Arn Anderson On The Leadership Impact Eric Bischoff Had When He Took Over WCW

On the latest episode of The ARN Show, Arn Anderson talked about the impact that Eric Bischoff had on WCW in 1994 when he took over as President. You can check out some highlights below:

On WCW lacking leadership direction: “Well, everybody that came in that was the boss was either not qualified, or was trying to do something that was not plausible. I mean, Watts wanted to go all the way back to throwing a guy over the top rope was disqualification. I mean, that’s backtracking. When you come in and you’re edict to the WCW higher-ups is, ‘Hey, don’t pay me a salary, just pay me what I saved the company.’ Well that’s great if you’re going to do some cost-cutting measures that are things that were done improperly before. But when you’re gonna go right and take it away from the talent, what do you think that did to the attitude of guys?

“The one thing you could count on and the one thing you could be sure of which kept you going to work and working as hard as possible was no, matter what, every two weeks, getting paid. And now he wants to cut guy’s money? And ‘Take it or leave it’ was the attitude? Talent is the product, that’s what you’re selling. That’s what we all live off of is the talent. It’s not the production people, even though they have a part of it. It’s not the front office, they play a big part of it. But the product or the wrestlers. And when you tell a guy you’re gonna cut his money just because ‘That’s how I’m gonna get paid.’ When that gets out there, that was really bad. Cut out catering? ‘You guys are here from two to 11, but we’re gonna cut out catering. We’re gonna give you a box lunch.’ Ham sandwiches and a little bag of chips. You know, if you weren’t there and saw it, you wouldn’t believe it.”

On Eric Bischoff being the right guy for the right direction in WCW: “Yeah, and everybody chipped in. You know, one thing that needs to be said, and it’s just because it’s the truth. You had three guys: [Kevin] Nash, [Scott] Hall, who had established themselves up north. And they came down and brought the star power. Hogan, he was here. He had the star power, and the fact that he had never been a heel was a big selling point. And here’s the part that people forge but you need to make mention of: three guys who took over the company and laid waste to everybody else that was in the company. Now that’s picking your spots, and you have to be selective on how you do that so it’s plausible. But that means that every other talent sacrificed themself to get those guys hot, and to get them over. Because if you really think about it, why didn’t they just call a big meeting and go, ‘Listen, there’s just three of these guys. They’re trying to take over our company. For one night and one night only if we have to, let’s kill these guys.’ You know, that would have made sense. But for everybody chipping in and everybody selling, and getting hot backstage, the entire company got on board. And that’s why they got over like they did. Now they carried their end of it. You know, they held their end of it up, it’ll go down as one of the greatest angles in wrestling history. But still, you’ve gotta have a lot of guys sacrificing for that to work.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit The ARN Show with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.