Eric Bischoff Deserves to Be in the WWE Hall of Fame
By Peter Bahi
Eric Bischoff being a WWE Hall of Famer is long-overdue, and there should be no debate about it.
The introduction to Eric Bischoff’s podcast, Bischoff on Wrestling on the MLW Radio Network, says the following about the man:
"Here’s the former WCW President, WWE Raw General Manager, New York Times Best Selling Author, and one-half of Bischoff-Hervey Entertainment, Eric Bischoff."
If you talk about success in professional wrestling, and what requirement follows in order for someone to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, one most look at the longevity of the individual talent and how great he was for a long period.
This year, Teddy Long is going to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. While I don’t disagree with the decision to put him into the Hall of Fame, if you are going to consider Teddy Long a WWE Hall of Famer, who had a long career span in pro wrestling, with his most prominent role being a Manager for the NWA tag-team, Doom, and spending the rest of his professional wrestling career as a Referee and an on-air character for WWE Smackdown, then Eric Bischoff is a shoe-in for the WWE Hall of Fame, and the tally is not even close.
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For eighty-four consecutive weeks, WCW defeated the WWF in the ratings and almost causing the WWF [name later changed to WWE due to initials owned by the World Wildlife Fund] to close its doors. WhatCulture.com had a list of reasons why WCW defeated WWF for that stretch of a period, including No. 8 when Hulk Hogan turned ‘bad’ and helped form the nWo with other notable WWE Hall of Fame wrestlers, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash.
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Eric Bischoff used a WWE icon against the WWE by turning him ‘bad’ and hitting the reset button on the greatest professional wrestler of all time, Hulk Hogan. It was one of the many creative decisions Bischoff had come up with in order to compete with the WWE and defeat them for the period during the eighty-four-week span.
Let us also factor in relaunching the career of Sting by turning him into a Crow, which was a character made popular by the late-Brandon Lee. In this day and age when storylines are played out and buried within a two-week span, it was appreciative of both WWE Hall of Fame characters, Hulk Hogan and Sting to be part of a year-long feud between the nWo and Sting, who was portrayed as the WCW hero.
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You factor in ratings, you factor in recreating talented performers, you factor in storylines by creating the nWo, by allowing Diamond Dallas Page to be part of the WCW team and pinning him up as one of the heroes of WCW to continuously battle the nWo, and you factor in Goldberg, who recently made his return to the WWE and is facing Kevin Owens for the WWE Universal Championship on Sunday, March 5th at WWE Fastlane—and did I mention DDP is also a new inductee at this year’s WWE Hall of Fame?
The footprints to a Hall of Fame career are there. Eric Bischoff is all over this year’s class of WWE Hall of Famers. He has been instrumental in helping a lot of stars who once worked for him in WCW to become WWE Hall of Famers, which is validation alone for Eric to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame this year.
Some argue that the reason he is not a WWE Hall of Famer is because he was responsible of Alundra [Madussa] Blayze bringing the WWE Women’s Championship and throwing it in the trash on a live episode of WCW Monday Nitro. Did I mention Alundra Blayze is a WWE Hall of Famer?
He not only challenged Vince McMahon on a live pay per view at WCW Slamboree in 1998, and then hugged him on a live episode of Monday Night Raw in 2002, Bischoff has gone to great lengths to always do what is best for the company he has worked for, even if you include years at the AWA and even in his latter years of professional wrestling with TNA Impact Wrestling.
The WWE Hall of Fame, to have any meaning this year should rightfully induct Eric Bischoff and put him where he belongs among the all-time greats. Whether you like him or not, whenever he is on television or doing interviews, you always want to hear what he has to say — and only Hall of Famers have that sort of privilege.