Eric Bischoff Discusses What Happened With Paul Heyman When Mike Awesome Joined WCW While Still ECW Champion

– During an episode of his 83 Weeks podcast earlier this month, Eric Bischoff recalled the strange sequence of events that led to Mike Awesome, then the ECW Champion, appearing on the infamous 4/10/2000 edition of Nitro (the Bischoff/Russo Nitro that was supposed to re-launch WCW and featured Billy Kidman beating Hulk Hogan) and eventually leading to Awesome dropping the ECW Title to Taz while under WCW contract. The situation remains one of the most unique in wrestling history, with Awesome — who had signed with WCW while still ECW champion — facing Taz, then a WWE talent, on an ECW show to lose the title. It had been part of a situation worked out between the companies after Heyman threatened legal action claiming that he had Awesome under contract. Highlights from the discussion are below:

On Paul Heyman saying Awesome had a contract with ECW: “He didn’t have a contract. First of all, Mike Awesome came to us. We didn’t go to Mike Awesome. Mike Awesome came to us like so many people did from ECW because he had issues of getting paid, and honesty and transparency surrounding that issue. And couldn’t take it anymore. Whether or not he had a verbal agreement with Paul, or Paul had signed the agreement but Mike Lawson hadn’t, there was a lot of back-and-forth over that. I wasn’t directly involved in it. That would have been a [WCW EVP] Nick Lambros kind of situation or whoever, maybe Diana Myers situation. I think Diana Myers at the time was taking over a lot of that stuff. So there was confusion as there often is with contractual issues. There’s no doubt about that. I did try to work with Paul to try and find a solution other than a legal one. So there was some confusion, there was some dialogue. I think it’s been blown way out of proportion. I think anybody that’s ever worked with Paul Heyman in ECW is going to be really honest with you. They’ve all had those types of problems in the past. The check was always in the mail, the contract was always gonna be sent next week. But there wasn’t a contract. We didn’t go to Mike, Mike came to us.”

On whether Awesome being ECW Champion was a particular appeal to him: “Obviously it wasn’t a big deal to me or I’d have a clearer recollection of it. I feel comfortable saying it really didn’t matter to me. I remember having the conversation with Bret Hart about not needing the [WWE Championship] belt. And I felt pretty much the same way here. And the other thing that was more germane to the issue is that we had already gone through a ton of litigation with WWF regarding belts and trademarks and likenesses and things being confusingly similar, and all kinds of Harvard MBA legal kind of s**t. So we didn’t need it. And even if we felt we wanted it, we would have been hammered by legal. So it was just never anything more than a passing thought at best, or something that was said in jest. Because we knew it was never going to happen. Even if we wanted it to happen, Turner legal would have been just up our a** with a flamethrower. It just wasn’t that important.”

On the reported compromise that WCW paid to get Awesome out of his contract in return for not bringing the title on TV and dropping the title: “No. I just know that it wasn’t true. So what Paul’s motivations were or what he did, I can’t speak to it. I don’t know. It wasn’t unlike Paul to pull that kind of stuff [leak false information]. There’s probably not a lot of people that I have more respect for in the business today than Paul Heyman in many respects. But at that time, if you go back and look at the way he was conducting business, across the board. And here’s one of the reasons I respect Paul, one of the smaller reasons. He was like a savant in the sense that he could not pay people, lie to their face, and they knew he was lying to their face, and they would still go to hell and back for him. He inspired loyalty, and it’s one of the things that made him so successful. It’s one of the things that made ECW successful. Because his own company personified him. It was a reflection of who he was. And just like he was able to convince people to go out there and perform and risk their lives and do crazy s**t to themselves — and oh, by the way, the checks in the mail. He would do whatever it took to get himself over, or get the company over, or save face as you put it. I think it’s all one in the same. But in terms of what his motivations were and who he talked to, I don’t know.”

On allowing Awesome to drop the title to Taz at an ECW show: “It was just something that we worked out with Paul. I didn’t really care, and I know that sounds strange to people, again it sounds like I’m taking a shot at ECW and I don’t mean it to sound this way. By this time they were on what eventually became the Paramount Network and previous to that was the Spike Network. And previous to that was The Nashville Network. But their footprint, the size of their audience was still relatively small. I didn’t feel like in the long run, it was really going to matter all that much. And it was just something that we worked out with Paul, so we could not be going back and forth and spending time with attorneys. There was a lot of time spent with Turner attorneys trying to figure this situation out. And quite honestly, I was tired of it. It didn’t have a long-term implication to me. It was weird as f**k, no doubt about it. It didn’t matter to me whether he lost to a WWE guy, or an ECW guy, or anybody. He was going there to perform, we were going to wrap this thing up with a bow on it and get out of this mess, and move on. And that’s kind of the way I looked at it, and none of it really mattered to me.”

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