career
Personal life
Legacy
Filmography
Television
2021 Rhodes To The Top Himself 2024 Who Killed WCW? Himself 2024 Mr. McMahon Himself
Championships and accomplishments
Further reading
External links
|
|