This week’s episode of “83 Weeks” with Eric Bischoff and Conrad Thompson covers The Ultimate Warrior’s debut in WCW.
Bischoff talks about the early discussions to bring in Warrior in 1998, contract negotiations, why his appearance was not promoted ahead of time, his first WCW segment with Hollywood Hogan and much more.
Here are some highlights:
Eric Bischoff talked about his initial meeting with the Ultimate Warrior to come to WCW in 1998: “I listened for hours to Warrior and his views on wrestling and mostly his views on his character. He told me what he felt were potential opportunities outside of the wrestling ring with his character like comic books, animation, and merchandise. This was something from somebody who had a really big vision for himself. He believed in this Warrior character so much. He was so immersed in it. His fantasy world became his real world. It’s all he wanted to talk about. In the first meeting, we didn’t really talk about money at all. It was all about, what are the opportunities for Warrior and where can this Warrior character go after we would reestablish him on television and wrestling. I would say the meeting lasted two and a half to three hours and I would say 2 hours and 15 minutes of that was me looking at hundreds of pages of animation and designs and imagery and hearing what Jim wanted to accomplish. He wanted to extend the Warrior brand. He saw himself as a real-life hero for kids. He wanted to further extend the Warrior character beyond what was established in WWF. He wanted to do live-action animation as well as traditional animation. He saw himself having a great impact on kids. That was the one thing that was consistent with almost every conversation was ways to connect with that young audience. When I say young, I mean pre-teen audience. That’s how he saw the Warrior character. He saw the Warrior character as having a voice that could positively influence young kids.”
Bischoff discussed what he thought Warrior wanted long term in this deal: “Jim was looking at Turner Broadcasting much the way he should have looked at it which is a bigger, broader opportunity. He saw movies. He saw cartoons on the Cartoon Network. He saw all these things. As far as my feelings or impressions, yea, I was overwhelmed, but I really was impressed with Warrior’s passion. Misguided, yea, it may have been in some cases. Maybe unrealistic would be a better way of saying it. But, I couldn’t help but be impressed with his enthusiasm and his passion.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit 83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription
