Eric Bischoff Details How He Came Up With Storylines

On the latest episode of Wise Choices, Eric Bischoff talked about crafting storylines and more. You can check out some highlights below:

On first getting involved in creative: “There’s, I guess, different ways to do it. But here’s my story. As I’ve said so many times, when I first put my toe in the water on the creative side of the business, it really wasn’t until late 1995. Once, Turner handed me the opportunity to create a primetime television show that would compete directly head to head against WWF, at the time, and USA Network. Up until that point, I always delegated creativity because I didn’t have any confidence in myself. I had never done it. I’d never really been exposed to the process. I had been exposed to every other aspect of the business, from marketing to promotion to television production, syndication, sales, sponsorship development. All the other aspects of television and wrestling, I had had hands-on experience in at one level or another. But creative was the one area of the industry that I never ever got near. But when it was my job on the line, really, to create this project for Ted (Turner), I knew I had to get my hands dirty. I didn’t — I no longer had the luxury of delegating.

“It’s great to be a macromanager versus a micromanager when you’ve got great people around you, and everybody’s on the same page. Everybody knows the vision. That’s a wonderful thing. But we weren’t there. This was something I had to get in the trench and learn. And I learned on the job from day one. And in the process from that first day, when I, I guess, officially thrust myself into the midst of the creative process for at least the Nitro format; it was how it started. I started learning by trial and error. That started in 1995 and stuck with me till the time I left WCW. It stuck with me while I was in TNA, but by the time I got to TNA after I’d had that time off — oh, and by the way, it stuck with me while I was in WWE.”

On how he learned to craft a good storyline: “I thought about what I had learned. I started thinking about, ‘There’s got to be a formula. There has to be a way.’ Because I look back at all the things that I did that were successful. All the storylines, and there were few. Everybody gots, ‘Oh, you only had one good idea, the NWO.’ Not really true, but certainly didn’t have any stories that were as successful as the NWO. But there were some great stories in there as well. And I had a s**t ton of horrible examples of story.

“So in my mind, I kind of went through and thought about all the great ideas, good ideas, even the decent ideas that we had in WCW. Not just mine, but other people’s as well. And I started thinking about — I asked myself the question, ‘Why did those stories work? What made those stories successful? What are the elements? What are the common ingredients between the stories that worked, and what was lacking in the stories that didn’t work?’ And then I would study the stories that didn’t work. Just the ugly ones, the bombs, the most — the ones I don’t want to talk about. When Conrad says, ‘I’m gonna take you down a row, we’re gonna go for a ride down memory lane.’ Especially when I hear 1999, because it all was the s**ts. There wasn’t an example of a good story. Anything that with Conrad comes up with from 1999 is going to be on the list of things that I study to find out what was wrong with that story.”

On the ratings war and WCW Nitro beating WWE Raw 83 weeks: “You know, we talk about 83 weeks. What people forget it was well, that was 83 weeks in a row. The rest of the time we were neck and neck. Sometimes we would win, sometimes they would win. So we were highly competitive with WWE before we dominated them in 1995, all the way through early 1999. Very good point. And I’m glad you brought it up. Because if I brought up people to think I was putting myself over, but since you brought it up, I’m just talking about it, free pass!”

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