Eric Bischoff On Why Lex Luger Didn’t Learn of 1997 World Title Win Until the Day of The Show

– Discussing the 100th Nitro on the latest 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff recalled Lex Luger’s WCW Title win over Hulk Hogan and Luger not knowing about it until the day of the show. On that episode, Luger won the title from Hogan only to lose it back five days later at Road Wild 1997. Despite the short title reign, it was a big moment for WCW loyalists in the war against the nWo, because it was the first time in a year that WCW had held the title.

Asked when he told Luger definitively that he would win the belt, Bischoff said, “Probably not for sure until the day of. And that’s not because we weren’t thinking ahead or because we didn’t trust Lex, or for any other reason than as a general rule because it was live and because we wanted to surprise the audience as best we could, most of that stuff we kept pretty close to the vest. Unless it was absolutely necessary to share it, we didn’t until the day of.”

He continued, “And this is, ‘Okay, when are we gonna go to Lex [and say] ‘Okay, Lex…” Go to him a week beforehand, because we wanted to make sure he was good with it? [chuckles] Pretty sure we could have told him like 20 minutes before the match that he was gonna go over, and he’d have been just fine. But no, we kept this stuff pretty close to the vest because we wanted to keep the element of surprise intact as best we could. Until you had people, you know, stooging stuff out to dirt sheet writers so they could stay in favor, but kind of used to that. Still exists to this day.”

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