Eric Bischoff thinks WWE should build a dedicated children’s show, put Danhausen at the front of it, and keep the main roster almost entirely out of the way.
The idea came up on the latest episode of 83 Weeks as a possible answer to a problem Bischoff had spent the previous segment describing, that higher ticket prices and the reduction in house shows have cut the connection that historically turned kids into lifelong fans. Bischoff got more enthusiastic as the conversation went.
“We know what we want. We want a kid that’s really a kid-centric show that’s really gonna fill the gap, right? Something that makes them feel special. So you create this show. I think the show has to be 100% targeted towards six to 12 year olds, or whatever the demo is. But that’s the range. I don’t care about any of this other stuff that’s going on. I don’t care how successful it is. I don’t want it anywhere near this stuff.”
He named the star.
“And yes, Danhausen front facing. Occasionally, can you bring in somebody that even the six to 12 year olds go, oh my gosh, he’s from Raw, or she’s from SmackDown? Yeah, you do that every once in a while, but here’s the mistake somebody will make: they’ll try to blend it too much. They’ll take the safe way out in their minds because oh, stars bring ratings, so we want mom and dad to watch too. That’ll be the bull**** excuse. What they’re really saying is, I’m kind of afraid that if we focus all on kids, we won’t make it because we don’t really know.”
Bischoff said he would accept that risk rather than hedge.
“It’s true, you don’t really know. This may not work. It’s all a f****** risk. You gotta make up your mind what you want to do and how much of a risk you’re willing to take. If again, I’m driving a train, I’m taking this risk. I actually, I don’t even think I have a choice. I have to take this risk. Just how much am I going to commit to it? But I would commit 100.”
He would also start over on staff.
“I want a different writing team. I want any of the existing writers. I don’t care how f****** good they are. It could be all little Steven Spielbergs. I don’t care. I want its own dedicated team, and I want them to think through the eyes of the demo. Think through the eyes of what they think an Eric Bischoff wants to hear, or a Triple H wants to hear, or Bruce Prichard wants to hear, or a Vince McMahon would have wanted to hear. No, I don’t want to hear that s***. Writers that’ll come to me and tell me what this product through the eyes of a six to 12 year old needs to be.”
His creative principle was that children watch upward.
“How do I make it aspirational for them? Kids skew up, right? A six year old wants to be a nine year old. Everybody skews up. So what do I need to do to get a six year old excited about this, and then how do I keep the nine year old excited about this? That’s what I would do.”
Bischoff argued a separate roster would also solve the economics of touring it.
“You’re talking about all new characters that you could actually afford to travel. It’d be their own kind of talent level. It’d be unique. You wouldn’t see them over on Raw or SmackDown. They don’t play there. They play for kids. So you’d have a different talent pool that you could probably manage, knowing that you were going to convert this to a live model. You could probably manage your expenses going in and build a talent fee structure that would support the business model, to then be able to take it on the road.”
On distribution, he said the show should go where that audience already is.
“Find a place, Rumble, for example, or whatever it is, or these other emerging kind of youth-centric social media platforms that really target the demo you want to target and get that show to them, because that’s how that audience is watching television. They’re not going to watch you on Netflix.”
Bischoff also admitted he would have been wrong about the Danhausen crossover that made the idea plausible in the first place.
“Something like that Danhausen thing comes up, and all the brain trust, everybody that knows the wrestling business, oh, that’ll never work. That’ll never work. And by the way, to a degree, I was one of them. I would have never imagined this. And if I was one of those people in the room whose career was dependent upon making right decisions, I would have said, no, don’t do that, and I would have been wrong.”
He said the story around it is worth more than people realize.
“It’s a phenomenal story. It’s a movie. Danhausen effect. There’s the title of the movie. I’m giving you everything. Get to work. It writes itself.”
