In the aftermath of the Monday Night War between WWE and WCW, many WCW stars moved to WWE after the company bought out WCW in 2001, including Eric Bischoff, whom Vince Russo wanted to bring into the fold when he briefly came back to WWE.
On “The List & Ya Boy” podcast, Russo said he was the one who suggested a storyline in which Vince McMahon would hire Eric Bischoff to WWE.
“I pitched that whole idea to Vince,” Russo said. “They weren’t thinking about bringing back Bischoff. They haven’t even butchered the WCW invasion angle yet. I personally don’t like Eric Bischoff, but it’s never personal with me. It’s what’s best for the show and I said to Vince, ‘you need to freaking hire Eric Bischoff. He’s a great freaking talent.’ I laid out an unbelievable story that included Vince, Bischoff and Shane [McMahon] that Vince bought hook, line and sinker. That was one of the things I laid out to the writers that day and you know, sure enough, I never went back there, but they did do the Eric Bischoff story. They just totally killed it.”
Bischoff would be the general manager for RAW when he was hired in 2002 and stayed with the company until 2007. Bischoff would then reappear in WWE last year through some of its WWE Network programming, including a recent appearance on the “Table for 3” show alongside Michael Hayes and Jim Cornette. He would induct Diamond Dallas Page into the 2017 WWE Hall of Fame.
“The List & Ya Boy” podcast is live on Fightful every Wednesday at 3 p.m. ET and is hosted by Fightful owner Jimmy Van and Fightful managing editor Sean Ross Sapp. Russo’s comments can be seen in the video above at around the 1:01:00 mark.
