Eric Bischoff says he cannot foresee any scenario that would bring him back into the wrestling business, and that nobody will ever repeat what the nWo did.
Speaking on the latest episode of 83 Weeks as the conversation turned to the 30th anniversary of the nWo and the merchandise still selling off the back of it, Bischoff addressed his own position directly.
“Look, I’m very happy with my life away from sports entertainment. I could not foresee any scenario that would bring me back into it. Not because I don’t love it, appreciate it, respect it for what it’s provided to me and my family, but because there’s a certain point where you just have to move on and embrace new challenges.”
He said the recognition itself does not motivate him.
“So I don’t think about sports entertainment in the sense of really what I’ve even accomplished in the past and fighting for respect or anything like that or acknowledgement. My ego isn’t tied to it at all, not even a little bit. I recognize certain things that I think are important, and I’m proud of.”
Bischoff said the run carried different weight for each of the principals, and that it meant the most to Hulk Hogan.
“I know if Hulk was here, it would mean so much to him because the character, and the value that he could bring to that character, that’s who he was, that’s what drove him. That’s what got him out of bed every morning. And he did sometimes say it was unhealthy. It was too much. You can pick it apart all you want, but he was so committed to that character, and then to make the change, and take the leap, and go to the dark side. That made his appreciation for the nWo even more significant than it probably did for Kevin or Scott.”
The change he refers to is the Bash at the Beach turn in July 1996, when Hogan came out as the third man alongside Scott Hall and Kevin Nash after more than a decade as the most recognizable good guy in the business.
“For them it was different reasons because they left kind of underappreciated WWE and they came and just made the statement they wanted to make immediately after showing up. There was no 12-month story arc that got them there. They walked in, took s*** over, and made history within 30 days. So nWo, I’m sure, meant a lot to Scott and does to Kevin for that very reason, and Sean Waltman as well.”
Waltman followed them to WCW later that year and worked as Syxx.
Bischoff said elsewhere on the episode that the conditions that produced the angle cannot be recreated.
“Nobody’s ever going to achieve what the nWo achieved. Nobody. I don’t care who you are, how good you are. You’ll never come close to doing what we did with the nWo in the television wrestling business. Because those conditions no longer exist.”
For himself, he framed his role as luck as much as design.
“For me to know that there’s product out there that will, the result of an idea, it was a moment in time where all the other critical moments had lined up in a perfect genetic sequence to allow magic to happen. That I’m not so much proud of it because a lot of it was out of my control, those moments, but I’m so grateful to have been a part of it because it was magic.”
The conditions he means were specific to the period. WCW and WWE were competing head-to-head on Monday nights, WCW was owned by Turner Broadcasting and could outspend its rival, and the two companies were separate businesses rather than one dominant promotion and its smaller competitors. The run that followed gave Bischoff’s podcast its name, after the 83 consecutive weeks Nitro beat Raw in the ratings.
Bischoff has been out of a full-time role for some time. He was WWE’s Executive Director of SmackDown for a few months in 2019, was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2021, and has spent the years since on the podcast and the convention circuit rather than in a company.
He remains an active voice on current wrestling even so. He agreed with Conrad Thompson on a recent episode that Roman Reigns is the most overrated main eventer in WWE history, a position JBL has spent the last two weeks arguing against on Something To Wrestle.
Scott Hall and Kevin Nash first appeared on WCW Monday Nitro 30 years ago. Hall died in 2022. Hogan died in July 2025.
