Eric Bischoff Reveals How Roddy Piper’s WCW Deal Came Together

On the latest episode of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff explained how he brought Roddy Piper into WCW in 1996. Bischoff said the deal came together through Mitch Ackerman, a Disney production executive and wrestling fan who was friends with Piper, after Barry Bloom introduced the two. He also said the plan from the start was to put Piper with Hulk Hogan. You can check out his comments below:

On how Roddy Piper’s Deal Came Together:

“Well, the deal came together through a guy who was a friend at the time by the name of Mitch Ackerman. Mitch was a vice president of production at Disney in Los Angeles, but a huge wrestling fan. Loved wrestling. I met Mitch through Barry Bloom; they were friends. The first time I met Mitch in his office in Los Angeles on the Disney lot, I walked in. He had a big, beautiful office. He was kind of a big deal at Disney at the time, and all I saw was wrestling memorabilia everywhere behind his desk. He didn’t do it for me. It was like when I met Gene Simmons at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Gene actually went in two hours early and had all of his Kiss merchandise sitting at the table where we were going to meet, up on the walls. He did a pretty good job of displaying his merch inside of the Beverly Hills Hotel. It was kind of fun.

“Mitch didn’t have quite that extensive of a collection of wrestling memorabilia and action figures and such. But Mitch was a huge fan, and Mitch was friends with Roddy. So it was really Barry Bloom and Mitch Ackerman that kind of put that deal together. I would say more Mitch than Barry. Barry introduced me to Mitch, but Mitch was the one that had the relationship. In fact, I remember now, my first real meeting face to face with Roddy was at Mitch’s house in Beverly Hills, and it went great. Roddy and I got along immediately. I don’t know why, but we did.”

On Where Roddy Piper Fit On the Card:

“I mean, that was it. We were going to leverage the previous relationship, the previous story, the backstory between the two. That was what I was most excited about right off the bat, and I wasn’t really thinking about where Roddy was going to be positioned on the card in terms of hierarchy. We knew, okay, it’s Hogan and Piper. We just weren’t sure yet how we were going to get there.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit 83 Weeks with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.