Eric Bischoff Comments On If WCW Should Have Used Dennis Rodman Differently
Eric Bischoff has explained why he doesn’t think WCW should have used Dennis Rodman differently during his many appearances in the company.
In the late mid-to-late 1990s, the pro wrestling business was very busy with the Monday Night Wars going on between WCW Monday Nitro and WWE Monday Night Raw. Both sides tried a lot of big things in those days, including bringing in celebrities from other realms nad trying to fit them into the shows.
While the New World Order led by Hulk Hogan was thriving, Basketball Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman frequently made WCW appearances. At the time, Rodamn was part of the Chicago Bulls franchise that included Michael Jordan & Scottie Pippen. The Bulls won three straight titles from 1996 to 1998 with Rodman playing a key role on the team.
Rodman even had three pay-per-view matches in WCW at Bash at the Beach 1997 (with Hogan against DDP & The Giant), Bash at the Beach 1998 (with Hogan vs. DDP & Karl Malone of the NBA) and Road Wild 1999 against Randy Savage. Rodman was also closely associated with the NWO and an official member in the group. In the NBA, Rodman had the reputation for being a great defensive player and rebounder, but also a bit of a rebel by how he behaved.
Eric Bischoff was a WCW Vice President and eventually the WCW President in that late 1990s era. Bischoff got to call the shots for a lot of things that WCW did, including the inclusion of a guy like Rodman.
On a recent episode of Bischoff’s 83 Weeks podcast, the WWE Hall of Famer took some shots at the Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer while adding that other people didn’t know how WCW was going to use a guy like Dennis Rodman. Bischoff responded this way when asked if would have changed anything about how they used Dennis Rodman in WCW.
“Absolutely not. Dave (Meltzer) has a tendency to project, it’s one of my biggest issues with him is his own personal take on things. Kind of overshadows any of the information and facts involved. Were we disappointed in the buyrate? Absolutely freaking not. I think what Dave tries historically what he’s trying to do is project the way he would look at a buy-rate and how he would react without any real understanding of how those of us in WCW that he didn’t know our expectations. “
“He had no idea what our strategy is going forward he had no idea how we valued or didn’t value things. He only looked at it from ‘oh they brought in Dennis Rodman at $750,000’, which, by the way, is wrong typically wrong.”
As he continued, Eric Bischoff spoke about the press and attention that WCW got from having Dennis Rodman was a huge value to the company.
“No, man I thought the way we used Dennis, I thought the press that we got out of Dennis, the awareness that was created for WCW and Nitro. Because of Dennis, I think I could have cared less what the buy-rate was to be honest it didn’t matter. It’s not like every time we put on a pay-per-view we were like we had a gun to our head and we had to do a certain revenue you know reach a certain revenue threshold wasn’t the case.”
“I wouldn’t have changed one thing with regard to how we used Dennis. It wasn’t $750,000 it was a million. It was worth three times that much to WCW as a brand. That’s the part that people that have never really been in the business can’t understand. It’s not that they’re not smart or they’re not intelligent or they’re not capable of learning things.”
“It’s just they’ve never been in that situation, so it’s not apparent to them how someone like Dennis Rodman could have such a powerful impact on Nitro and WCW as a brand regardless of whatever the buy-rate was. Buy-rates are not the end-all be-all.”